Clinton – artificial, Trump – genuine?

September 8, 2015

Sanders has now gone ahead of Clinton in one poll. Donald Trump maintains his lead.

The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton’s strategists will now ensure that she shows “more humour and heart” and I wondered if this was not one of the key differences of perception between Trump and Clinton (and all other “conventional” politicians). Clinton and other politicians have strategists and aides who analyse and create an artificial persona that their principal is then supposed to put on show. The perception then is that whatever they say or do is then in support of this artificial persona, which has been calculated as being the most likely to gain voter support. With Trump however the perception is that you get to see the real Trump – warts and all. Real beats artificial.

Add to this the perception that Trump needs no funding from sponsors – looking for their pound of flesh – and is beholden to no one. I begin to think that what is driving the support for Trump is the voter fatigue with conventional politicians who are calculatedly artificial and who are in hock to their donors. Trump’s convictions are perceived to be real while those of others are seen to be “bought” and artificial.

Nobody doubts, even when Trump displays his ignorance in some areas – especially of foreign affairs – that he can always surround himself with knowledgeable people. And nobody doubts either that if he picks the wrong people, he knows how to fire them. It is his real track record being pitted against the implied erudition of others.

I see also that Paul Krugman is generally scornful of the economic policies of all the GOP candidates and especially those of Bush. In his latest column he puts Trump as the best of a bad lot. But one look at Trump’s real billions render all Krugman’s jargon and all his (failed) theories utterly toothless. In one phrase, Krugman basically stands for increased public spending. In fact, in a battle for minds between Trump’s real billions and Krugman’s artificial theories, the real billions on the bottom line carry much more credibility. Krugman stands for debt while Trump stands for real wealth.

If a perception that being “real” is what trumps being “artificial” is the theme now driving US voters, then Trump is going to be around for a long time yet. Conventional, artificial politicians (GOP and Democrat) are going to have a tough time against people fed-up with being sold made-up story lines.

NYT:  ……. In extensive interviews by telephone and at their Brooklyn headquarters last week, Mrs. Clinton’s strategists acknowledged missteps — such as their slow response to questions about her email practices — and promised that this fall the public would see the sides of Mrs. Clinton that are often obscured by the noise and distractions of modern campaigning. 

They want to show her humor. The self-effacing kind (“The hair is real, the color isn’t,” she said of her blond bob recently, taking note of Mr. Trump) has played better than her sarcastic retorts, such as when she asked if wiping a computer server was done “with a cloth.” …

They want to show her heart, like the time she comforted former drug addicts in a school meeting room in New Hampshire.

But the widespread presumption of Hillary Clinton as being untrustworthy, cold, calculating and not very effective (Libya) is firmly ingrained. To now try and show her as being a warm, funny, “nice” but efficient person is not going to fly.

Perhaps the paradigm shift in the 2016 election will be that “real” trumps “artificial”.

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Good breeding, wrong result?

September 7, 2015

The success of any breeding program must, in the first instance, be measured by the numbers of descendants and whether the line continues or not. Any line of descent which ends with an individual, no matter how successful or useful a particular individual is (or was), is then a failed line of descent. In terms of survival of the breed, each of the 7 billion people alive today is equally successful. It is all those who leave no descendants who have – from a breeding perspective – failed.

Each living person has much the same number of preceding generations and preceding ancestors as the  next. From the beginning of modern humans (say 120,000 years ago) each person alive today is the product of around 6,000 generations. And so I am a little amused when some claim a “superiority of breeding” – or “good” breeding – just because they know the names of 10 or 50 or 83 individuals along one of their lines of descent. Even 83 out of 6,000 is fairly insignificant. From a breeding point of view the only point of significance is if a line continues.

There is even a claim in China that a direct descendant of Confucius was

K’ung Te-ch’eng (23 February 1920 – 28 October 2008) was a 77th generation descendant of Confucius in the main line of descent. He was the final person to be appointed Duke Yansheng and the first Sacrificial Official to Confucius –Wikipedia

But considering that Confucius’ genes would have been diluted by the order of at least 1/ 230  (one in a billion) in the following 77th generation, it is of little consequence genetically. But “Confucius’ family, the Kongs, have the longest recorded extant pedigree in the world today”. The father-to-son family tree, is now in its 83rd generation (2,600 years) and it does at least signify a successful and continuing line of descent. There are thought to be about 2 million descendants of Confucius alive today.

In comparison some of the British aristocracy can identify father-to-son family trees perhaps back to the 13th century but more usually from about the 15th or 16th centuries.

But knowing the names of some of ones ancestors – and even 83 out of 6,000 generations seems quite trivial – says very little about “good breeding”. Even the poorest, most miserable, most unintelligent person alive today has as long a pedigree as any British aristocrat or any of the descendants of Confucius. The key point, of course, is that a person knowing none of his ancestors – but alive today – has been just as successful in the breeding stakes as anybody else alive today. And that person’s breeding has been more successful than all the blue-blooded aristocrats whose lines of descent are now extinct.

And that is why I found this story in The Telegraph both trivial, interesting and amusing:

Rift at Longleat over ‘racism’ towards Britain’s first black marchioness

It is known as one of Britain’s most eccentric aristocratic estates, where elaborate murals of the Karma Sutra adorn the walls and the head of the family, the Marquess of Bath, cavorts with his mistresses, or “wifelets”.

Now family relations have become even more fraught at Longleat, the vast Elizabethan seat in Wiltshire, after the heir to the estate accused his mother of racism towards his half-Nigerian wife.

The rift between the marquess’s son and heir Ceawlin Thynn, Viscount Weymouth, and his mother, the marchioness, is so bad that she was not invited to his wedding, ……. 

The marchioness, who has spent more time at Longleat since the death of her long-term lover in France, is said to ignore her son’s wife when they cross paths in the grounds of the estate.

Emma McQuiston, who married Viscount Weymouth in 2013, is the daughter of a Nigerian father, oil tycoon Ladi Jadesimi, and British mother, Suzanna McQuiston. She will become Britain’s first black marchioness when her husband inherits the title from his father.

McQuiston has known the Bath family since she was a child, but when the couple announced their engagement, Viscount Weymouth, 41, claims his mother asked: “Are you sure about what you’re doing to 400 years of bloodline?”

The viscount told the Sunday Times that his 71-year-old mother has no contact with their baby son, John, because, “I don’t want him contaminated by that sort of atmosphere and those sort of views”. …….

I note that the Marchioness is Hungarian and that the current Marquess of Bath has had up to 70 “wifelets” living on the estate.

Good breeding, wrong result?

 

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Religions have no values – people do

September 5, 2015

I wish all organised religions were obsolete and I am hopeful that eventually they will be. I find it obscene that children are brainwashed into “religious beliefs” and that organised religions presume to impose their orthodoxies onto others. A belief cannot exist in the space of knowledge. All religions are merely “belief systems” which live in the space of ignorance and it irritates me that religions compete on the grounds of “my ignorance being superior to yours”. An individual can well have religious beliefs and I see nothing wrong with that. What I dislike is that a group imposes a “belief” – which is nothing but an ignorance – on an individual. That is my definition of brain-washing. “What I don’t know is better than what you don’t know”.

Values are created from an informed judgement by a thinking person. Is it good, is it bad? What is beautiful, or admirable, or ethical, or not, are all judgements made by individuals after a cognitive process. They do not come out of group-think. I would suggest that an individual’s value comes first and the values of a group can only be built up as a composite of the many different individual values in the group. A “group value” once created can be imposed on an individual as “a rule to be obeyed”, but that does not make it his value. A value requires a cognitive process, and as long we don’t have ESP the cognitive process is an individual property.

Values are – and can only be – those of individuals – not of religions. Religions kill infidels or unbelievers alike by exploiting those of their followers who give little value to human life. Religions make rules. These rules are not values. Values, as a cognitive property, are inherent in thinking individuals. Unthinking individuals follow a lazy path and adopt – or are coerced into adopting – religious rules to be their “values”. Or they accept the imposition of somebody else’s values because they are too lazy to think through their own. It is the same with governments. They make rules. These rules are not values.

I cannot see that there is any such thing as “Christian values” or “Muslim values”. I can see the values (or absence of values) exploited by the hierarchies of organised religions. Were Nazi values also Christian values as they claimed to be? Were they Christian values on display in Northern Ireland? or in Bosnia? Is anti-semitism a fundamental Christian value? Or were they Muslim values which led to all the predatory grooming of young girls in Rotherham? Or Muslim values which gives the barbarism of the IS? Catholics versus Protestants is not so different to Shia versus Sunni.

In the current displacement of Syrian and other refugees – from countries destabilised and bombed to ruins by the EU and the US in the name of democracy – there is much talk of “European values”. Without the destruction of Iraq and Libya and attempted nation building in Syria by the EU, there would be no IS and few Syrian refugees.  “European values” are being used to both argue for and against providing help to the refugees created to a large degree by US and European actions. These supposed ” European values” are used both by the left to prop up their moralising and by the nationalist right to paint alarmist pictures. The right likes to see the issue as an epic battle between “Christian values” and Muslim values”. It is also worth noting that in Europe today, it is Germany – not the UK – which is perceived by refugees as the land to seek sanctuary in. But there is no such well-defined thing as “European values”. Values across Europe are not homogeneous. They are a mishmash of values ranging from sanctimonious humanism at one end through to virulent xenophobia at the other.

I find that values are independent of religion but a supposed connection is hijacked by political parties to suit themselves. The nationalist right still believes they are on a Crusade. The IS does the same in their pursuit of jihad. But the reality is as the Hungarian Prime Minister puts into words. It is what is thought by virtually all right wing nationalist parties in Europe and their supporters (and that includes UK, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Greece among others).

IB Times:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that the growing Muslim influx is threatening Europe’s “Christian roots”. Defending Hungary’s response to the migrant crisis, Orban said his country did not want to admit large numbers of Muslims.

Writing an opinion piece in Germany’s Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung, the Hungarian prime minister said: “Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots. Or is it not already and in itself alarming that Europe’s Christian culture is barely in a position to uphold Europe’s own Christian values? …. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? There is no alternative, and we have no option but to defend our borders.”

The issue of the day – and for the next few years – in Europe is the inflow of foreigners (refugees, asylum seekers, guest workers, and other immigrants) in to countries where otherwise population would decline. (And therefore for the next decade it is going to be the issue of “immigration” which will dominate all European elections). The paradox I see is that Europe needs to get its population to stop declining. The “native European” birth rate is not going to increase and therefore immigration must increase. And at the same time so will the xenophobia – at least for another decade or two.

Neither governments or religions have – or can have – values. People do. And when it comes to Christians versus Muslims, I wish “a plague on both your houses”. When organised religions finally do become obsolete, it will not eliminate the murderous inclinations of many humans. But it will remove one excuse used to justify the hate and the barbarism.

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Posted in Behaviour, Europe, Religion | 1 Comment »

12% job losses to be expected post approval of GE – Alstom deal

September 4, 2015

Everything points to GE getting approval next week from the European Commission (deadline 11th September) for its acquisition of Alstom’s Power and Grid businesses – subject to some of the remedies proposed by GE to meet EC concerns about competition. The specific nature of the remedies have not been made public but rumours indicate that these comprise divestment of a service company and a facility in Switzerland to Ansaldo along with some IP, (see previous posts).

Around 65,000 Alstom employees would be transferred (though I am assuming that the JV’s being set-up (Grid, Renewable Power and Nuclear) are just a step along the way to complete divestment. Alstom can exit the Grid and Renewable Power businesses (50% minus one share) by September 2019 for an exit price not less than the acquisition price +3% per year. Alstom has windows for exit from the Nuclear JV (20% minus one share) “for 3 months after the 5th and 6th anniversaries of the joint venture” with an “exit price not to be lower than acquisition price +2% per year”. I assume that Alstom has a put option and that GE is obliged to buy – provided of course that no hidden liabilities show up in the businesses as happened when Alstom acquired ABB’s power generation business in 2000.

Alstom GE JVs (EGM Dec 2014)

Alstom GE JVs (EGM Dec 2014)

Alstom EGM presentation 2014-12-18

Alstom employees breakdown March 2014

Alstom employees breakdown March 2014

That there will be job losses among the 65,000 so transferred is inevitable. The logical conclusion would be that jobs in high-cost countries – except where they are also where the market is – would be most at risk. But as I saw through my years at ABB and Alstom, logic does not always apply. Both ABB and Alstom were (and probably still are) very Eurocentric. Quite often I saw under-utilisation in Europe being taken as the “cost to be avoided” rather than the minimising of total cost. Then, fully loaded jobs in low-cost countries were removed or transferred to Europe to increase loading in European facilities – but which only helped to increase total costs. Also, it was always so much cheaper (redundancy payments) to get rid of jobs in India or China or Indonesia than in France or Germany. So I do expect that similar “political preferences” will still apply for European jobs, though GE should be less inclined to fool themselves over the false economy of maintaining high-cost jobs for saving the “avoided cost” of under-utilisation. (A qualified, engineering job in Europe costs – or saves – at least twice as much as one in India or China after including for wages and all support facilities). On the other hand, GE now has to fulfill some political expectations from the French government and the European Commission. So jobs in France are protected and possibly also in Italy as well, but Eastern Europe and even some developing countries may well take a hit. Switzerland is quite exposed, both for cost and lack of political clout in the EU.

However, GE is also under pressure to implement its cost cutting program and the delay in the EC approval only adds to the pressure to make quick cuts.

Reuters: General Electric Co is expected to win regulatory approval next week for its purchase of the power equipment business of France’s Alstom, allowing the U.S. industrial conglomerate to finally carry out a major cost-cutting program 16 months after first announcing the deal. ……… 

In May, GE told investors it expects $3 billion in cost reductions over the next five years as it combines its operations with those of Alstom, more than double the previous target when the deal was first announced in April 2014.

GE has also projected the deal would add 15 to 20 cents per share to earnings in 2018, or nearly 10 percent of GE’s overall profit expected that year by Wall Street, according to Thomson Reuters.  

To hit those goals, GE will consolidate manufacturing operations, cut duplicated overheads, and make savings on purchasing expenses, according to GE presentations on the deal. But to gain the blessing of the French government last year, GE committed to add 1,000 jobs in the country, possibly handcuffing the conglomerate’s ability to reap savings from Alstom’s home base.

My (entirely speculative) reasoning suggests that GE must reduce this 65,000 employees from Alstom by around 12% quickly – say over 12 – 18 months. GE should certainly be able to reduce headcount globally by around 8,000. That will give a saving of only around €500 million annually (€800 million if all the job cuts were in Europe) and further rationalisation will still be needed if GE is to meet its target of $3 billion cost reduction in 5 years. (A $3 billion annual cost reduction is massive. If it was all to be found only by job reductions it would mean around 30,000 jobs).

Over 1,200 of these jobs could go as a consequence of the “remedies” proposed by GE and the consequent divestments to Ansaldo. Around 1,000 of these jobs in Switzerland will likely transfer to Ansaldo and then perhaps around 600 will disappear completely. I note that around 3,000 of the 65,000 jobs transferred are for shared and common services (IT, support facilities, legal and the like). I would be quite surprised if GE could not find sufficient synergies with their existing staff in these areas, and cut at least 1,500 of these jobs. Between 6 and 7,000 of the jobs transferred would be in the US where GE is already very well represented. Again, I would be quite surprised if GE could not find at least 1,000 jobs in the US which were effectively duplicates. Some duplicate manufacturing facilities would also need to be rationalised (Poland? China? Italy?).

It is only my speculation but I could see the initial 8,000 jobs to be reduced consisting of (as an example),

  1. 1,000 in Switzerland divested to Ansaldo
  2. 200 in other locations (service business) divested to Ansaldo
  3. 1,500 reduction in central and shared services
  4. 1,000 jobs rationalisation in the US
  5. 1,000 manufacturing and engineering jobs in duplicated facilities
  6. plus a 5% personnel reduction across the board

There will be much pain in the short-term. I have been through the process myself on more than 6 occasions (downsizing or acquiring or being acquired), and it is the handling of people which is by far the biggest challenge. While it will be of benefit to both Alstom and GE in the long-term (to their investors, their continuing employees and to their customers), that is not much comfort to those who lose their jobs.

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MH370: To believe “with certainty” remains “not certain”

September 3, 2015

UPDATE! I have just seen another report and it seems the “belief” is mainly in the BBC report. The French prosecutors (in another translation) have “stated with certainty”…

 

To believe with certainty does not convert a belief – which lies in the space of ignorance – into the space of knowledge.

BBC: French prosecutors have said they believe “with certainty” that a wing part found on Reunion Island in July came from missing flight MH370. ……

……. Prosecutors in Paris, who had until now been more cautious on the provenance of the debris, said a technician from Airbus Defense and Space (ADS-SAU) in Spain, which had made the part for Boeing, had formally identified one of three numbers found on the flaperon as being from MH370.

It does seem highly probable that the flaperon comes from a Boeing 777 and the identifying number which would specify it came from MH370 has now been “formally identified”. In which case I wonder why it is still a “belief”. Presumably there is some lack of certainty in this “identification”. 

It seems very probable now that that it comes from MH370 but as long it is a belief it remains in the space of ignorance.

And assuming it is certain that it definitely comes from a Boeing 777 then there are still 4 remaining alternatives (excluding MH17), as CopperNickus pointed out a month ago:

43 Boeing 777’s are no longer in service. If the flaperon is not from MH370, it could be from one of these

5 are no longer in service because they were damaged and written off:

SU-GBP damaged beyond repair. Wings intact. 

G-YMMM damaged beyond repair, flaperon intact. 

HL7742 damaged beyond repair, flaperon possibly damaged. 

9M-MRD (MH17) Shot down, flaperon likely destroyed, no photo of right flaperon. Left flaperon shown in top photo here: …

9M-MRO (MH370) Missing, flaperon status unknown, possibly found on Reunion Island. 

32 are in storage

6 have been scrapped

 

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Did Amnesty just make up the story of the Indian sisters to be raped as punishment?

September 3, 2015

There are a number of bodies who I once admired but whose veracity can no longer be relied upon. I take anything from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund and now Amnesty with a very large shovel of salt. Their exaggerations, alarmism and plain lies means that I have come to discount virtually everything they publicise to a large degree. They have made it all too plain that they believe their ends are so good that it justifies some lying and fraud and deception along the way.

Over the last few days Amnesty International and the World Press have made much of a story where two sisters were “sentenced” by village elders (panchayat) to be gang-raped as punishment because their brother had “eloped” with a woman of higher caste. There was much indignation and gnashing of teeth.

But now it would seem that the whole story was probably just made up by Amnesty. In the best interpretation Amnesty has been gullible to the point of stupidity. In the worst interpretation Amnesty exploited these sisters for their own agenda by making up the whole story and implementing a deliberate PR campaign. Mind you, the world’s press have then been pretty gullible as well and their fact-checking has been virtually absent.

Daily Mirror: The village council accused of ordering the rape of two Indian sisters because their brother ran off with a higher caste woman has denied it ever ordered the sickening punishment. 

The news that the women were to be assaulted because of their brother’s actions led to an international outcry and hundreds of thousands of people have demanded their safety.

Now, members of the village council in the Baghpat region of northern India have told Reuters they passed no such order.

Family members of the two sisters also said they are unsure if the ruling was made – while local police deny any such directive was given.

When the accusations first emerged last month, they spread like wildfire. An online petition by Amnesty International seeking justice and protection for the low-caste sisters gathered over 260,000 signatures, mostly in Britain.

But family members said it may have just been gossip.

“It is all hearsay, we don’t know if this actually happened,” said Dharam Pal Singh, 55, the women’s father and a retired soldier. “We heard it from other villagers.” He identified one of the villagers, a man who also said he had heard it from others.

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12,000 years of agriculture has only reduced tree numbers by 46%

September 3, 2015

There is a new paper in Nature which tries to count the number of trees in the world.

Crowther, T. W. et al., Mapping tree density at a global scale, Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14967 (2015)

They find that there are 3.04 trillion trees which is about 7 times larger than was previously thought. They further estimate that in spite of 12,000 years of agriculture, the number of trees in the world has only reduced by 46%.

But then I heard the lead author, Thomas Crowther, being interviewed on the BBC today. I was less than impressed by his apparent lack of common sense. “The scale of human impact is astonishing” he says.

Really?

There has been a less than 50% reduction of tree-numbers in 12,000 years of agriculture, with all the forest clearing that entails, to feed 7 billion people. A human impact of less than 0.0038% per year (or 3.8% per 1000 years) is claimed to be “astonishing”.

He also claims that their results do not impact “carbon science”. Again, Really?

Seven times as many trees as thought before is 7 times as much bio-mass existing as trees, which leads to 7 times as much carbon inventory locked-up in trees as thought before. It means 7 times more trees die every year than was previously thought. Which makes man-made carbon emissions an even smaller fraction (c. 4%) of natural carbon emissions.

Crowther sounded like a vacuum cleaner salesman talking up his product. He kept emphasising the importance of his paper while denying that it had any implications for “politically correct science”. The estimate of the number of trees is interesting and could be something to build on for carbon cycle calculations. It also suggests that alarmism about bio-diversity of trees is ill founded. But some of their conclusions are just stupid and geared to getting more funding by demonstrating “political correctness”.

Reasonably interesting science but with idiot conclusions.

Oh dear!

Abstract: The global extent and distribution of forest trees is central to our understanding of the terrestrial biosphere. We provide the first spatially continuous map of forest tree density at a global scale. This map reveals that the global number of trees is approximately 3.04 trillion, an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate. Of these trees, approximately 1.39 trillion exist in tropical and subtropical forests, with 0.74 trillion in boreal regions and 0.61 trillion in temperate regions. Biome-level trends in tree density demonstrate the importance of climate and topography in controlling local tree densities at finer scales, as well as the overwhelming effect of humans across most of the world. Based on our projected tree densities, we estimate that over 15 billion trees are cut down each year, and the global number of trees has fallen by approximately 46% since the start of human civilization.

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Posted in Agriculture, Alarmism, Science | 1 Comment »

While the EU debates whether they are immigrants or refugees – a toddler dies

September 2, 2015
Reuters - 3 year old toddler among 12 syrian refugees drowned 2nd september 2015

A Turkish police officer stands next to the body of the young boy. Photograph: Reuters

EU values in action.

It is an existential question. Is the EU its proclaimed values or its actual behaviour?

Immigrants, after all, are, by definition, “bad”. Refugees from countries democratised by the EU (among others) don’t exist. To seek sanctuary in the EU, asylum seekers should be able to prove that they face execution from wherever they fled.

A Turkish police officer carries a young boy who drowned in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos. Photograph: Reuters

A Turkish police officer carries a young boy who drowned in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos. Photograph: Reuters

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The fundamentals of physics are just magic

September 1, 2015

Physicists would like to think that they deal in reality and are cold, rational, objective observers of the physical universe we live in. But deep, deep down, they just rely on magic. The Universe is nothing but a place of pervasive magic. Gravity is just a magical attraction. Spacetime is just an attractiferous aether. Physicists are thus practitioners of magic and may even be able to use the forces of magic, but they have no inkling as to why the magical forces exist.

Replace

  1. “gravity” or “gravitation” by “magical attraction”
  2. “spacetime” by “the attractiferous aether”
  3. “electromagnetic” by “electromagical”
  4. the “strong force” by the “strong magic force”
  5. the “weak force” by the “weak magic force”

and the Wikipedia entry for Gravity then reads as follows:

Magical attraction is a natural phenomenon by which all things are brought towards one another – irrespective of size, i.e. stars, planets, galaxies and even light and sub-atomic particles. Magical attraction has an infinite range, and it cannot be absorbed, transformed, or shielded against. Magical attraction is responsible for the formation of structures within the universe (namely by creating spheres of hydrogen, igniting them with enough pressure to form stars and then grouping them together into galaxies), as without magical attraction, the universe would be composed only of equally spaced particles. On Earth, magical attraction is commonly recognized in the form of weight where physical objects are harder to pick-up and carry the ‘heavier’ they are.

Magical attraction is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity (proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915) which describes the force of magical attraction, not as a force, but as a consequence of the curvature of the attractiferous aether caused by the uneven distribution of mass/energy; and resulting in time dilation, where time lapses more slowly under strong magical attraction. However, for most applications, magical attraction is well approximated by Newton’s law of Universal Magical Attraction, which postulates that magical attraction is a force where two bodies of mass are directly drawn to each other according to a mathematical relationship, where the attractive magical force is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. This is considered to occur over an infinite range, such that all bodies (with mass) in the universe are drawn to each other no matter how far they are apart.

Magical attraction is the weakest of the four fundamental magical interactions of nature. The force of magical attraction is approximately 10−38 times the strength of the strong magic force (i.e. gravity is 38 orders of magnitude weaker), 10−36 times the strength of the electromagical force, and 10−29 times the strength of the weak magic force. As a consequence, magical attraction has a negligible influence on the behavior of sub-atomic particles, and plays no role in determining the internal properties of everyday matter (but see quantum magical attraction). On the other hand, magical attraction is the dominant force at the macroscopic scale, that is the cause of the formation, shape, and trajectory (orbit) of astronomical bodies, including those of asteroids,comets, planets, stars, and galaxies. It is responsible for causing the Earth and the other planets to orbit the Sun; for causing the Moon to orbit the Earth; for the formation of tides; for natural convection, by which fluid flow occurs under the influence of a density gradient and magical attraction; for heating the interiors of forming stars and planets to very high temperatures; for solar system, galaxy, stellar formation and evolution; and for various other phenomena observed on Earth and throughout the universe.

In pursuit of a theory of everything magical, the merging of general relativity and quantum mechanics (or quantum field theory) into a more general theory of quantum magical attraction has become an area of research.

Of course it is still not clear if magic is a continuous thing or composed of discrete magical quanta. One theory has it that all things are connected by invisible, undetectable magical strings and it is the elastic nature of these strings which gives rise to the forces of magical attraction.

The reality is that the Universe came into being by magic and the fundamental forces which have governed, and still govern, are all magical. If there ever was a Big Bang it was a magical event. And every sunrise and sunset which occurs is just due to the magical forces of attraction which apply. We live in a world of magic. Magic is normal.

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Posted in Philosophy, Physics, Science | 3 Comments »

Dark energy and dark matter are just fudge factors for cosmic models that don’t work

September 1, 2015

A mathematical model of the physical world, which doesn’t work, can always be made to work by introducing a “fudge factor” which just compensates for the “error” displayed by the model results. The “error” is of course just the difference between real observations and the model results. The “fudge factors” thus introduced are then often used to project the model results into the future – but such forecasts are meaningless. The only valid conclusion is that the model is incorrect and needs to be changed,

These “fudge factors” can be given fancy names and imaginary properties such that they just remove all that cannot be explained. It does not make them real. And so it is with cosmic models and the invention of imaginary parameters with just those properties necessary to correct the error exhibited by the models.

In ancient times, new gods with new properties were invented to “explain” eclipses and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Before oxygen was discovered, alchemists – on their way to becoming chemists – invented “phlogiston”. That was superseded by the “caloric theory” which soon became obsolete. “Aether” was invented as pervading space to provide a medium for the transmission of light and through which “action at a distance” could be explained (gravity, magnetism). “Space-time” is analogous to aether and was invented to match observations with the theory of relativity. In fact Einstein refers to “space-time” as a kind of aether.

The Steady State theory of cosmology considered an expanding universe but which was in a steady state, and had no beginning. That became obsolete when the Big Bang theory came along which put the Big Bang singularity 13.8 billion years ago and which provided the energy for the expanding universe. (Imagining 15 billion years ago is just as valid as imagining a time 13.8 billion years ago but the Big Bang theory is silent about what came before). But the expansion – since the energy all came at the time of the Big Bang – was expected to gradually slow down and come to a stop after which either a steady state would prevail or a compression (implosion) would occur. But recent observations indicate that the expansion of the universe is (apparently) accelerating. Clearly that is not possible if the energy is fixed. A new source of energy needed to be invented. It couldn’t be detected so better call it “dark energy”. The apparent mass of the Universe was much less than calculations indicated it should be. The solution was simple. Along came “dark matter”.

Wikipedia: …. dark energy is an unknown form of energy which is hypothesized to permeate all of space, tending to accelerate the expansion of the universe. ………. the best current measurements indicate that dark energy contributes 68.3% of the total energy in the observable universe; the mass-energy of dark matter and ordinary matter contribute 26.8% and 4.9%, respectively; and other components such as neutrinos and photons contribute a very small amount.

Dark matter is a hypothetical kind of matter that cannot be seen. ……. Dark matter neither emits nor absorbs light or any other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level.

Needless to say, “among cosmologists, dark matter is composed primarily of a not yet characterized type of subatomic particle”. Naturally.  The magnitude of the four fundamental forces of the universe (gravity, magnetism, weak force, strong force) are known but we still have no idea why or how they exist. We can just as well call them the four fundamental forces of Magic.

Dark energy and dark matter are not real. We might as well call them “magic energy” and “magic matter”. They are merely parameters invented and given just the right properties to fit the errors between observations and theory. Fudge factors. Nothing wrong with that of course. Theories, observed errors, fudge factors capable of removing errors and then the search to remove the necessity of the fudge factors is a powerful way of doing science. But making forecasts based on existing fudge factors without any idea of how the fudges need to change is invalid and – worse – is self-delusional.

(I observe that it is the “fudge factor” phenomenon which permeates what is called climate science. The real problem is that the “scientists” and their politicians believe the forecasts made with the “fudge factor” theories even though the error between model results and reality continues to increase.)

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