More milk from comfortable Swedish cows

October 2, 2014

The cows are “going to the mattresses”!

Instead of the usual hard rubber mat, some lucky Swedish cows will now enjoy a two inch thick mattress with a protective layer of Goretex developed especially to give them a more comfortable life.

Swedish Radio reports:

Custom designed mattresses to get the cows to give more milk and live longer. That is the expectation of  the Natural resource program at the Nils Holgersson Gymnasium, Skurup.

“Research has shown that the milk is produced when the cow is lying down” says Göran Thorsson, barn foreman at the Gymnasium. “It is when she is resting and ruminating that production starts and a cow needs to be lying down for twelve hours a day to feel really good”. Most of his  cows are lying down, and some seem to be really enjoying themselves with outstretched legs but at first they were greatly skeptical explains Göran Thorsson. 

“At first they did not dare to lie down.  They just stood and stared for several hours and we were really worried that we had made ​​the wrong bet, but then they stepped gently up and once they settled we could hardly get them up gain”, he laughs. 

In an adjacent box lie cows soon after giving birth in a thick layer of straw but using  straw with many cows is difficult to keep clean, and too heavy for the cleaners. The purpose of the specially designed mattresses is not only milk  production but also to give the cows a longer life. On hard surfaces they often injure their legs which leads to infections.  Additionally, hard surfaces stress the cows’ joints and the reduced stress is intended to extend their life. “A dairy cow lives five years on average  and we of course hope that the mattresses keep them healthier and for longer”. 

After just a few weeks with the new mattress it seems that both cows and their carers are satisfied, but there is a problem. “We have a tough job to get them up in the morning” he says, smiling a wide smile. “When we normally arrived at 5 am the cows were all up, but now they are all still lying down and can be hard to rouse”.

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Annual walrus and melting ice alarm regurgitated by gullible media

October 2, 2014

The Gullible Guardian has this headline today:

Flights re-routed to avoid walrus stampede on Alaska beach

But far from being anything unusual this is an annual event.

Back in 2010 I posted

Walrus and melting ice story was a hoax

These claims of melting ice and unprecedented walrus behaviour are regurgitated by the Global Warming media year after year and by the ever less credible WWF. As zoologist Dr Susan Crockford points out, such stampedes are nothing new and are not due to low ice cover and the alarmist hype is blatant nonsense. 

Mass haulouts of Pacific walrus and stampede deaths are not new, not due to low ice cover

Large haulouts of walruses — such as the one making news at Point Lay, Alaska on the Chukchi Sea (and which happened before back in 2009) — are not a new phenomenon for this region over the last 45 years and thus cannot be due to low sea ice levels. Nor are deaths by stampede within these herds (composed primarily of females and their young) unusual, as a brief search of the literature reveals.

The attempts by WWF and others to link this event to global warming is self-serving nonsense that has nothing to do with science.

This may have been “one of the biggest onshore gatherings of the animals documented in Northwest Alaska“ that has been photographed but it is not the only time this has happened.

At least two documented incidents like this have occurred in the recent past: one in 1978, on St. Lawrence Island and the associated Punuk Islands and the other in 1972, on Wrangell Island (Fay and Kelly 1980, excerpts below). …….. 

The Walrus Islands — State Game Sanctuary was founded in 1960 and walrus numbers are up sharply since that time.

Best known among the WISGS islands is Round Island, where each summer large numbers of male walruses haul out on exposed, rocky beaches. Round Island is one of four major terrestrial haulouts in Alaska; the others are Capes Peirce (Togiak NWR), Newenham (Togiak NWR), and Seniavin (near Port Moller). Male walrus return to these haulouts every spring as the ice pack recedes northward, remaining in Bristol Bay to feed they haul out at these beach sites for several days between each feeding foray. The number of walrus using the island fluctuates significantly from year to year. However, up to 14,000 walrus have been counted on Round Island in a single day.

That environmental alarmists try and hype this annual event is understandable since they need to justify and reaffirm their religious beliefs. That the mainstream media are gullible enough to regurgitate this nonsense year after year is more disappointing.

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Posted in Alarmism, Animals, Arctic, Wildlife | 1 Comment »

Gravitation could just as well be called “magical attraction”

October 1, 2014

We don’t know how the four fundamental forces of nature are communicated. We explain the actions at a distance they give rise to by defining new words. We might as well just use the word “magic”.

We may like to think of ourselves as being very modern, very scientific, very rational without having – or needing – any recourse to mystical powers. Yet there is much where we don’t know what we don’t know. We use the forces  of gravitation and magnetism and can even calculate their magnitude but are no closer to knowing why they exist and how they are communicated. We have theories as to why they exist and how they work but these theories require that we define new, abstract/imaginary concepts of space-time and curvature of space. Gravitation fields and electromagnetic fields cause motion at a distance but where we don’t know how the forces bringing about such motion are communicated. We have no idea why gravity fields apparently propagate at (or, some say, greater than) the speed of light. We invent particles with magical properties but without any real understanding why such magical properties may exist. But our invocation of curvature  in space or virtual photons or up-quarks or down-quarks is no different to the ancients invoking magic and communicated through the aether. The rubber sheet analogy for curved spacetime is flawed in that it only works because gravity magic already exists and keeps the bodies attached to the top of the stretched rubber sheet.

Wherever we have forces acting at a distance we can just as well use the word “magic” instead of any of the other words we imagine. Inventing a massless graviton is merely invoking magic. We could just as well refer to gravitation as attraction magic and electromagnetic interaction as electromagic. And all the various magics are just natural.

For example, here is the Wikipedia entry for Gravitation where the words gravitation, gravity and other fundamental forces have been replaced by “magic” or “magical forces”.

Attraction magic is a natural phenomenon by which all physical bodies attract each other. Magical attraction gives weight to physical objects and causes them to fall toward the ground when dropped.

In modern physics, attraction magic is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity (proposed by Einstein) which describes attraction magic as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime. For most situations magical attraction is well approximated by Newton’s law of universal attraction magic, which postulates that the magical attraction force of two bodies of mass is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

In pursuit of a theory of everything, 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 active research. It is hypothesised that the magical attraction force is mediated by a massless spin-2 particle called the graviton, and that magical attraction would have separated from the electromagic force during the grand unification epoch.

Magical attraction is the weakest of the four fundamental magic forces of nature. The attraction magical force is approximately 10−38  times the strength of the strong magic force (i.e., magical attraction 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. 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. This is the case for several reasons: magical attraction is the only force acting on all particles with mass; it has an infinite range; it is always attractive and never repulsive; and it cannot be absorbed, transformed, or shielded against. Even though electromagic is far stronger than magical attraction, electromagic is not relevant to astronomical objects, since such bodies have an equal number of protons and electrons that cancel out (i.e., a net electromagic charge of zero).

Sounds fine and sufficiently unintelligible/magical to me.

Physics still contains a lot of magic.

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In one generation, the minorities of the US will be the majority of the country

October 1, 2014

The quotation is from Colin Powell on Meet the Press last year making the point that the Republican Party is running the risk of alienating the “new majority” while trying to ensure the support of the fringes of the “new minority”. Of course this new found majority (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans ) is a conglomeration of different ethnic groups and the “new minority” is still – by far – the largest distinct ethnic group.

ChangeLabInfo.com

01/13/2013
Colin Powell (former Secretary of State, G.W. Bush Administration): The country is changing demographically.
And if the Republican Party doesn’t change along with that demographic, we’re going to be in trouble. And so, when we see that in one more generation, the minorities of America; African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans will be the majority of the country, you can’t go around saying that we don’t want to have a solid immigration policy.

The Asian Americans are the fastest growing group though it does seem a little odd to lump Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asians as being a single “ethnic group”.

  • Asians comprised just over 6 percent of the total U.S. population in 2011, having grown by 46 percent between 2000 and 2010. This rate of growth makes Asian Americans the fastest growing group by race in the United States. 
  • Since 2011, the United States Census Bureau reports that the Asian American population grew by approximately 2.9 percent (530,000) exceeding 18.9 million in 2012.
  • Approximately 68% of Asian Americans old enough to vote are U.S. citizens. 
  • More than 60 percent of this growth in the Asian American population was due to immigration.
  • Approximately 10 percent of undocumented immigrants (almost 1.2 million people) in the United States were born in five Asian countries: China, the Philippines, India, Korea, and Vietnam.

There is a great deal of diversity among Asian Americans:

(While) Asian Americans as an aggregate have relatively high median family incomes, it is important to note that Asian American per capita income is actually lower than that of whites. Asian America also includes 43 diverse ethnic groups speaking over 100 distinct language dialects. Among these groups, the Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese exceed the national average of adults without high school diplomas, and are not among the Asian American ethnic groups whose representation among those enrolled in American colleges and universities exceeds their share of the population

Pew has analysed the 2010 census data.

Population

HiB visas

Identity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education

Income

As Jeb Bush observed

…I mean, if you look at Asian Americans, for example, in general, they have higher income than the median of our country, more intact families, more entrepreneurship, higher levels of education. And they supported President Obama 75-24; higher margins than with Hispanics…

Though a large section of Asian Americans based on their family values and entrepreneurship would be expected to be Republicans, they are overwhelmingly Democratic supporters (75%). It seems that this is primarily based on a single issue – immigration. There is a real sense of insecurity engendered by the rhetoric of prominent Republicans on immigration. Interestingly they are also the group where individuals are least likely to describe themselves as religious and where marriage outside the ethnic group is most acceptable (50% would have no objection to marrying outside the community). Of current Asian American marriages (2008 – 2010), 29% were to non-Asians and 6% to other Asian ethnic groups. But 40% say that all or most of their friends are from their own country of origin. Among some ethnic groups (Vietnamese, Chinese, Hmong, Korean, Bangladeshi) 50- 60% don’t speak English very well whereas in other (presumably more integrated) groups (Japanese, Indian, Malaysian) this number is around 20 – 25%.

The US is, by a long way, the most multi-ethnic country in the world. But what is also apparent is that integration with the accompanying development of a new inclusive culture is the key rather than the preserving of multiple cultures of origin. This is the problem, I think, in much of Europe. Multi-culturism has been made a God, but multi-culturism is inherently a preserving of the past. Integration with the development of a new, over-riding, multi-ethnic culture is the only way forward. And integration requires language. The one single step that could contribute most to the integration of different ethnic groups in Europe, I think, would be to ensure that all immigrants (regardless of age) become proficient in the local language (and to allow the language of the country of origin to find its own level).

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No black holes, no Big Bang would leave the universe without a beginning

September 30, 2014

There is now a mathematical proof that black holes cannot exist. Event horizons and singularities then also cannot exist. Without singularities being possible there could have been no Big Bang. And without a Big Bang, the “age” of the universe has no meaning. Where does that leave time? and space-time?

(And without a Big Bang I will have to revisit my view of stasis since my own little speculation is that while time periods – Δt – can be conceived of, time itself – t- is nothing other than an axis of change connecting states of stasis.)

Black Hole star eater – National Geographic

If the mathematics holds up then not only science but also science fiction will have to look for new concepts of space and space-time and pathways to different universes and worm-holes and warp-speeds.

PhysOrg: … By merging two seemingly conflicting theories, Laura Mersini-Houghton, a physics professor at UNC-Chapel Hill in the College of Arts and Sciences, has proven, mathematically, that can never come into being in the first place. The work not only forces scientists to reimagine the fabric of space-time, but also rethink the origins of the universe. ……

The reason black holes are so bizarre is that it pits two fundamental theories of the universe against each other. Einstein’s theory of gravity predicts the formation of black holes but a fundamental law of quantum theory states that no information from the universe can ever disappear. Efforts to combine these two theories lead to mathematical nonsense, and became known as the information loss paradox.

In 1974, Stephen Hawking used quantum mechanics to show that black holes emit radiation. Since then, scientists have detected fingerprints in the cosmos that are consistent with this radiation, identifying an ever-increasing list of the universe’s black holes.

But now Mersini-Houghton describes an entirely new scenario. She and Hawking both agree that as a star collapses under its own gravity, it produces Hawking radiation. However, in her new work, Mersini-Houghton shows that by giving off this radiation, the star also sheds mass. So much so that as it shrinks it no longer has the density to become a black hole.

Before a black hole can form, the dying star swells one last time and then explodes. A singularity never forms and neither does an . The take home message of her work is clear: there is no such thing as a black hole.

….. Many physicists and astronomers believe that our originated from a singularity that began expanding with the Big Bang. However, if singularities do not exist, then physicists have to rethink their ideas of the Big Bang and whether it ever happened.

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Posted in Physics, Science | 2 Comments »

Abu Ghraib in Burbach

September 29, 2014

UPDATE at end of post.

It is not difficult to imagine that another Hitler could arise somewhere in the world. Demagoguery allied to unfulfilled aspirations of the majority and an identifiable minority to be blamed could well lead to history repeating itself. The barbarism that humans are still capable of – demonstrated so well in the Middle East – could easily be harnessed by some new prophetic demagogue. There are some in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) who still believe that the Roma are not to be considered human. There are still those who think that Africans or Muslims or tribal peoples are not human. One would expect though that if another Hitler could rise again it would only happen far away from Germany. There is still a sense of collective shame and regret – in my opinion from my time living there – that ordinary people turned a blind eye then to the vicious goings on that they may have suspected but did not want to see.

When Abu Ghraib and the animal-like behaviour of supposedly well-trained US troops came to light it was put down to a few rotten apples and the world moved on. It was after all a theatre of war we were told. But the idea that some humans could be classified by other humans as being non-human is still possible – even in Germany. The urge to abuse, hurt and humiliate the “others” seems to lie well within the behavioural envelope of modern humans. Even now and even with Hitler in their history, in the pretty little town of Burbach in the western part of Germany.

Gewalt auf Flüchtlinge

Germany’s Abu Ghraib in Burbach — Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle:

German authorities are investigating at least two male security staff for apparent abuse of asylum seekers in their care in a special housing facility in Burbach. The suspects filmed and photographed their own actions on their mobile phones, investigators released one such image to the press on Sunday.

“These are pictures that most of us would associate with Guantanamo Bay,” said the police chief in nearby Hagen, Frank Richter, referring to the US prison camp in Cuba. “Both security guards are grinning.”

In the photo, an asylum seeker is shown lying on the floor, the boot of one man pinning his neck down. Another colleague is knelt beside the victim, seemingly posing for the camera. Some drew parallels with the images of US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners at the British Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. …..

The senior public prosecutor in nearby Siegen, Johannes Daheim, described one of the videos as disturbing. “There, a man is sitting on a filthy mattress covered in vomit, and is forced to lie down,” Daheim said. “It’s disturbing, when one imagines that these people have come to us from other countries, having already suffered from violence. They are seeking protection here, and are then subjected to such a situation. This only serves to worsen their trauma.” …..

WDR reported that the suspects worked for a private security company called European Homecare, one of the main operators of asylum seeker facilities in Germany.

This behaviour is not unique to Germany.

It also seems that when detention and imprisonment and deportations and the like are outsourced to private companies – where the key performance indicator is the throughput of human bodies – there is a greater possibility of such behaviour surfacing. For example, private security companies in the UK also run prisons and detention facilities and have also been accused of mistreating and humiliating detainees. Private companies running elderly healthcare have also come in for criticism. European Homecare is a family run company operating in Germany, Austria and Ireland and is even in receipt of some EU funds. They make a great thing about their values (no doubt written by a PR person) which now ring a little hollow:

The focus of our services are people in difficult circumstances who rely on our social, management and intercultural competence. In close collaboration with public as well as private institutions (NGOs and support groups) European Homecare provides social and facility management services to facilitate the daily life of people in need.

UPDATE!

It would seems to a sub-contractor (SKI Security) to the contractor (European Homecare) which is implicated at Burbach and also in incidents at an asylum centre in Essen

The Local:

……. TV broadcaster Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR) reported on a further case of violence against another asylum seeker at a reception centre in Essen. Investigations have started there into three allegations of grevious bodily harm.

Journalists said that they had a copy of a medical report detailing the man’s injuries. That reception centre is run by the same security firm which was in charge of the Burbach facility, Nuremberg-based firm SKI Security.

The Burbach reception centre is managed by an Essen-based firm called European Homecare which says on its website it has 20 years experience in managing accommodation for asylum seekers. European Homecare subcontracted security to SKI and police are investigating SKI employees in both Burbach and Essen.

According to WDR, two of the four security guards being investigated for abuse at the Burbach site were known to police for past offences including bodily harm and drug offences. But SKI said in a statement on Monday that all of its employees were qualified and vetted in accordance with national guidelines.

“The reported incidents are vile. We are supporting the police and prosecutors who are investigating the identified suspects,” the company said. 

European Homecare CEO Sascha Korte said on Monday the company was “concerned and shocked” that such abuses could have happened. “I’m stunned and ashamed that such assaults have taken place,” he added.

 

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Oil reserves to rival Saudi Arabia’s found in the Russian Arctic

September 28, 2014
Kara Sea - Arctic Google maps

Kara Sea – Arctic Google maps

So much for peak oil!

And that’s even without taking shale oil and shale gas, and methane hydrates into account.

World Bulletin: A joint venture between Rosneft and ExxonMobil has discovered a huge amount of oil under the Arctic. The state-run Russian oil company announced on Saturday that the University-1 well struck oil in the Kara Sea.

Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft, said the “oil trap” has 338 billion cubic meters of gas and more than 100 million tonnes (733 million barrels) of oil. The total resources in the area are estimated at 13 billion tonnes (87 billion barrels) of oil equivalent, according to the Rosneft statement. According to experts, the amount of oil and gas is comparable to the resource base of Saudi Arabia.

Rosneft and ExxonMobil started drilling the University-1 well, the world’s northernmost well, in August. The field will be named Pobeda, which means “victory” in Russian

Sanctions against Russia could deprive ExxonMobil of some of the benefits due to them. Even if sanctions are relatively short-lived the Russians will surely extract their pound of flesh while they can.

ExxonMobil announced last Friday that the U.S. Treasury Department has granted it a licence to “wind down” operations at the well, in response to U.S. and EU sanctions imposed on Russia over the unrest in Ukraine.

However the Russians are still dependent on technology from the large oil companies for drilling and exploitation in these frigid conditions. They also have vast quantities of oil and gas shale in Siberia the value of which needs to be protected. The timing for the development of Arctic reserves then becomes a geopolitical and economic strategy call. It makes most sense for Russia not to flood the market and to keep gas prices to Europe high and growing. But the potential availability of this Arctic reserve – even if production is at least a decade away – adds another arrow in the Russian quiver.

But the doomsday scenarios of “peak oil” or catastrophic depletion of gas and oil reserves have vanished over the horizon – at least for the foreseeable future,

 

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Posted in Development, Energy, Gas, Oil, Russia | 1 Comment »

Spider Art

September 28, 2014

Spiders were thought to decorate their webs to stabilise them but this is not accepted any more, even though there is no consensus on the reason for the spiders’ art.

Perhaps it is just the spiders’ aesthetic sense.

spider decoration

image from arkinspace.com

A whole gallery of spider art is at Ark in Space.

The structures are known as web decorations but the more scientific name for one is stabilimentum.  In the plural they are known as stabilimenta and the name came about because of a mistake.  When first studied the decorations were believed to be used in stabilizing the web of a spider – and there you have the term stabilimentum – get it?  However, this theory is generally dismissed these days – although it is obvious to one and all why early scientists may have thought this. …..

…. The truth be told, it is quite likely that the purpose and function of stabilimenta are manifold.  It has been discovered that they evolved independently perhaps as many as ten times.  Some spiders make their decorations purely out of their silk.  Other spiders will make them from this and the remains of their egg sacs, not to mention any detritus that just happens to be close to their webs.  The fact that they evolved independently does seem to point towards different functionality. …… 

Some think that the web decorations afford the spider and extra edge in terms of self protection.  It may make spiders appear larger, as already seen, or make them more camouflaged.  It may be the reverse of camouflage – by making the spider more visible then the web itself will be seen by animals like birds that are then less likely to inadvertently damage the web, partially wrecking or even destroying the painstakingly built structure.  So it could well be a kind of ‘stop sign’ to other animals. …… One more modern idea posited is that the stabilimenta are used in order to attract more prey to the web.  You have all seen insects at night flying towards lights?  Ultraviolet light is often used to attract insects and then there is a sharp noise of insect flesh impacting and exploding under the influence of an electric current.  It is now thought that the web decorations reflect ultraviolet light and this makes them attractive to a large number of insect species.  Unwittingly they fly to their deaths.

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Federer photoshopped for his trip to India

September 27, 2014

Roger Federer will be visiting India for the International Premier Tennis League in December this year. To help select places to visit in India he tweeted  “I need some help from my supporters in India. I’m only in Delhi for a few days, so can’t visit all amazing places that I’d like.” “Maybe you guys could help #PhotoshopRF? Show me where I should visit and I’ll retweet the best pics!”

Here are a few that I think are the best of the collection.

Embedded image permalink

Kanha National Park

Embedded image permalink

Selling bananas

Embedded image permalink

Goonda Federer at Bollywood

 

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Science by Press Release: Overhyped “gravity waves” were just dust

September 27, 2014

In March this year there was a great deal of publicity about the detection of gravity waves after the Big Bang. There were Press Releases and promotional videos and blanket coverage in the media. There was talk about Nobel prizes. Not unlike the massive publicity mounted by CERN about the discovery of (or more accurately the potential discovery of a possible indication of a particle not inconsistent with) the Higgs boson particle. After that non-discovery also there was talk about the CERN team being awarded a Nobel Prize! Even a member of the Nobel Committee was taken in by the publicity and fought for CERN the organisation, to be awarded  the physics prize. Most of the campaign in favour of CERN was initiated and orchestrated by the PR department at CERN and the CERN fan-club.

Now it turns out that the gravity waves may well have been cosmic dust.

BBC: One of the biggest scientific claims of the year has received another set-back.

In March, the US BICEP team said it had found a pattern on the sky left by the rapid expansion of space just fractions of a second after the Big Bang. The astonishing assertion was countered quickly by others who thought the group may have underestimated the confounding effects of dust in our own galaxy.

That explanation has now been boosted by a new analysis from the European Space Agency’s (Esa) Planck satellite. In a paper published on the arXiv pre-print server, Planck’s researchers find that the part of the sky being observed by the BICEP team contained significantly more dust than it had assumed.

BIG Science of this kind needs BIG FUNDS. BIG FUNDS need BIG CLAIMS. A BIG CLAIM followed by a retraction is seen to be better – from a publicity perspective – than an uninteresting claim or no claim at all. The people who control the BIG FUND purse strings are generally governments in the form of bureaucrats and administrators and politicians. They don’t usually read the scientific papers themselves. But they do read the Press Releases and take note of the number of column-inches of newspaper articles that are generated. Promotional videos with many hits on You-Tube are also taken note of.

This is science by Press Release. Scientific quality is now judged by the amount of publicity generated.

I am not competent to judge the technical content of these “discoveries” and therefore have to rely on others who are. And so I take note of what Sean Carroll, a CalTech physicist writes on his blog:

Ever since we all heard the exciting news that the BICEP2 experiment had detected “B-mode” polarization in the cosmic microwave background — just the kind we would expect to be produced by cosmic inflation at a high energy scale — the scientific community has been waiting on pins and needles for some kind of independent confirmation, so that we could stop adding “if it holds up” every time we waxed enthusiastic about the result. And we all knew that there was just such an independent check looming, from the Planck satellite. The need for some kind of check became especially pressing when some cosmologists made a good case that the BICEP2 signal may very well have been dust in our galaxy, rather than gravitational waves from inflation (Mortonson and Seljak; Flauger, Hill, and Spergel).

Now some initial results from Planck are in … and it doesn’t look good for gravitational waves.

Planck intermediate results. XXX. The angular power spectrum of polarized dust emission at intermediate and high Galactic latitudes
Planck Collaboration: R. Adam, et al.

planck-bmode-spectrum

The light-blue rectangles are what Planck actually sees and attributes to dust. The black line is the theoretical prediction for what you would see from gravitational waves with the amplitude claimed by BICEP2. As you see, they match very well. That is: the BICEP2 signal is apparently well-explained by dust.

….. Planck has observed the whole sky, including the BICEP2 region, although not in precisely the same wavelengths. With a bit of extrapolation, however, they can use their data to estimate how big a signal should be generated by dust in our galaxy. The result fits very well with what BICEP2 actually measured. It’s not completely definitive — the Planck paper stresses over and over the need to do more analysis, especially in collaboration with the BICEP2 team — but the simplest interpretation is that BICEP2’s B-modes were caused by local contamination, not by early-universe inflation. ….. 

“Science by consensus” and “science by press release” and even “science by press release about the consensus” have infected much of what passes for science today.

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