beecee

We have evidence for that as counter intuitive as it may seem. We have no evidence for the paranormal or the supernatural, despite your against the rules, incessant preaching.

The death of Atheism is associated with the reverse I suggest, and the more likley for the reasons I have stated...that is, the conforming to religious beliefs as simply traditional and in name only and fear of the unknown. The only post devoid of fact is your own..... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/christianity-non-christian-europe-young-people-survey-religion 'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe Figures show a majority of young adults in 12 countries have no faith, with Czechs least religious: "Europe’s march towards a post-Christian society has been starkly illustrated by research showing a majority of young people in a dozen countries do not follow a religion. The survey of 16- to 29-year-olds found the Czech Republic is the least religious country in Europe, with 91% of that age group saying they have no religious affiliation. Between 70% and 80% of young adults in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands also categorise themselves as non-religious. The most religious country is Poland, where 17% of young adults define themselves as non-religious, followed by Lithuania with 25%." <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And obviously one can also read into that an even larger percenatge simply claiming belief, because they believe it the right thing to do and traditional.

Are you lying, ignorant or being obtuse? Who said the BB proves there is no god? The belief in the supernatural and paranormal is simply unscientific and has absolutely no empirical evidence to supprt it.

It is a commandment of the Catholic church my friend, from memory as a former good Catholic boy, the third. Yes, I most certainly reject the paranormal and supernatural, as having absolutely no empirical evidence to support either, and as being unscientific myth.

No where near the facts that philosophical banter actually lacks. Not sure if one can believe what you say, particularly as you have given no reputable references, still, as I said, convention actually holds true in my opinion, and many, probably the vast majority, adhere in name only...eg: How many christians go to church on a Sunday...afterall that is one of the ten commandments...how many christians continue to lie through their teeth? Of course there is....I for one, accept science and the scientific method because of the questions it has obviously answered, as well as the good it has done for mankind in general, despite your denial of those facts. Those are not really scientific questions although at least in one case science does offer evidence in agreement. sadly for you, who is ignorant of the basics of science, you simply attempt to practise your philosophy on others. As I said, I don't hold to the terms atheists, agnostics, or theists, rather I follow the observations, experimental successes and sensibility of the scientific method in rejecting that which is supernatural, paranormal as totally unscientific.

Except it is religion and ID mythical beliefs that are close to death, rather then atheism, although as I have said, most probably held onto in name only, and that inner fear in some, of eternal damnation.

All science is speculation until shown otherwise. That is the greatest benefit of science and the scientific method.

It's totally true though. Perhaps you need to check out the speculative sections and of course trash. Plus of course many simply like to attempt to trash science or some aspect of it, as a crusade type of endeavour against the sciences in general, because it has pushed the need for any deity back into near oblivion. The fear of the unknown, the fear of the myth of eternal damnation is strong.

But you just said this...."The evidence for Big Bang became immediately so tenuous that a fabrication had to be thrown in .. Expansion, the only evidence for Expansion being the need for it. The evidence for the BB rests on four major cosmological pillars; [1] The observed expansion.[not fabricated] [2] The CMBR at 2.7K. [3] The abundance of the lighter elements. [4] Galactic formation and large scale structure. The rest is simply coincidence, nothing more, nothing less. If any mythical god would like to prove himself, he would logically do it for the world....not one isolated individual....something like making every person on Earth, suddenly defy gravity and float in the air. If that happened with some voice from the clouds announcing such a momentous event, I would humbly get down on my knees in adoration.

Some science by necessity is speculative. That is the step before it advances to theory status, the highest rung on the ladder for science. eg: https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/ but this is off topic I think so perhaps if you are inclined, start another thread?

Yeah my thoughts exactly Strange, and why I did preface my first remarks with that this is what science is all about and why the scientific methodology reigns supreme despite some unfounded criticism. The announcements of the discoveries of these gravitational waves did take some time to be revealed, but this was simply due to the cautionary aspect taken by the scientists at aLIGO, particularly after the BICEP2 premature announcement.

Perhaps more correctly the person who believes in god is just not aware of the evidence that is available to show that perhaps this god is just not needed and is superfluous as all the stuff he was supposed to have done, can be explain with supporting evidence by science, and perhaps the person who does not believe in god, is just aware of this evidence that shows him/her/it as unnecessary and superfluous. And finally perhaps the majority that claim ID status, as opposed to being atheist and/or agnostic, are more driven by fear and convention to maintain a semblance of that belief.

No one prepared to offer any thoughts on this? Does that mean I can safely conclude that it was just some sensationalistic media propaganda and that the claim doubting the detection of gravitational waves was/is totally invalid?

Your question/s I believe have adequately been answered. I would just add that in actual fact, it is religion that is in decline, and that the vast majority of believers are believers in name only and simply wish to align with the apparent strong convention of being labeled a christian country or muslim country or whatever, depending on the convention in that particular country. That along with the fear factor of the unknown and threats of eternal damnation. It certainly will be a long time before the religious convention/s completely die out if at all....there will always be pockets of resistance to the eradication of such evil. I do agree though that religion or the belief in any deity may have been an original necessity before science and the scientific method evolved. We needed to explain the universe around us, and conjuring up some supernatural, spiritual or paranormal explanation was the easiest way to do that. Even though no actual evidence was forthcoming, it seemed far easier dreaming up of gods existing in the Sun, Moon Mountains etc, even though no actual evidence could ever be available to support such myth. Science and the scientific methodology has largely eradicated such nonsense, and the ability to explain the universe and life to much greater extents, has seen science push religious beliefs and associated myths into near oblivion in actual fact, and what we have now is simply the scrambling to hang onto such mythical beliefs, even if by name only. Personally I find being labelled an atheist or an agnostic, or a theist as degrading and unnecessary. It's a shame that more people had not had access to the great educator, Carl Sagan. A man I believe that has done plenty to promote the scientific methodology and eliminate the need or desire for myth.

The paper critical of the aLIGO/VIRGO claims............ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.04191.pdf On the time lags of the LIGO signals: Abstract. rXiv:1706.04191v2 [astro-ph.IM] 9 Aug 2017 To date, the LIGO collaboration has detected three gravitational wave (GW) events appearing in both its Hanford and Livingston detectors. In this article we reexamine the LIGO data with regard to correlations between the two detectors. With special focus on GW150914, we report correlations in the detector noise which, at the time of the event, happen to be maximized for the same time lag as that found for the event itself. Specifically, we analyze correlations in the calibration lines in the vicinity of 35 Hz as well as the residual noise in the data after subtraction of the best-fit theoretical templates. The residual noise for the other two events, GW151226 and GW170104, exhibits similar behavior. A clear distinction between signal and noise therefore remains to be established in order to determine the contribution of gravitational waves to the detected signals. Concluding remarks: Ideally, the search for gravitational waves should be separated into two independent phases. An initial template-free step should identify candidate events and demonstrate that they are of astrophysical origin. The second step, which will inevitably involve comparison with general relativistic calculations, should attempt to determine the physical nature of the event. Fortunately, the LIGO GW150914 event is sufficiently strong that it can be seen in both the Hanford and Livingston detectors without templates and that the cross correlation is high. The evidence that this event is astrophysical lies primarily in the fact that this cross correlation is maximized by an inversion of the Livingston data and a 7 ms shift of the record that is within the allowed ±10 ms window. The results of Section 3 suggest, however, that similarly strong agreement between the Hanford and Livingston detectors can be obtained from time records constructed exclusively from narrow resonances in the Fourier transform of the data. In spite of efforts to “cleanse” the data of the effects of these resonances, their strength renders it difficult to be certain that there has not been significant “leakage” of these effects to neighboring frequencies. The strong and unexpected correlations in the phases of the Fourier coefficients noted in Section 2 may be indicative of such leakage. It has been reported for both GW150914 and for GW170104 that the residual noise following from the subtraction of the template from the cleaned data is consistent with Gaussian noise and does not contain features characteristic of gravitational wave signals. (See [1] and [5], respectively) This is taken to imply that there are no biases in the modeling of the waveforms. While our findings do not contradict the previous statement about near Gaussianity during the time of the events, this is to be contrasted with the present demonstration that the residuals show apparent correlations between the detectors. It is striking that these correlations are maximized by applying nearly the same time shifts as found for the GW events themselves — for all three GW events reported to date. The purpose in having two independent detectors is precisely to ensure that, after sufficient cleaning, the only genuine correlations between them will be due to gravitational wave effects. The results presented here suggest this level of cleaning has not yet been obtained and that the detection of the GW events needs to be re-evaluated with more careful consideration of noise properties. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> My first thoughts are, why has this supposed doubt just raised its head?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032022-600-exclusive-grave-doubts-over-ligos-discovery-of-gravitational-waves/ Exclusive: Grave doubts over LIGO’s discovery of gravitational waves """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Sensationalisitc headlines? My thoughts? Whatever the outcome, in my view it again supports the scientific methodology as superior to anything we have. I'll let those far more initiated in this sort of stuff to offer comments, rather then my own. Interesting to say the least. [Perhaps someone could E-Mail aLIGO or VIRGO for a comment?] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/danish-physicists-claim-to-cast-doubt-on-detection-of-gravitational-waves/ Danish physicists claim to cast doubt on detection of gravitational waves LIGO responds: "There is absolutely no validity to their claims." <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/danish-physicists-claim-to-cast-doubt-on-detection-of-gravitational-waves/ extract: "Then, in 2014, the BICEP2 collaboration—which hunts for telltale signatures of gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background (the leftover radiation from the Big Bang)—announced it had detected indirect evidence of these ripples in the fabric of spacetime. Much fanfare ensued. Within weeks, however, serious doubts had begun to emerge. Ultimately, it turned out that the BICEP collaboration had mistaken clouds of cosmic dust for a signal. The blow was crushing. The gravitational-wave community was sufficiently burned by the BICEP2 debacle that LIGO opted for extreme caution and secrecy—ironically a big part of the reason the collaboration is viewed with distrust in some quarters. Its researchers spent several months between the signal detection and the official announcement in February 2016 to double, triple, and quadruple check their analysis to guard against another false detection. So how could this happen again? First, it's highly unlikely that it has happened again. But the answer is that separating signal from noise is very, very difficult in this kind of analysis. The signal is extremely faint (on the order of a billionth of a billionth the diameter of an atom); that's why you need such sensitive detectors to pick them up at all. Also, the Universe is actually a pretty noisy place. "The problem isn't so much the absolute weakness of the waves; the problem is that there are many other disturbances that also wiggle the interferometer," physicist Sabine Hossenfelder wrote at Forbes back in 2017—the first time Jackson's false-signal claims were making the rounds." https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.00364.pdf "The recent discovery by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo of a gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star inspiral has enabled tests of general relativity (GR) with this new type of source. This source, for the first time, permits tests of strong-field dynamics of compact binaries in presence of matter. In this paper, we place constraints on the dipole radiation and possible deviations from GR in the post-Newtonian coefficients that govern the inspiral regime. Bounds on modified dispersion of gravitational waves are obtained; in combination with information from the observed electromagnetic counterpart we can also constrain effects due to large extra dimensions. Finally, the polarization content of the gravitational wave signal is studied. The results of all tests performed here show good agreement with GR". CONCLUSIONS: Using the binary neutron star coalescence signal GW170817, and in some cases also its associated electromagnetic counterpart, we have subjected general relativity to a range of tests related to the dynamics of the source (putting bounds on deviations of PN coefficients), the propagation of gravitational waves (constraining local Lorentz invariance violations, as well as large extra dimensions), and the polarization content of gravitational waves. In all cases we find agreement with the predictions of GR. The upcoming observing runs of the LIGO and Virgo detectors are expected to result in more detections of binary neutron star coalescences [84]. Along with electromagnetic observations, combining information from gravitational wave events (including binary black hole mergers) will lead to increasingly more stringent constraints on deviations from general relativity [25, 26], or conceivably potential evidence of the theory’s shortcomings.

I hope all works out for you and the family. All the best!

Let me say at this time, if, and that is a gigantic if, if we did somehow find out or had evidence to conclude we on Earth, were the only life forms in the universe, it would certainly raise far many more questions than the more obvious answer that we probably are not alone. The god botherers would have a field day!

No probs.....While always being of the mind that "if" we are to err on this subject, we need to err on the side of caution. My views were greatly enforced when I was fortunate enough to watch a doco called "Chasing Ice" a few years ago. I believe that sums it up. A visually spectacular doco and irrefutably based on much observational evidence and the hindcast attribution method. I have mentioned it before but again worth repeating, if anyone has not seen it, then I suggest you change that and get a copy or watch on Netflix. https://chasingice.com/

I don't find the Fermi paradox inference valid at all. Time and distance are the two great inhibitors between interstellar/galactic contact. And of course it was constructed well before any extra solar planets were ever contemplated or found. The "near infinite" size of the universe, the "near infinite" content, the stuff of life being everywhere we look, suggests that we should not be the only planet with life in the universe. But irrespective, the facts at this time are that we have as yet no evidence for any life off this Earth.

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20180910 Jocelyn Bell Burnell Receives Breakthrough Prize News Release • September 10, 2018 The LIGO Lab and LIGO Scientific Collaboration are heartily congratulating Jocelyn Bell Burnell for becoming just the fourth recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, a $3 million dollar prize bestowed to a scientist or group of scientists deemed to have made significant discoveries in or contributions to science. Burnell is being recognized for her astute observation of odd repeating ‘blips’ in radio telescope data gathered while she was a graduate student at Cambridge University in 1967. Initially, many believed these signals were man-made, but Burnell tenaciously followed up on the anomaly, proving that they were not of this Earth. The blips were later attributed to a then only-theorized exotic star called a radio pulsar. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars that emit a narrow beam of radio waves like a lighthouse. If the Earth is in the beam's path, we detect a radio pulse each time it sweeps across the Earth as the star itself rotates. Dr. Edward Witten, the chair of the selection committee said, in a statement released by the Breakthrough Prize Committee: “Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s discovery of pulsars will always stand as one of the great surprises in the history of astronomy. Until that moment, no one had any real idea how neutron stars could be observed, if indeed they existed. Suddenly it turned out that nature has provided an incredibly precise way to observe these objects, something that has led to many later advances.” Indeed, astronomers have continued to search for and study neutron stars in the cosmos, as they are excellent laboratories for studying general relativity and other extreme environs in the Universe. Coincidentally, at around the same time as Bell’s discovery, LIGO’s Rai Weiss, then MIT professor, was thinking about how astronomers could detect (also then only theoretical) gravitational waves, predicted to emanate from dense, massive objects like neutron stars. In fact, LIGO was specifically designed to detect gravitational waves from just the sort of objects that Bell Burnell discovered. Such a long-awaited event was finally observed last year, when LIGO and Virgo detected two colliding neutron stars. This discovery led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the origins of heavy elements in the periodic table. LIGO continues to search for gravitational-wave ‘blips’ from neutron stars to complement the observations that Burnell made in radio signals. Without Burnell’s careful observation and persistence in alerting her thesis supervisor about the strange signals these mysterious objects and their treasure-trove of information about the Universe could have remained unknown to science for many years. Burnell is also being recognized for her “lifetime of inspiring scientific leadership”, according to the Breakthrough Prize committee. True to form, Burnell has decided to donate her entire $3 million prize to the United Kingdom’s Institute of Physics, to fund scholarships for students from groups underrepresented in science who want to study physics.

Obviously, if there is anything I have misinterpreted above, corrections from our online experts are welcome. Much is from a memory that sometimes needs re-tuning.

Recently in another thread on Philosophy, I had cause to question a claim made that BH's have been shown not to exist. Reasons were because Hawking Radiation had not been discovered and the Information/Firewall paradox. I replied how whether HR existed or not and irrespective of any information paradox, that BH's were well supported by evidence to exist and that the claims made were wrong and invalid. The person who denied their existence I'm sure was not really attuned to the history of BH's or any of the facts, and probably had only heard/read about them in a few pop science coverages in the daily media. His mispelling of Stephen Hawking's name as Hawkins lead me to that belief, and was certainly not any act of superior knowledge of BH's on my part. After thinking I then remembered a pop science news item that was widely published a few years ago with regards to a paper by Professor Hawking in which he now believed that BH's did not exist. I was involved in a lengthy debate on this rather surprising revelation on another forum, and it was revealed for what it was...a sensationalist view by the media. The following article details that "out of context"claim. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/hawking-meant-black-holes What Hawking meant when he said ‘there are no black holes’ extract from article.....“The absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes — in the sense of regimes from which light can’t escape to infinity,” Hawking wrote in his paper. "There was also a paper which was discussed by a Laura Mersini- Houghton from the University of North Carolina, who claimed she had mathematical proof that BH's did not exist and published in arXiv but not peer reviewed. This paper was subsequently criticised and invalidated....https://briankoberlein.com/2014/09/25/yes-virginia-black-holes/ Recent headlines have proclaimed “Black Holes Don’t Exist!” They’re wrong. Black holes absolutely exist. We know this observationally. We know by the orbits of stars in the center of our galaxy that there is a supermassive black hole in its center. We know of binary black hole systems. We’ve found the infrared signatures of more than a million black holes. We know of stellar mass black holes, and intermediate mass black holes. We can even see a gas cloud ripped apart by the intense gravity of a black hole. And we can take images of black holes, such as the one above. Yes, Virginia, there are black holes". <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The evidence for BH's has obviously been increased dramatically over the last few years with the discoveries of 5 BH pairs in the act of merging via their gravitational Radiation. While certainly indirect observation, by its very nature, BH's can never be directly observed. The first BH discovered was Cygnus- X1 and as with all known BH's, are evidenced by the effects they have on the matter energy and spacetime within their vicinity. If we are to deny BH existence, we would need something even more extraordinary and counter intuitive to explain these effects we observe. The gravitational waves discovered by aLIGO and VIRGO matched templates that pointed to these 5 discoveries, their masses, and distances from Earth. Worth noting at this time also, that actually BH's of sorts was theorised as long ago as the late 1700's by a bloke called John Michell and were called "Dark Stars" being simply a Newtonian explanation, and with the Schwarzchild limit and compulsory collapse unknown.

Snow White and the Three Bears continues...wait no that's Cinderella? Na wrong its Goldilocks isn't it The usual nit picking, and obscure similes, metaphors and analogies, along with the mountains of opinion, masquerading as knowledge, while ignoring the science, the actual source of all the knowledge, and instead sitting down pretentiously stroking one's chin, trying to be wise. "Philosophy is OK, its the Philosophers that are the pain in the arse". [ or words to that effect] attributed to Laurence Krauss from memory.

You are doing your thing again matey! You know, being obtuse and ignorant. You said something to the effect that BH's were invalidated because Hawking Radiation had not yet been verified....Nothing re Hawking Radiation, nothing re information loss or conservation invalidates a BH...n-o-t-h-i-n-g But again this ignorance of yours is off-topic. Start another thread on the invalidity of BH's and see where it gets you. A link that does nothing for your ignorance of science and again off topic. Nice to see you attuned on something anyway. Off topic again, but you know my position and that which is sgenerally held...nothing has changed..Oh you could check with Reg...[it involves jackasses] More nonsense ignored and off topic. Yes, I'm not surprised you havn't heard of some of them, note though all are way above your pay grade. Please yourself what you do, but realise that if you start abusing any system, consequences will be forthcoming.