Are Scientists or Pseudoscientists Claiming They Found a Black Hole?

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

A. The scientific method requires confirmation by others. Who will confirm this claim?

B. Scientists tell their peers of achievements in journals and at conferences. Give some thought to reasons why these people are using popular media.

 

[DavisModerator]

A. It’s very probable that any serious and qualified researches would be given or sold the data from the telescopes, or collect their own data somehow…and confirm the results or come up with their own image.

B. The entire project has been documented in multiple journals over the last several years and in published literary books which have been reviewed and cited. Perhaps they brought the photo to the media to get interest in the project and perhaps find sources of funding. Managing 8 telescopes and reviewing Petabytes of data, is likely, not cheap. I’d likely do the same if I were managing a project like that. Considering the budget is covered partially by state funds, it’s only fair that people get a chance to learn about and enjoy the image. And it is a beauty.

 

[PopeBeanieModerator]

A. Not sure which discoveries of the black hole you’re asking about, but it’s been long known that stars in M87 are orbiting something with obviously huge gravity. As for the recent data in the news, scientists around the world are excited about it. This, from Luciano Rezolla (a minute into the first video on the page skeptical-science.com/science/inside-the-black-hole-picture/ ):

It looks pretty much what we were expecting, which was for a theoretician, is always, you know, a dramatic moment when you have to compare what you spent years simulating with what actually nature is telling you.

B. Obviously, scientists should prefer journals and conferences that communicate most effectively. But also obviously (if this is what you’re aiming at), in this new internet age of charlatans who can now, for profit, attract massive audiences of conspiracist lunatics with sensationalism (e.g. think Alex Jones), ulterior motives may be reeled in, served and dined upon depending on the charlatan fisherman’s choice of fish ponds.

As I’m in the habit of saying in your case, I’m looking forward to hearing any recommended sources of good research and factual data.

[_Robert_Participant]

This was the big news this week…a large-by-networking telescope to “see” an event horizon.

https://www.space.com/black-hole-photography-event-horizon-telescope-future.html

[UnseenParticipant]

Science takes time. It’s a bit soon to be calling it “pseudoscience.”

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

Davis wrote: Perhaps they brought the photo to the media to get interest in the project and perhaps find sources of funding.

Davis, without taxpayers’ wide-eyed attention, Congress won’t appropriate billions of dollars and Big Bangers will be writing perhaps good scifi or doing Lyft, Uber, and such.

 

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

U wrote: … It’s a bit soon to be calling it “pseudoscience.”

Eggs preceded chickens, U, and untested hypotheses precede empirical evidence.

 

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[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@tom, do you accept Einstein’s special and relative theories as accurate explanations for the speed of light and for  the force of gravity being explained by the curvature of spacetime?

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

Robert wrote: … a large-by-networking telescope to “see” an event horizon.

Or, a large-by-networking telescope to gather data interpreted as an event horizon, displayed on computer screens and published in popular media. Renewed funding follows.

 

[_Robert_Participant]

tom sarbeck wrote:

Robert wrote: … a large-by-networking telescope to “see” an event horizon. Or, a large-by-networking telescope to gather data interpreted as an event horizon, displayed on computer screens and published in popular media. Renewed funding follows.

Yeah, that could be the case with this project as there is a lot of signal processing and they really must be very careful to keep it real. Given enough time, the results will be validated or disregarded. The road to scientific truth is seldom a straight path.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

tom sarbeck wrote:

Or, a large-by-networking telescope to gather data interpreted as an event horizon

These days I never see you contribute any alternate explanations for recently explored phenomena such as this, even when I ask for it. Humanity has a dire need for individuals to find credible sources of information, as well-known psuedo-scientists and snake oil scammers sell crap to their uninformed audiences. You sit back and snipe rather than point to any explanations or suggest any kind of “real” scientific research. This is exactly how anti-vaxers, anti-pharma, and other charlatans like Deepak Chopra gain “credibility” among the gullible.

Does gravity not bend light? Do black holes, extreme gravity, or gravitational lensing not even exist? It’s ok to say “we don’t know”, and that’s better than creationist agendas that trash mainstream science just to rescue faith in their own biblical or psuedo-scientific narratives.

But really, how far could science (or just consider imperfect arts and science of medicine) get with no more than cynical or mythical anti-narratives? We’d still be in the dark ages.

On this particular topic of collecting massive amounts of the finest visual resolution data on high gravity objects ever attempted in history, and so far they’ve only focused on M87 and still have massive amounts of empirical data other objects to assess, do you have any suggestion, or clue, as to what they should be studying, instead? Perhaps no research at all? Anything? Nothing? Can you help us understand science better, at least in between the pot shots?

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

PB asked: Can you help us understand science better, at least in between the pot shots?

Excellent timing, PB. Get thee to http://www.thunderbolts.info without delay and on its home page you can click on a short video titled Wal Thornhill: Black Hole or Plasmoid?

If you delay you can use the strange little search box on the upper right and search on plasmoid or plasmoids.

 

[tom sarbeckParticipant]

Postscript, PB. The video will tell you why I don’t do alternate explanations. They tend to require a few reams of paper or an onscreen equivalent.

 

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Tom – I have previously debunked several claims made in other “evidence” you have linked regarding the EU hypothesis (nothing to do with Brexit!!) and you replied to none of them. OK, maybe you missed them. Can you supply any peer reviewed papers? I can handle “reams of paper or an onscreen equivalent” without too much effort. Anything that suggests where Einstein’s theory is wrong, especially on Gravity, would be of interest.

Disclaimer: The Fronkey Foundation is not and refuses to be a mainstream research center and receives no funding from any organization. Any individual donations are used to fund studies into the homogeneous and isotropic nature of fronkey fur as to why static electricity is dispersed uniformly over their entire fleece.

[DavisModerator]

Tom, for the first time you have ducked and dodged questions and possible answers to your questions. First of all, this was an international effort and no the US taxpayers are not the only contributors. You’ve also totally ignored the fact that the entire project is well documented over the last several years in major respected journals. You’re making the triumphant moment when the picture was shown on the news and linked on facebook…as though that was the ultimate result. I don’t know a lot of scientists who do years of tireless research and years of getting funding…for facebook likes. For some reason you are hyper-focusing on the popularisation of this project and ignoring everything else…which are important meaningful details, which should be taken into consideration.

As for who is to confirm this result, as I alluded to before, whoever wants to take it on, will do so and there is little doubt that their work will not be scrutinized in journals and that someone else will venture to do the same. It is not as though what they did is impossible to replicate, or that there is only one method to doing it and only one single imperfect way to demonstrate that they were correct.

Finally, you’re beginning to sound like a conspiracy theorist. I understand the skepticism and holding out for more information and further development. I don’t understand the hostile cynicism assuming a respectable research project is bullshit, is a publicity stunt, fraudulent, unverifiable and could so easily be fatally flawed. If that is expected then our standard of knowledge will only develop after every investigation is as thoroughly researched as possible and if we’ve kept the research top-secret and away from the media and from facebook…even after the research has finished.

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