The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[bob b]

The Response to Crisis

Let us then assume that crises is a necessary precondition to the emergence of novel theories and ask how scientists respond to their existence. Part of the answer, as obvious as it is important, can be discovered by noting first what scientists never do when confronted by even severe and prolonged anomalies. Though they may begin to lose faith and then to consider alternatives, they do not renounce the paradigm that has led them into crisis. They do not, that is, treat anomalies as counter instances , though in the vocabulary of philosophy of science that is what they are. In part this generalization is simply statement from historic fact, based upon examples like those given above and, more extensively, below. These hint what our later examination of paradigm rejection will disclose more fully: once it has achieved the status of paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternative candidate is available to take its place.

 

[JustinFoldsFive]

Creationism. Intelligent Design. Both of these theories are "available to take the place of TOE", but have been rejected by the vast majority of the scientific community. Besides, the rejection of a paradigm is preceded by a prolonged stage of crisis. Contrary to the "just so" stories you peddle each and every day, TOE is not in a stage of crisis. Actually, evidence continues to mount that further strengthens the theory.

Sorry Bob, there is no Crisis Stage.

 

[bob b]

Creationism. Intelligent Design. Both of these theories are "available to take the place of TOE", but have been rejected by the vast majority of the scientific community.

That is because they are not considered science: i.e. they are not "naturalistic".

Besides, the rejection of a paradigm is preceded by a prolonged stage of crisis. Contrary to the "just so" stories you peddle each and every day, TOE is not in a stage of crisis. Actually, evidence continues to mount that further strengthens the theory.

Not true. I will quote more to illustrate that what is really going on is "ad hoc" rationalizations.

Sorry Bob, there is no Crisis Stage.

Actually there is and it is growing. If an alternative "scientific" theory was available people would gladly jump ship.

Eugene Coonin suggested an alternative, but the reviewers argued that the alternative (an infinity of multiverses) was hardly scientific.

"Multiple types of fairly advanced forms at the very beginning" is not a "scientific theory" either, because it is not "naturalistic".

It's main merit is that it happens to be true.

 

[JustinFoldsFive]

That is because they are not considered science: i.e. they are not "naturalistic".

They did their best to be considered science (especially ID [Dover, anyone?]), but they were rejected because they are not scientific.

Not true. I will quote more to illustrate that what is really going on is "ad hoc" rationalizations.

I've read the book. How about you give examples of these supposed "ad hoc" rationalizations. Oh, and try not to confuse the self-correcting nature of science with "ad hoc" rationalizations.

Actually there is and it is growing. If an alternative "scientific" theory was available people would gladly jump ship.

Eugene Coonin suggested an alternative, but the reviewers argued that the alternative (an infinity of multiverses) was hardly scientific.

"Multiple types of fairly advanced forms at the very beginning" is not a "scientific theory" either, because it is not "naturalistic".

It's main merit is that it happens to be true.

No amount of wishful thinking will lend any credence to the snake oil you are peddling. Scientists deal with observation and experimentation. Not myth. Not scripture. If what you say is true, there should be more than enough evidence pointing to a 6,000 year-old universe and creation from multiple types of fairly advanced forms at the very beginning...but there is not.

 

[bob b]

They did their best to be considered science (especially ID [Dover, anyone?]), but they were rejected because they are not scientific.

Which is why they are not considered as alternatives.

I've read the book. How about you give examples of these supposed "ad hoc" rationalizations. Oh, and try not to confuse the self-correcting nature of science with "ad hoc" rationalizations.

The Hoxdomain homologies were explained away by assuming that all this "neat stuff" must have evolved hundreds of million years before the Cambrian Explosion.

No amount of wishful thinking will lend any credence to the snake oil you are peddling. Scientists deal with observation and experimentation. Not myth. Not scripture. If what you say is true, there should be more than enough evidence pointing to a 6,000 year-old universe and creation from multiple types of fairly advanced forms at the very beginning...but there is not.

Asronomers are reaching farther and farther in space with newer telescopes. The galaxies they find appear surprisingly mature. Logically this should falsify the Big Bang scenario, but so far there is no "naturalistic" alternative.

The origin of the DNA/RNA/protein interlocked system and the origin of sexual reproduction have been scientific mysteries for many decades now and still defy all efforts to fit them into evolutionary theory. They will remain scientific mysteries, because they did not arise "naturally".

 

[JustinFoldsFive]

I'll continue this discussion later, Bob, but I have to go sell some bait now. The weather is kind of overcast, but I'm sure the fishermen will be out in droves; it's the weekend! Feel free to continue your discussion, and I'll get back to you later tonight.

 

[bob b]

I'll continue this discussion later, Bob, but I have to go sell some bait now. The weather is kind of overcast, but I'm sure the fishermen will be out in droves; it's the weekend! Feel free to continue your discussion, and I'll get back to you later tonight.

Try to spend a few minutes between sales to give some serious thought to these issues. It would help the discussion.

 

[mighty_duck]

Asronomers are reaching farther and farther in space with newer telescopes. The galaxies they find appear surprisingly mature. Logically this should falsify the Big Bang scenario, but so far there is no "naturalistic" alternative.

This is false. Or possibly your sources are very outdated.

From analysis of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Images:
"The final ACS image, assembled by Anton Koekemoer of the Space Telescope Science Institute, is studded with a wide range of galaxies of various sizes, shapes, and colors. In vibrant contrast to the image's rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. Their strange shapes are a far cry from the majestic spiral and elliptical galaxies we see today. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge."
source

thephy had a nice thread about this issue in the Bob Enyart Live forums.

 

[bob b]

This is false. Or possibly your sources are very outdated.

Actually it depends on where they look.

July 08, 2004 Scientific American
Mature Galaxies in Young Universe At Odds with Theory

The discovery in the distant past of massive galaxies containing more than 10 billion stars has astrophysicists scratching their heads over how such large objects could have formed so early.
Two teams writing today in Nature provide evidence for large, fully developed galaxies at the farthest reaches of the cosmos. The light from these objects takes time to reach the earth, thus astronomers are seeing them as they looked some 10 billion years ago. Because the big bang is believed to have occurred nearly 14 billion years ago, these giant galaxies--some as big as the largest present-day galaxies--must have completed most of their growth before the universe was a quarter of its age.

 

[bob b]

Galaxies in Young Cosmos More Massive and Mature than Expected
By Tariq Malik
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gemini_survey_040105.html
Staff Writer
posted: 11:30 am ET
05 January 2004

ATLANTA The universe is laden with massive galaxies that formed while the universe was just one billion years old, an era when such mature galaxies were not expected to exist.

Astronomers with the Gemini Deep Deep Survey have found an abundance of galaxies in the "redshift desert," a region of space thought to be sparse because of the time needed for massive galaxies to form. But a wealth of patience, combined with long telescope exposure times, has shed some new light on the matter.

"These massive galaxies seem to be forming surprisingly early," said Robert Abraham, an astronomer with the University of Toronto. Abraham is co-investigator of the Gemini team that conducted the study. "Its probably not at the point where we have to reevaluate our theories of galaxy formation, but its getting there."

The discovery was presented here today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

 

[The Barbarian]

"Multiple types of fairly advanced forms at the very beginning" is not a "scientific theory" either, because it is not "naturalistic".

It's main merit is that it happens to be true.

Like so many things bob "knows", this is completely false. The earliest fossils are rather ordinary-looking bacteria, and these simple organisms exist in the fossil record for nearly a billion years before we see evidence of eukaryotes.

The Gunflint chert (2.51 Ga) is a sequence of banded iron formation rocks that are exposed in the Gunflint Range of northern Minnesota and western Ontario along the north shore of Lake Superior. The black layers in the sequence contain microfossils that are 1.9 to 2.3 billion years in age. Stromatolite colonies that have been converted to jasper are found in Ontario. The formation consists of alternating layers of iron oxide rich layers interbedded with silica rich zones. The iron oxides are typically hematite or magnetite with ilmenite while the silicates are predominantly cryptocrystalline quartz as chert or jasper along with some minor silicate minerals.

Stanley Tyler in 1953 examined the area and noted the red stromatolites. He also sampled a jet-black chert layer which when observed petrographically revealed some small spheres, rods and filaments which were less than 10 micrometres in size. Elso Barghoorn, a paleobotanist at Harvard, looked at the samples and stated they were indeed structurally preserved unicellular organisms.[1] In 1965 the two published their finding and named a variety of organisms from the Gunflint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunflint_Chert

 

[bob b]

Young Universe Was Surprisingly Structured
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/young_universe_structure.html
Wed, 02 Mar 2005 - A team of European astronomers have discovered a highly structured cluster of thousands of galaxies at an incredible 9 billion light-years away. In other words, this structure was highly evolved only a few billion years after the Big Bang; a situation that should be impossible, according to current theories. Incredibly, some of the galaxies in the cluster are red and elliptical, which would indicate that they were already quite old at only a few billion years old.
Combining observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, astronomers have discovered the most distant, very massive structure in the Universe known so far.

It is a remote cluster of galaxies that is found to weigh as much as several thousand galaxies like our own Milky Way and is located no less than 9,000 million light-years away.

The VLT images reveal that it contains reddish and elliptical, i.e. old, galaxies. Interestingly, the cluster itself appears to be in a very advanced state of development. It must therefore have formed when the Universe was less than one third of its present age.

The discovery of such a complex and mature structure so early in the history of the Universe is highly surprising. Indeed, until recently it would even have been deemed impossible.

 

[bob b]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000242A1-AFED-1339-AFED83414B7F0000

September 28, 2005
Young Universe Home to 'Big Baby' Galaxy, Astronomers Report
By Sarah Graham

Astronomers have found a surprisingly heavy early galaxy, according to a new report. Data from two NASA telescopes have revealed the presence of a galaxy that had eight times the mass of our own Milky Way when it was less than a billion years old. "This galaxy appears to have 'bulked up' amazingly quickly, within the first few hundred million years after the big bang," remarks team member Bahram Mobasher of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the European Space Agency.
Astronomers used the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes to take an inventory of very distant galaxies. Within the region of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which contains nearly 10,000 galaxies, one known as HUDF-JD2 stood out. The light coming from it originated when the universe was about 800 million years old and indicates that the stars within it are heftier than expected. "This would be quite a big galaxy, even today," says Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. "At a time when the universe was only 800 million years old, it's positively gigantic." The researchers describe the find in papers slated for publication in the November and December issues of the Astrophysical Journal.
(article continues below)

The discovery, together with recent findings of mature stars in other early but less massive galaxies, may force astronomers to reconsider theories of general galatic formation. The planned launch (after June 2013) of the James Webb Space Telescope, armed with light-collecting power to see even more distant objects, should help further unravel the mystery.

 

[bob b]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_10_170/ai_n16753237

Spiral galaxy in the young universe
Science News, Sept 2, 2006 by Ron Cowen

The Milky Way today is a spiral-shaped disk of swirling gas orbiting a central hub of stars--signs of a mature galaxy. Researchers have assumed that most younger galaxies are misshapen and full of chaotically moving gas.

Now, astronomers have identified a galaxy that had already begun to resemble the modern Milky Way when the universe was only 3 billion years old, one-fifth of its current age.

In a high-resolution search of the heavens, a team led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany used one of the four Very Large Telescopes in Paranal, Chile, outfitted with a rapidly deformable mirror. The mirror compensates for the blurriness caused by Earth's turbulent atmosphere.

This optical system revealed a large, gas-rich spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. The researchers were able to identify features as small as 4,000 light-years across even though the galaxy resides 10 billion light-years from Earth, they report in the Aug. 17 Nature.

The new images "provide the most detailed glimpse so far of the formation of a galaxy similar to our own Milky Way," comments astrophysicist Robert Kennicutt of the University of Cambridge in England. Researchers had assumed that young galaxies were misshapen because collisions between galaxies were common in the young, dense universe. The existence of massive, well-formed galaxies at such an early time in the cosmos poses a challenge to theorists, Kennicutt adds.

 

[mighty_duck]

Unsurprisingly, all your sources don't mention the UHDF but use older and less precise findings. All of them mention a time 4-6 Billion years after the big bang - plenty of time for most galaxies to reach their familiar shapes.

The Hubble UHDF image captured a time as early as 300-700 million years after the big bang, and found very different looking galaxies.
"[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]This image is the deepest view in the visible that we've ever taken, where an object about as bright as a firefly on the Moon would be visible," said Massimo Stiavelli, of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore and the UHDF project leader.


Stiavelli said the new image is six times more sensitive than previous deep sky surveys and four times better than even Hubble's last faraway looks, the Hubble Deep Fields (HDFs), taken in 1995 and 1998."
source



[/FONT]

 

[PlastikBuddha]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_10_170/ai_n16753237

Spiral galaxy in the young universe
Science News, Sept 2, 2006 by Ron Cowen

The Milky Way today is a spiral-shaped disk of swirling gas orbiting a central hub of stars--signs of a mature galaxy. Researchers have assumed that most younger galaxies are misshapen and full of chaotically moving gas.

Now, astronomers have identified a galaxy that had already begun to resemble the modern Milky Way when the universe was only 3 billion years old, one-fifth of its current age.

In a high-resolution search of the heavens, a team led by Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany used one of the four Very Large Telescopes in Paranal, Chile, outfitted with a rapidly deformable mirror. The mirror compensates for the blurriness caused by Earth's turbulent atmosphere.

This optical system revealed a large, gas-rich spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. The researchers were able to identify features as small as 4,000 light-years across even though the galaxy resides 10 billion light-years from Earth, they report in the Aug. 17 Nature.

The new images "provide the most detailed glimpse so far of the formation of a galaxy similar to our own Milky Way," comments astrophysicist Robert Kennicutt of the University of Cambridge in England. Researchers had assumed that young galaxies were misshapen because collisions between galaxies were common in the young, dense universe. The existence of massive, well-formed galaxies at such an early time in the cosmos poses a challenge to theorists, Kennicutt adds.

Perhaps you could walk us through how you went from "a challenge to theorists" to a young universe bypassing all of the other astronomical data in existence?

 

[bob b]

Perhaps you could walk us through how you went from "a challenge to theorists" to a young universe bypassing all of the other astronomical data in existence?

It's back to the drawing board time !!

Astronomers had theories which explained everything in a very neat manner, until new observations will noww force them to scrap the old "evolution of galaxies" concept to something else that will fit the observations.

I have more links to more "surprising" observations that also don't fit current theory.

Their problem is coming up with a new "naturalistic" theory that will fit all the "wild" observations beginning to flood in.

Stay tuned. We live in exciting times.

 

[mighty_duck]

It's back to the drawing board time !!

Astronomers had theories which explained everything in a very neat manner, until new observations will noww force them to scrap the old "evolution of galaxies" concept to something else that will fit the observations.

I have more links to more "surprising" observations that also don't fit current theory.

Their problem is coming up with a new "naturalistic" theory that will fit all the "wild" observations beginning to flood in.

Stay tuned. We live in exciting times.

Do any of these "surprising" observations use the latest images - namely UHDF images - that support your nonsense about galaxies always being fully formed in their current shapes?

 

[BalanceofJudgement]

The origin of the DNA/RNA/protein interlocked system and the origin of sexual reproduction have been scientific mysteries for many decades now and still defy all efforts to fit them into evolutionary theory. They will remain scientific mysteries, because they did not arise "naturally".

Really then hears a kicker for you experiments have been done involving simulated comet impacts and interestingly these impacts have been seen to cause formation of amino acids, or your second alternative amino acids have been found in comets and could have hitched a lift in this way the following links are to articles on these theories both are in essence very similar

http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_51_100/origin_of_life.htm

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020330/fob1.asp

 

[bob b]

Do any of these "surprising" observations use the latest images - namely UHDF images - that support your nonsense about galaxies always being fully formed in their current shapes?

Always fully formed in their current shapes?

Did I ever say that?

I don't think so.