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"Peer Review" Makes Mockery of Science

04/13/08

There once was a time when to have a scientific paper published, it had to be - well, - scientific. Not so any more it appears. Peer Review has become more like Snob Review or Mate Review, and the so-called "prestigious" journals are making a mockery of themselves and of science.

Whilst discussing Electric Universe concepts on public forums one often comes across self-appointed xspurts* in cosmology who dismiss EU for its lack of publication in Peer-Reviewed journals. When for example, items published in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science are cited, then the IEEE is not considered "prestigious" enough or sufficiently qualified to comment on cosmological matters. Yet paradoxically cosmologists think themselves qualified to comment on plasma physics. They want to have their cake and eat it too. And they're not willing it seems to share the cake around.

[*x = an unknown quantity, spurt = a drip under pressure...]

Why does this matter to anyone? Because, Joe Average, not only is it your tax dollars which pay for this outrageous elitist regime, but your children are being slowly brainwashed into believing that some of the most inconceivable theories ever devised by man are now established fact. Take the so-called Big Bang for instance, which for all intents and purposes goes something like "Once upon a time, nothing went BANG!". Whilst that may seem a simplistic summary, it is none-the-less how the Fairy-Tale goes. But after years of intelligent people questioning the validity of such a concept, we now have the cosmologists answering "Oh no, it wasn't nothing which went bang, it was another universe which had contracted down to a singular point...". I kid you not.

Take this recent release from that bastion of all things scientific and true, Physorg.com.

Before the Big Bang: A Twin Universe?

April 09, 2008
By Lisa Zyga

Before the Big Bang: A Twin Universe?

The new study suggests that the universe that came before our own universe was its identical twin. Image credit: NASA and ESA.

Until very recently, asking what happened at or before the Big Bang was considered by physicists to be a religious question. General relativity theory just doesn’t go there – at T=0, it spews out zeros, infinities, and errors – and so the question didn’t make sense from a scientific view.

But in the past few years, a new theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) has emerged. The theory suggests the possibility of a "quantum bounce," where our universe stems from the collapse of a previous universe. Yet what that previous universe looked like was still beyond answering.

Now, physicists Alejandro Corichi from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Parampreet Singh from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario have developed a simplified LQG model that gives an intriguing answer: a pre-Big Bang universe might have looked a lot like ours. Their study will appear in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.

"The significance of this concept is that it answers what happened to the universe before the Big Bang," Singh told PhysOrg.com. "It has remained a mystery, for models that could resolve the Big Bang singularity, whether it is a quantum foam or a classical space-time on the other side. For instance, if it were a quantum foam, we could not speak about a space-time, a notion of time, etc. Our study shows that the universe on the other side is very classical as ours."

[ ... ]

More information: Corichi, Alejandro, and Singh, Parampreet. "Quantum bounce and cosmic recall." Arxiv:0710.4543v2. Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters.

Did you get that last bit? Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters. And cosmologists have the cheek to call such tripe science, and a journal which publishes such tripe "prestigious". Whilst sarcasm is often described as the lowest form of wit, sometimes I find it hard to contain myself.

<overt sarcasm>

  • "The new study suggests that the universe that came before our own universe was its identical twin." I suggest this study is a waste of our money...

  • "Until very recently, asking what happened at or before the Big Bang was considered by physicists to be a religious question." because they had no answers...

  • "General relativity theory just doesn’t go there – at T=0, it spews out zeros, infinities, and errors " no wonder it spews...

  • "and so the question didn’t make sense from a scientific view." and now it does???...

  • "But in the past few years, a new theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) has emerged." because people keep pestering us for answers...

  • "The theory suggests the possibility of a "quantum bounce," where our universe stems from the collapse of a previous universe." they actually consider this a possibility ... I guess by modern scientific logic it's also a possibility that the Underpants Gnome is responsible for my boxers going missing - however I still choose to think it is highly unlikely...

  • "Yet what that previous universe looked like was still beyond answering." but now we have an answer thanks to the kind donations which made this study possible...

  • " ... have developed a simplified LQG model that gives an intriguing answer: a pre-Big Bang universe might have looked a lot like ours." Intriguing? More like nauseating...

  • "The significance of this concept is that it answers what happened to the universe before the Big Bang," notice the subtle way they go from a concept to a definitive statement without batting an eyelid...

</overt sarcasm>

You get the picture, I'm sure. I could go right through the whole article and add the same type of commentary, but surely there comes a point when it's just not funny any more. Instead, it's sad. No, make that deplorable. In the end, it's OUR MONEY they constantly waste on these thought experiments in the name of scientific rigor, and it's OUR KIDS who are reaping the rewards, so long as they accept this garbage as legitimate science. For surely if they don't, there's no way they're going to get that PhD... because the peer-review system has become a self-serving and self-supporting joke cloaked in the esteem of "prestigious" scientific journals.

Dave Smith.

 

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For a comprehensive central repository of links to study Plasma Cosmology/Electric Universe please visit: PlasmaResources.com


davesmith_au
Dave Smith (davesmith_au) is an independent researcher and Managing Editor of the Thunderblog.

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