Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Atom That Never Existed: Bohr's Model



The Bohr model is baseless and oversimplified. Werner Heisenberg, who was working in Bohr’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher, developed the principle which showed that electrons do not orbit the nucleus in well defined circular orbits. This is commonly referred to as the Uncertainty Principle: It is not possible to precisely determine the momentum, or energy, and the position of a particle simultaneously.

"The individual who has from childhood visualized the atom in the manner pictured by Bohr...cannot be expected to look with enthusiasm on the prospect of life without a nucleus. We can, of course, remind him that the Bohr atom has long since vanished from the scene and that the 'official' atom of modern physics cannot even be imagined, so the experts say, much less pictured. We can also point out that 'atomic energy' and 'atomic physics,' the terms that will have to be substituted when the nucleus is discarded, are already in common use." ~
D. B. Larson, The Case Against the Nuclear Atom (August 1962) http://www.reciprocalsystem.com/cana/cana04.htm

“In the face of a fact there is only one possible course of action for the scientist, namely acceptance, no matter how much the fact may be at variance with his anticipations, and no matter what havoc it may wreak on his carefully thought-out theories.” ~Bridgman, P. W., Mid-Century, edited by John Ely Burchard, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1950, page 230.

The scientific method, as it came into being during the Enlightenment period, is a method of thought known as empiricism or as the empirical method. Under the terms of empiricism, all conclusions are, must, and can be drawn from observable evidence and from observable evidence only. Evidence must precede any and every conclusion to be drawn from it. Then, if sound logic governs in the relationship between evidence and the conclusion drawn from it, that conclusion will be irrefutable.

"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." ~Max Planck

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Purchasing Consensus: Peer Review and The Age of Dogmatism

Werner Karl Heisenberg - pioneer of quantum mechanics

The Age of Dogmatism

Empiricism has been lost in this age of dogmatism, where many seek validation from peer-review rather than from empirical evidence. The entire peer-review process is highly suspect, for it has largely become a process of purchasing consensus. Peer-review is only designed to show that a study is worthy of further investigation, nothing more.

It is evident that the peer-review process has become perverted by corporate interests. So often it is used to impose consensus on the "scientific" community at large rather than to promote further investigation. To purchase consensus by the "scientific" community, through the stamp of approval called "peer-review," is not science; it is the antithesis to science. Theory has largely replaced empirical evidence in much of what passes as science today. This is nothing more than dogmatic "science."

Dogmatic "science" has failed us and has produced arrogant demagogues, like Michio Kaku, Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who attempt to enforce their materialist worldview in the media through an appeal to authority, over and above physical evidence. What these demagogues say is taken as gospel and is used by materialist followers in their quest for confirmation bias.




Simply because a paper is peer-reviewed does not mean that the paper is conclusive nor that it has been validated. Peer-review is a low-grade process of filtering out bad papers, but it is certainly not infallible.

The Peer-Review Process is Flawed: The "CRAP" Paper

One pertinent example of fallibility in the peer-revew process is a paper submitted to The Open Information Science Journal by Philip Davis and Kent Anderson, entitled "Deconstructing Access Points." It was an intentionally senseless paper produced by a computer program called SCIgen. Davis and Anderson left a clue for the publishers as to the authenticity of the paper where they stated their institutional affiliation as the Center for Research in Applied Phrenology (CRAP).

As NewScientist.com reported:

"[Philip] Davis teamed up with Kent Anderson, a member of the publishing team at The New England Journal of Medicine, to put Bentham’s editorial standards to the test. The pair turned to SCIgen, a program that generates nonsensical computer science papers, and submitted the resulting paper to The Open Information Science Journal, published by Bentham.

The paper, entitled 'Deconstructing Access Points' made no sense whatsoever, as this sample reveals:
'In this section, we discuss existing research into red-black trees, vacuum tubes, and courseware [10]. On a similar note, recent work by Takahashi suggests a methodology for providing robust modalities, but does not offer an implementation [9].'"

The "CRAP" paper was accepted and published by Bentham Science Publishers' Open Information Science Journal, and while this does not completely invalidate the "peer-review" process, it does highlight the fallibility of "peer-review."

The Age of Empiricism

We must turn from this age of dogmatism to an age of empiricism. We must learn to conjoin all forms of knowledge, and find true empirical science again through its origins: interdisciplinary natural philosophy. We must stop relying upon theory as a basis for knowledge; no longer can we rely on theories where we should be relying on evidence. Evidence must come before theory.





Sources:

"CRAP" paper accepted by journal: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17288-crap-paper-accepted-by-journal/

SCIgen: https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/archive/scigen/

Deconstructing Access Points (pdf) - Confluence - Cornell University: https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/2523490/Access+Points.pdf