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Please respect the guidelines of this community. This is really unnecessary. > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swip

Please respect the guidelines of this community. This is really unnecessary. > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

scotty79 2y ago
Not sure how you read into any of those things in the parent comment. Dark Age he's suggesting already exists in cosmology in form of short period of rapid inflation that started and ended for no reason other than without it we can't fit inflationary cosmology to observation at all.
- mr_mitm 2y ago
  The GP poster is clearly making fun of dark matter and dark energy, supporting the typical trope among dark matter skeptics that both are mere crutches because most cosmologists refuse to find modifications to gravity for whatever reason. This interpretation is in line with other comments made in this thread by the same account (the one about "dark suction" and others). Inflation has no influence on galaxy formation. Its duration was also a tiny fraction of a second, not years. It's also the first time I have heard it being associated with the term "dark age". The only actual "dark age" in cosmology in the common sense of the term is the period between reionization and first light by stars. Nothing to do with the quasars we are discussing here. It's really hard for me to read the comment in the way you suggest.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Dark Matter is a name for set of observations that aren't explainable with currently accepted cosmological theory. There are many possible ideas of how Dark Matter problem can be solved. Why do you think making fun of specific idea of what might be the cause of Dark Matter problem or even the Dark Matter problem itself is problematic? Did suddenly the deficiencies of current state of science became not funny? Modifications to gravity are one of the possible solutions to Dark Matter problem (just as Machos and Wimps are) but not especially good or plausible ones and deserve being joked about just as much. You can learn more about the problem from this physicist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS34oV-jv_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS34oV-jv_A > Inflation has no influence on galaxy formation. That's completely not what I was talking about. I was saying that the era of rapid inflation that despite being postulated to be just a fraction of a second had immense impact on the shape of the universe can't be swept under the rug just because it's short and is already a kind of "Dark Time" when huge things were happening despite time barely passing. You could equally sensibly postulate that 500 million years since the Big Bang there was a fraction of a second when galaxy formation underwent accelerated progress that aged them few billion years and that explains early black holes and such. Hopefully it won't come to that and more sensible explanation of what JWST sees will prevail. It's true that "dark age" is not talked about in cosmology and is and invetion of the downvoted user. However when you think about it this naming analogy makes perfect sense when there seems to be missing mass it's called dark matter (which makes sense since it looks like the mass is there but it isn't shining), if there's missing energy it's called dark energy (despite the fact that we don't expect it to be shining in any way)... by extension when there's time missing we could call this problem dark time (witch is about as sensible name as dark energy) ... It's a case like scandal in Watergate hotel and then naming all scandals something-gate.
    - throwawaymaths 2y ago
      > Dark Matter is a name for set of observations Angela collier's video is philosophically disingenuous (I do believe she believes what she says). You can't just lump a set of observations together and say it's not a hypothesis. The act of lumping those observations together implies the hypothesis that they share a casual unification. "Observation" in the scientific vernacular carries added cachet because (barring fraud or miscalculation) it's irrefutable and more value neutral, versus a "hypothesis" which is designed to be refuted. Calling the Dark Matter hypothesis an observation is a blatant attempt to inappropriately steal a sense of irrefutability. It's kind of terrifying that smart people are repeatedly using her video as a dunk
      - scotty79 2y ago
        Steal? Irrefutability? That doesn't sound scientific at all. Especially in the context of hypothesis that supposedly accounts for a set of observations unexplainable by status quo, while having zero predictive power so far. The only irrefutable thing is that we observe something that behaves like gravitational attraction from the spots in space that don't seem to emit electromagnetic radiation. "Why is that?" is the Dark Matter problem or question. Anything said beyond that question on this subject is a hypothesis of some form of solution to that question. All of them equally useless so far.
        throwawaymaths 2y ago
        > Steal? > Irrefutability? > That doesn't sound scientific at all We're not talking about science here, we are talking about the philosophy of science. At a trivial level it is still a hypothesis that each deviation from newtons laws (as in on a per galaxy basis) we observe has a common cause. But let's say that's quite trivial and it's an extremely easy hypothesis to accept. There are levels to this. Are the deviations at the galaxy level caused by the same phenomenon as the deviations at the cluster level? Easy to believe, but still needs to be poked at. Slightly harder to believe out of hand than the previous Is the ringing in the CMB caused by the same thing? If you don't admit that that is a harder sell (if even slightly) then that's dishonest. By having grouped all of these distinct observations into one group of observations Angela has slyly implied they are all caused by the same thing, and introduced friction to exploring the possibility that they are not. That is scientifically irresponsible. Especially given, as you say, all the models suck.
- gus_massa 2y ago
  I was not sure about the GP comment, but "complex time axis" near the end and other two similar comments make it look like a bad comment.

scotty79 2y ago

Not sure how you read into any of those things in the parent comment. Dark Age he's suggesting already exists in cosmology in form of short period of rapid inflation that started and ended for no reason other than without it we can't fit inflationary cosmology to observation at all.

mr_mitm 2y ago
The GP poster is clearly making fun of dark matter and dark energy, supporting the typical trope among dark matter skeptics that both are mere crutches because most cosmologists refuse to find modifications to gravity for whatever reason. This interpretation is in line with other comments made in this thread by the same account (the one about "dark suction" and others). Inflation has no influence on galaxy formation. Its duration was also a tiny fraction of a second, not years. It's also the first time I have heard it being associated with the term "dark age". The only actual "dark age" in cosmology in the common sense of the term is the period between reionization and first light by stars. Nothing to do with the quasars we are discussing here. It's really hard for me to read the comment in the way you suggest.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Dark Matter is a name for set of observations that aren't explainable with currently accepted cosmological theory. There are many possible ideas of how Dark Matter problem can be solved. Why do you think making fun of specific idea of what might be the cause of Dark Matter problem or even the Dark Matter problem itself is problematic? Did suddenly the deficiencies of current state of science became not funny? Modifications to gravity are one of the possible solutions to Dark Matter problem (just as Machos and Wimps are) but not especially good or plausible ones and deserve being joked about just as much. You can learn more about the problem from this physicist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS34oV-jv_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS34oV-jv_A > Inflation has no influence on galaxy formation. That's completely not what I was talking about. I was saying that the era of rapid inflation that despite being postulated to be just a fraction of a second had immense impact on the shape of the universe can't be swept under the rug just because it's short and is already a kind of "Dark Time" when huge things were happening despite time barely passing. You could equally sensibly postulate that 500 million years since the Big Bang there was a fraction of a second when galaxy formation underwent accelerated progress that aged them few billion years and that explains early black holes and such. Hopefully it won't come to that and more sensible explanation of what JWST sees will prevail. It's true that "dark age" is not talked about in cosmology and is and invetion of the downvoted user. However when you think about it this naming analogy makes perfect sense when there seems to be missing mass it's called dark matter (which makes sense since it looks like the mass is there but it isn't shining), if there's missing energy it's called dark energy (despite the fact that we don't expect it to be shining in any way)... by extension when there's time missing we could call this problem dark time (witch is about as sensible name as dark energy) ... It's a case like scandal in Watergate hotel and then naming all scandals something-gate.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    > Dark Matter is a name for set of observations Angela collier's video is philosophically disingenuous (I do believe she believes what she says). You can't just lump a set of observations together and say it's not a hypothesis. The act of lumping those observations together implies the hypothesis that they share a casual unification. "Observation" in the scientific vernacular carries added cachet because (barring fraud or miscalculation) it's irrefutable and more value neutral, versus a "hypothesis" which is designed to be refuted. Calling the Dark Matter hypothesis an observation is a blatant attempt to inappropriately steal a sense of irrefutability. It's kind of terrifying that smart people are repeatedly using her video as a dunk
    - scotty79 2y ago
      Steal? Irrefutability? That doesn't sound scientific at all. Especially in the context of hypothesis that supposedly accounts for a set of observations unexplainable by status quo, while having zero predictive power so far. The only irrefutable thing is that we observe something that behaves like gravitational attraction from the spots in space that don't seem to emit electromagnetic radiation. "Why is that?" is the Dark Matter problem or question. Anything said beyond that question on this subject is a hypothesis of some form of solution to that question. All of them equally useless so far.
      - throwawaymaths 2y ago
        > Steal? > Irrefutability? > That doesn't sound scientific at all We're not talking about science here, we are talking about the philosophy of science. At a trivial level it is still a hypothesis that each deviation from newtons laws (as in on a per galaxy basis) we observe has a common cause. But let's say that's quite trivial and it's an extremely easy hypothesis to accept. There are levels to this. Are the deviations at the galaxy level caused by the same phenomenon as the deviations at the cluster level? Easy to believe, but still needs to be poked at. Slightly harder to believe out of hand than the previous Is the ringing in the CMB caused by the same thing? If you don't admit that that is a harder sell (if even slightly) then that's dishonest. By having grouped all of these distinct observations into one group of observations Angela has slyly implied they are all caused by the same thing, and introduced friction to exploring the possibility that they are not. That is scientifically irresponsible. Especially given, as you say, all the models suck.
gus_massa 2y ago
I was not sure about the GP comment, but "complex time axis" near the end and other two similar comments make it look like a bad comment.