| J. Collar, J. Puibasset, T.A. Girard, D. Limagne, H.S. Miley, G. Waysand, First Dark Matter Limits from a Large-Mass, Low-Background, Super-heated Droplet Detector, Phys. Rev. Letters v. 85, No. 15 (2000) 3083-3086 |
- The Popperian Method
The Collar team is a group of latter-day alchemists based in Chicago. They are in the business of developing ever more
sophisticated detectors.
What do they expect to detect with these detectors?
They hope to detect, as Collar states in his bio,
- "hypothetical astroparticles (WIMPs, axions, magnetic monopoles, any yet-to-be-discovered
component of cosmic rays that might constitute a fraction of the 'dark matter')" [1]
The Collar Group is developing an expensive state-of-the-art saddle just in case they find a horse some day. Meanwhile,
its members go through the motions of mounting a fantastic flying beast called Pegasus which they read about in the
scientific mythology.
The Collar Group follows the maxim 'publish or perish.' Write about anything, but write. Don't worry about quality or meaning
or genuine breakthrough. Focus on volume. After you've published 10 or 20 papers on a subject, you are by definition a
certified expert. Who's gonna question you? That's a long list of referees you went through. Ergo, your theory is confirmed
when people recognize your name.
Collar and diverse members of his group have written profusely. Collar himself has co-authored at least 16 papers since
the year 2000. That's more than 1 paper per semester! Clearly, the members of his group know how to play the game.
They do a couple of experiments, get a cup of coffee, and write.
What do they write about?
They write about petty stuff -- what else can they write about if they spit one paper after another? They can't take a break
to do some real thinking because they compete for editorial space and funds against other university groups and think
tanks. So they write over and over again about a 'hypothetical' particle, about a Pegasus known as dark matter, and about
the stunning progress they made and promise to do.
Collar has been writing about mythical flying horses for over 8 years -- he should be an expert by now. What can he tell us
about them?
Well, his last paper is suspiciously very much like his first one; he seems to have made little progress. In 2000, he
concluded his 'First dark matter limits...' paper with a promise:
- " The intrinsic insensitivity of SDDs to most undesirable backgrounds, low cost of
materials involved, and simplicity of production and operation opens a new door
to dark matter detection."
- In one of his latest articles titled, 'A bubble chamber for dark matter detection', he gives us an update:
- " Heavy-liquid bubble chambers can be made stable-enough to be used in searches
for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs)." [2]
Collar and friends are perpetually improving their equipment at ever greater savings to the taxpayer so that they can
continue searching for this hypothetical, invisible entity until kingdom come. Collar still can't tell us what dark matter is
or whether it exists or not. Day in and day out he searches for dark matter without understanding what it is that he is
looking for:
- "In astrophysics and cosmology, dark matter refers to hypothetical matter of unknown
composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be
observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on
visible matter. According to present observations of structures larger than galaxy-sized
as well as Big Bang cosmology, dark matter accounts for the vast majority of mass in
the observable universe... All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of
galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts
with electromagnetic radiation: the remainder is called the "dark matter component". [3]
- The reason the mathematicians invented dark matter was to explain phenomena they could not explain with the
poppycock of relativity:
- "the rotational speeds of galaxies and orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters, gravita-
tional lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet cluster, and
the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies". [4]
Unfortunately, the mathematicians read more into these 'inferences' than warranted by Science and pass them
off to the public as 'proofs':
- "A DIRECT EMPIRICAL PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF DARK MATTER...
An 8σ signficance spatial offset of the center of the total mass from the center of the
baryonic mass peaks cannot be explained with an alteration of the gravitational force
law, and thus proves that the majority of the matter in the system is unseen." [5]
The idiots at the Mathematics Asylum equate 'proof' with 'inference.' Since in their micro minds they can find no
other answer to what they observe, they urge you to accept their reasoning as proof. Sensitive to the prevailing
protocol, they take extra care in being politically correct: only an experiment can tell us whether a chair exists.
The mathematicians got this nonsense from Popper's idiotic logic. Popper believed that science is something
you falsify with an experiment. The mathematical moron extrapolates Popper's 'jaw-dropping' logic to the instant
dissertation, knowing full well that the readers have been conditioned to the same paradigm. So he adds for
good measure that, obviously, the existence of a chair can only be confirmed through an experiment:
- "The actual existence of dark matter can only be confirmed either by a laboratory
detection or, in an astronomical context, by the discovery of a system in which
the observed baryons and the inferred dark matter are spatially segregated." [4]
[No kidding? I wonder what experiment you would run to confirm the existence of God.]
- Collar and his group apparently have not heard that dark matter has already been proven, confirmed, and ratified
by the Chandra legislature. So you wonder what it is that all of these folks are still looking for. We should uncork
the champagne bottles and look for new jobs. It's done. Dark matter is now a fact. What more is there to look for?
Science laughs at Popper and falsifiability
In Science, we do things a little bit differently. Any issue involving existence belongs to the stage known as the
hypothesis. The proponent either produces an exhibit or makes an assumption. If the hypothesis is rational, the
proponent may continue on to his theory. Otherwise, he is taken to the Tower and his head is chopped off. We
call it meritocracy.
Dark matter is not a rational proposal because, though insinuated as a physical entity, it does not qualify as an
exhibit. Dark matter is a theory presented in the guise of a hypothesis. The stupid morons of Mathematics are
incongruously explaining what is supposed to be a physical object. (Think of 'explaining' what a rock is! This is
what they are attempting to do.)
Unfortunately for them, dark matter does not qualify as a physical object because it was suggested as an ad hoc
solution to a problem. The mathematicians are justifying the necessity of a ghost on the basis that they have no
other explanation for why the curtain moved. They call this a proof. Then they give lip service to the proof anyways
and continue searching for dark matter as if nothing had happened, mainly to justify their own existences.
And so under the mainstream version of science, Collar and his group have job security for years to come. They
are a team of ghost busters perpetually perfecting their 'superconducting antenna' in hopes of using it to come in
contact with a lost soul some day. Meanwhile, they periodically keep you posted on their progress.
| Falsifying falsifiability |
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- Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008