Copernican Principle, 1532-2013, RIP- Why Cosmology Is About to Get Interesting

Planck has reported.

The Axis of Evil is real.

The Copernican Principle (which is the irreducible, foundational assumption of modern cosmology) has been observationally falsified.

The universe's largest visible structure is aligned in completely inexplicable ways with supposedly insignificant Earth.

This is now established, scientific, observational fact.

"The Principle" is now the one movie that you really must see this year, since it is only every few centuries or so that the foundational assumption governing our entire worldview comes crashing down.

The ESA press release includes (suitably buried under paragraphs of reassurances that almost everything fits)..........

“The fact that Planck has made such a significant detection of these anomalies erases any doubts about their reality; it can no longer be said that they are artefacts of the measurements. They are real and we have to look for a credible explanation,” says Paolo Natoli of the University of Ferrara, Italy.

“Imagine investigating the foundations of a house and finding that parts of them are weak. You might not know whether the weaknesses will eventually topple the house, but you’d probably start looking for ways to reinforce it pretty quickly all the same,” adds François Bouchet of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris.

All you powers shake.

Can't you feel the way they tremble?

UPDATE 3/22:

Following quotes from Planck Results paper XXIII "Isotropy and statistics"

There are 7 distinct anomalies reported in addition to the mutual alignment of quadrupole and octupole: 

"the low variance (Sect. 5.2), hemispherical asymmetry (Sect. 5.3), phase correlations (Sect. 5.4), dipolar power modulation (Sect. 5.5), generalized power modulation (Sect. 5.6), parity asymmetry (Sect. 5.7) and the Cold Spot (Sect. 5.8). Each of these anomalies may represent different violations of the fundamental properties of isotropy and/or Gaussianity of the CMB data which are assumed in the estimation of the CMB power".

There is a distinct angular power asymmetry between the north and south hemispheres, with a "remarkable" lack of power in the direction of the north ecliptic pole:

the observed properties of the Planck data are consistent with a remarkable lack of power in a direction towards the north ecliptic pole, consistent with the simpler one-point statistics presented in Sect. 5.2."

There is "a highly significant detection of both non-Gaussianities and anisotropies":

"We detect pronounced signatures for both non- Gaussianities and anisotropies........a highly significant detection of both non-Gaussianities and anisotropies in the Planck data, consistent with those obtained previously with WMAP data .......the asymmetry was found to be highly significant for the whole range l=2−600."

 There is an odd parity preference in the data, which indicates the low quadrupole power is not an isolated anomaly:

"Therefore, the odd parity preference cannot simply be attributed to the low quadrupole power. It is plausible the low quadrupole power is not an isolated anomaly, but that it shares an origin with the odd parity preference"

 There is evidence of anisotropy on large angular scales "which could have profound implications for cosmology":

"In particular, there is evidence for a violation of statistical isotropy at least on large angular scales in the context of the Planck fiducial sky model........In addition, there is evidence from such fits that the low-l spectrum of the Planck data departs from the fiducial spectrum in both amplitude and slope. These results could have profound implications for cosmology. "

The CMB is "manifestly non-Gaussian and anisotropic", but the anomalies are not related to galactic foregrounds or contamination: 

"The microwave sky is manifestly non-Gaussian and anisotropic, with known contributions from Galactic astrophys- ical foregrounds, lensing of CMB anistropies by the intervening matter distribution, and the ISW. However, the excellent per- formances of the component separation algorithms used here in rejecting diffuse foregrounds argues strongly against known Galactic emission as the source of the anomalies."

Mary's Bones Part V: How Did Those 24,000 Carbon Year Bones Get Inside Those 80,000,000 Radiometric Year Rocks?

In Mary's Bones Parts 1, II, III, and IV, we have followed the amazing story of dinosaur bones, purportedly 60-80,000,000 years old (based on the radiometric dating of the strata in which the bones were found), which present the extreme anomaly of soft tissues, hemes, and collagen.

Over at the Talk Rational blog, an extensive debate was engaged on just what the scientific method requires, when Red Dots such as these present themselves to our attention, as precious opportunities to experimentally test (and potentially falsify) that which we think we know.

After several hundred posts where, we were assured, such dino bone anomalies:

1. Don't exist,
2. Even if they do, constitute no challenge to the theory of evolution,
3. Cannot be carbon dated since they are too old,
4. Can be carbon dated to detect modern contamination,
5. Cannot be carbon dated since they will all be contaminated,
6. Can be prepared so as to remove modern contaminants,
7. Cannot be prepared so as to remove modern contaminants............

We finally, at the tail end of the thread, are presented with, at long last, an indication that not all evolutionary scientists have completely departed the realm of science after all.

In this post we are linked to a study which dates- by C14 test- dinosaur bones from Cretaceous (supposedly 65-80 mya) strata.

The bones C14 date to approximately 24,000 carbon years, consistent with dozens of similar C14 tests on other Cretaceous dino bones throughout the world.

On the one hand we can congratulate the team for dating the bones.

On the other we must now ask our Darwinist friends to explain to us how bones that date to 24,000 carbon years got inside rocks that date to 65-80,000,000 radiometric years.

Ain't science fun?

Repost: Consilience- Welcome To The Post Scientific World

I repost this in order to take advantage of recent increased traffic on the blog.

It is one of the things I have discovered that will be most relevant in the examination of both the Copernican Principle, and the closely related principle of evolution via mutation and selection.

Our first film, "The Principle", deals with the former.

Our second, with the latter.

You believe that the Universe (the better informed among you believe that our Hubble bubble) originated in a Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago.

You believe that the Earth is about 4 billion years old; that life has evolved from one or more primordial ancestors (most of you believe in abiogenesis as well, but are at pains to insist that you are not required to say so, since you cannot demonstrate this belief experimentally- but as we shall see, most of you think you have even better grounds upon which to believe it anyway).

You believe that random mutation and natural selection are completely adequate means by which to explain the observed biodiversity of our world.

The vast majority of you believe that man’s appearance is also explainable by these means. 

A (much smaller and understandably shrinking) subset of you believe that God must have intervened in the process at the point where man first appears.

The better informed among you are aware that none of these assertions has been demonstrated experimentally (that is, not one of these assertions is scientific, as that word has been understood by Einstein, by Popper, by every great discoverer of scientific principle in history.......until the advent of this post-scientific world).

But even (especially!) the better informed among you believe these things, and you believe them so strongly that you scorn any suggestion that experimental demonstration of these beliefs might reasonably be demanded.

You believe that you have something better than experimental demonstration, which confirms you in these beliefs.

That “something better” is consilience.

Consilience is the only persuasive argument that the post-scientific worldview (the worldview of inflation, of dark matter and dark energy, of the multiverse, of String Theory, of “Deep Time” neo-Darwinism) has ever advanced.

It has persuaded you, and it has persuaded (may God help us), even Princes of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church now proposes consilience as relevant- in some vague but apparently real way- even for Catholics:

“.......new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis.  It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge.  The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”--

Pope John Paul II, Address to Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996

Here it is proposed that the note of scientific truth is found, not in experimental test with the intention of falsifying assumed knowledge, but in the “convergence, neither sought nor fabricated” among independent branches of research.

Consilience is also a key to understanding the Nouvelle Theologie: instead of the Traditional Catholic proclamation “outside the Church there is no salvation”, we are presented with a dialogue among mutual seekers of Truth, all of whom “tend to converge” upon some objective Truth which lies, perhaps, somewhere further down the road of the “convergence” (consilience).

In the scientific world, something was established by experiment, and always subjected to crucial experiment, ceaselessly, *with the intention of falsifying what we might think we know*.

In the post scientific world, experiment exists merely to resolve difficulties in the path of the consilience, of that which we *already have determined that we know*.

In the Traditional Church, salvation was something possessed by the Catholic Church in its fullness, and all dialogue was intended to assist the pagan, the Jew, the heretic, the schismatic, in coming to understand and accept this.

In the modern Church, salvation is, also, something dispensed in unknowable ways by God, to those who seek that consilience, that Truth, which lies somewhere, perhaps, down the road of the dialogue, closer to the convergence of the consilience among the truth-seekers.

Truth is objective, in Traditional Catholic teaching.

Scientific truth is the result of ceaseless experimental challenge, in the scientific world.

Truth is relative, evolving, and the mutual object of truth seekers more or less aligned with the consilience toward which they are “converging”, in the Nouvelle Theologie.

Scientific truth is the result of consilience between lines of investigation, in the post scientific world.

Welcome to the post scientific world.

"The Principle" Update

Those of you who have supported us with your prayers, please redouble them, as we are on the verge of almost incomprehensibly big things :-)

Those of you who have harbored bitter and vicious notions of impeding or discrediting "The Principle"- well, very few of you seem to pray so I really don;t know what to suggest to you other than that you buckle your seatbelts.

Next couple of weeks should settle it.

A Tale of Two Masses

At 9:00 am, in a little parish church in a working class neighborhood, the pews are packed, chairs set up in the back of the church likewise.

At the front of the church, classes of confirmandi; boys to one side, girls to the other. I am surprised at how many- probably 60-70 teenagers in all.

The Latin Mass (Low Mass) is offered reverently, the homily is a reflection on the Gospel reading of the Transfiguration.

The prayers after Low Mass are recited by the whole congregation, and at least half the church remains behind afterward, to pray.

At 5:30 pm, in a parish church built in the form of an hyperbola in one of the richest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the pews are three quarters empty.

The band, consisting in guitar, electric bass, drums, and piano, rehearses right up to the moment that the priest enters.

The Novus Ordo Mass is offered reverently, the homily is a reflection on the "resignation" of the Pope (he is just too old, and has found out that he wasn't really in charge after all- he is referred to repeatedly as "Ratzinger").

The priest reads a letter "from a friend" describing the kind of Pope he hopes will be elected (one who "wears pants" instead of "ridiculous regalia").

The Church is empty within two minutes of the end of Mass.

Catholic Catechism Test #1- Name That Heresy

Following are words of the teachers of two different religions.

One is Catholic.

The other is an heretic.

Can you name the authors?

First, the Catholic:

"I believe in my heart and openly profess that the bread and wine placed upon the altar are, by the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of the Redeemer, substantially changed into the true and life-giving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, and that after the consecration there is present the true body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and offered up for the salvation of the world, hung on the cross and now sits at the right hand of the Father, and that there is present the true blood of Christ which flowed from His side. They are present not only by means of a sign and of the efficacy of the sacrament, but also in the very reality and truth of their nature and substance."

Then, the heretic:


“In reality, body and blood of Christ does not signify the physical parts of the man Jesus during his life or in his glorified body. Body and blood here signifies specifically the presence of Christ in the symbolism of bread and wine. … 

“We now have communion with Jesus Christ, through the eating and drinking of the bread and wine. Just as in an interpersonal relationship, a letter can show the friendship between persons and illustrate the affection of the sender for the recipient.” ... 

“The nature of these gifts can be clarified only in their relation to man.The essence of the bread and the wine, therefore, must be defined in an anthropological way. The natural character of these offerings [bread and wine] as a fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, as units of natural and cultural products, is to strengthen and nourish man and the human community in the character of a common meal. … This natural essence of the bread and wine is transformed by God in the sense that this nature of bread and wine now shows and achieves salvific communion with God.” 

The Hermeneutic of Homosexuality?

The grotesque truth behind the abdication of the Pope begins to emerge.

Let the full extent of the perversion, of the satanic destruction of the Catholic Faith by the "magic circle" of homosexualist priests, bishops, and cardinals, finally be brought into the light of day.

Mother of God, intercede for us, that we may have a strong Catholic Pope!

http://www.businessinsider.com/pope-resignation-linked-to-gay-lobby-2013-2