Copi, Huterer, Starkman, Schwartz Confirm: Planck Shows 99.6% CMB Alignment With Dipole

The Planck data has been fine-tooth-combed by the Copi, Huterer, Starkman, Schwartz team, and the MNRAS preprint is just up tonight on arxiv.

Bottom line: As expected, the Axis is real, the alignments persist, and they are extremely unlikely within LCDM assumptions.

Excerpts:

At the present time in cosmology there are no compelling alternative models that can account for the anomalies.

(i) the Ecliptic plane is seen to carefully thread itself between a hot and cold spot and there is a clear power asymmetry across the Ecliptic plane;
(ii) the planarity of the octopole and the alignment of the quadrupole and octopole planes is clearly visible – note the re- markable near-overlap of the quadrupole and octopole maximum angular momentum dispersion axes;
(iii) the area vectors lie near each other, near the Ecliptic plane, and also near the dipole direction. 

......alignments persist at the 95 to 99.9 per cent level, with the strongest alignment occurring with the dipole direction (99.6 per cent).....

In all cases the observed alignments reside far in the tail of the expected distributions.

.....even given the relative location of the quadrupole and octopole area vectors (i.e. their mutual alignment), the Ecliptic plane and dipole alignments are unlikely at the 95 per cent level. 

In summary, the quadrupole and octopole alignments noted in early WMAP full-sky maps persist in the WMAP seven-year and final (nine-year) maps, and in the Planck first-year full-sky maps. The correlation of the quadrupole and octopole with one another, and their correlations with other physical directions or planes – the dipole, the Ecliptic, the Galaxy – remain broadly unchanged across all of these maps. Consequently, it is not sufficient to argue that they are less significant than they appear merely by appealing to the uncertainties in the full-sky maps – such uncertainties are presumably captured in the range of foreground removal schemes that went into the map making. 

What Is "The Principle"?

www.theprinciplemovie.com

http://www.facebook.com/theprinciplemovie

http://twitter.com/PrincipleMovie

Five hundred years ago, you were crazy if you thought the Earth was going around the Sun.

Today, you’re crazy if you think it isn’t.

What changed?

That turns out to be a fascinating question, one which involves profound issues of science, of faith, of identity.

While most people assume that it has long since been experimentally proven that the Earth is orbiting the Sun, a simple challenge to name the specific experiment which measured that motion will yield an easily-won bar bet (at least until “The Principle” is released!).

It may come as a surprise to some, but no such experimental proof has ever been obtained.

Remarkably, physics had to be entirely re-conceptualized by Albert Einstein at the beginning of the 20th century; in part because no experiment had been able to directly measure this universally-assumed motion of Earth around Sun.

So, two of our greatest scientific revolutions- the Copernican Revolution and Relativity- are intimately associated with this question of Earth’s place in the larger scheme of things.

The Copernican Principle simply states that Earth is not in any special or central location in the cosmos. It is generalized, in modern cosmology, as the “cosmological principle”; there are no special locations in the cosmos. Under this fundamental assumption, on large enough scales, the universe will look pretty much the same everywhere, and it will look pretty much the same everywhere no matter where you might be looking from.

If this principle is wrong, then everything we think we know about our universe is wrong.

“The Principle” includes interviews with several leading discoverers and theorists wrestling with the implications of recently obtained observational evidence that this foundational assumption of our scientific world view may be wrong, and that our Earth may be very special after all.

Could this question, which has already launched two great scientific revolutions, be coming back around to haunt us yet again?

If we consider the dramatic changes in culture and world-view which accompanied these earlier revolutions, it is not too early to begin to consider........what would it mean for our future, and the future of our children, if it were to be established that the Earth is in a special position in the cosmos; that we are, truly, in some sense, the “center of the universe”?

For All You Nightowls........

"The Principle" trailer just went up at YouTube!

Enjoy!

Facebook, Twitter, and website go live tomorrow.

Important Note Concerning the Blog

I will be spending a lot of time in future- God permitting!- addressing posts to "The Principle" Facebook page, website, and, soon to come, blog.

This is my personal blog, and expresses my personal viewpoint on matters pertaining to its foundational hypothesis.

"The Principle" includes the expression of many viewpoints which do not agree in all, or possibly in any, respects with my own.

I will reserve the more polemical expressions of my own viewpoint, especially concerning scientific and theological issues, to this blog.

Thanks!

Links to "The Principle" Trailer, Launching Monday, December 9!

A two-week viral marketing test of "The Principle" trailer will commence on Monday, December 9, 2013.

The trailer will be available for viewing on Facebook, YouTube, and our website:

www.theprinciplemovie.com

The Facebook page can be searched as of Monday- "The Principle movie"- and the website will go live with a temporary splash page the same day.

UPDATE 12/8: Here are the links to the Facebook page, and our Twitter account. These will not go live until Monday December 9:

http://www.facebook.com/theprinciplemovie

http://twitter.com/PrincipleMovie

Please spread this far and wide through your own networks.

The success of this viral campaign will secure a platform theatrical release for "The Principle" in the United States.

A true viral explosion will secure us even more than that ;-)

And thanks to James and Lucas below for the reminder that there is one thing you can do for our project that is even more important.......

Discovery Institute on the Multiverse as the Ultimate Extension of the Copernican Principle

Spot on, and this matter is explored in detail in some of the additional footage from interviews from "The Principle", which additional footage will be made available on our website.

In order to save the Copernican Principle, some theorists consider themselves logically compelled to assert the existence of a multiverse which itself cannot be subjected to the procedures of experimental science.

It is a remarkable paradox, and one which heralds the coming revolution in science.

The Astonishing Scandal of "Mary's Bones"

I post this link referencing the recent paper by Mary Schweitzer, who has "solved the problem."

I point out that this episode has now reached the stage of outright, grotesque scandal.

If there is anyone who is prepared to understand why the entire research program into soft tissue preservation is a profound departure from the authentic scientific method; that is, if anyone can see what experiment was *not* done, which renders this entire episode scandalous and a true perversion of scientific method, I would like to hear from you.

If I do not, then my next post will explain why this is so.

UPDATE DECEMBER 2 2013:

"The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game."---Karl Popper

• Ch. 2 "On the Problem of a Theory of Scientific Method", Section XI: Methodological Rules as Conventions

I want to let you in on a dirty little secret.

According to Karl Popper's Theory of the Scientific Method above, Mary Schweitzer and team have retired from the game.

They have decided that scientific statements do not call for any further test; specifically, the scientific statement that Mary's Dino Bones are scores of millions of years old.

They have also departed from the scientific method as elaborated by Popper in these specific ways:

"Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is."

>>Evolution forbids Cretaceous fossils to be significantly <65mya.


"A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific." 


>>If evolution is not refutable by the conceivable event that a Cretaceous fossil is found to be <<65mya, then it is non-scientific, that is: it is a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

"Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice."

>>If evolution is not refutable by ANY conceivable event then it is non-scientific, that is: it is a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

"Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it." 


Any genuine test of evolution in the face of Mary's Bones will be seen to be an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. If the test is seen to be, instead, an attempt to defend or support evolution, then we are dealing with a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

"Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks."



>>Evolution forbids Cretaceous fossils to be significantly <65mya.

This represents a testable, risky part of the theory of evolution if and only if:

Any genuine test of evolution in the face of Mary's Bones will be seen to be an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. If the test is seen to be, instead, an attempt to defend or support it, then we are dealing with a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

C14 testing Mary’s Bones is a genuine attempt to falsify, or refute, the risky prediction of evolution that Cretaceous fossils cannot be <<65mya. “Long age biopreservation” is not a genuine attempt to falsify, or refute, the risky prediction of ToE that Cretaceous fossils cannot be <<65mya.

Therefore, if “long age biopreservation” research is chosen over C14 testing of Mary’s Bones, then: we are dealing with a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

“Long age biopreservation” research has in fact been chosen over C14 testing- therefore:

we are dealing with a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

"Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")

>>Since attempts to explore long-age biopreservation are not a genuine test of the theory, they should not count as confirming evidence, because they cannot be considered a serious attempt to falsify the theory.

Therefore, “long age biopreservation” research, chosen in preference to C14 dating, and excluding C14 dating altogether, confirms we are dealing with a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.

“Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.")

>>“Long age biopreservation” is, exactly, a “conventionalist twist”; a “conventionalist strategem”. It is justifiable only on the basis of a metaphysical conception of science- “leading paradigm”- which is directly contradictory to the actual, distinctive characteristic of science: falsifiability of “leading paradigm”.

Therefore any preference of “long age biopreservation” research, over the crucial experimental test of C14 dating, confirms:

we are dealing with a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.


[I]“One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.”[I]

In the face of the refusal to C14 date Mary’s Bones, it is established that the theory of evolution, the neo-Darwinian synthesis and its timeline, is not the result of a scientific research program.

It is a metaphysical research program, and should be assessed as such.

<<65mya Cretaceous fossils cannot be accounted for within the consistent predictions of the ToE.

I conclude:

The Darwinian theory is a metaphysical, not a scientific, research program.