Hi Declan.
Like I said, while I will post rarely from now on (depending on what transpires requiring a response from me), I will be reading you all still. I saw this below; and it deserves a rebuttal response regarding your 'version' etc of what went down with that BICEP2 fiasco.
@ brucep, That's one of the most glaring negative aspects of the "popular" press when trying to report on very complex science. The words and concepts take on a more flexible and fluid meanings than they do in the science journals.
All these "flaws" that are being so glibly spoken of and just what they mean is being spun as bad as any factional political debate you will find on the cable outlets. When a respected science mentions "a possible problem", what the popular press and crackpots see is "The work is wrong!!! Here the proof!!! See I told you so!!!", when the thing actually reported is only "a possible problem". That's how science is done, you always look for possible problems. NO ONE has found any actual problems with the BICEP2 team's work, only suggested that IF there are problems this is where they MIGHT be.
Then you have people like one who I will not mention by name because his head has a tendency to burst into flames, those people who are so involved in their pet crank theory that EVERY word is spun, misconstrued, twisted to validate their crank theory. If you had worked for decades to get your TOE in the final stages of readiness and protected it tooth and nail from all the people out there who are trying to steal it, you would also grasp any straw to keep from having to start over and endure another decades worth of ridicule and derision.
But the actual bottom line as to where the BICEP2 results stands. The work was meticulous to the extreme, it's all there for anyone to view the care and depth they went to before releasing their findings. No one has proven anything like a flaw or mistake (other than cranks no one even asserts that). Planck results will be out in another couple of months. So far BICEP2, has stood the test of close scrutiny. The scientific community as a whole still is confident that Planck will probably confirm BICEP2, only some people have SUGGESTED where any problems MAY lay, as they should for science to work.
I am taking a moment out of my busy reading/working schedule to set you straight, again, as to what actually 'went down' with that BICEP2 obvious publish-or-perish'-motivated announcement/paper farce.
The way you 'tell it' above, is a patent self-serving and apologist 'version' of events, which has been observed by me and other objective mainstream commentators on both the announcement AND the 'work' by the BICEP2 on the 'treatment' and 'assumptions' and their 'massaging' of the data to suit their obvious 'confirmation biases' for BBang etc 'interpretations/conclusions etc.
The 'riders' which they included a bout 'possible problems' were then dismissed on totally UNforunded basis, given that the maths and treatments and conclusions could have been more 'artifacts' of 'mathematical methods' applied, and data-points ignored as 'insignificant' even though they had NO way of telling the difference between the 'signal' and the possible alternative causes 'noise' and 'contra-indications' etc.
Just because they admit 'possible problems' doesn't excuse them for active confirmation biased assumptions/interpretations 'built into' the exercise from the start. Nor does it excuse their 'publish-or-perish' HASTE in announcing and caliming all sorts of things which the data did NOT actually support UNLESS it was 'interpreted' through the confirmation biased self-delusions of many of the 'team' along the way from raw data (limited/flawed at that!) and the 'final paper/conclusions/claims made which implied they has 'evidence' and/or 'confirmation' of 'primeordial' gravity waves signals and 'strong support for BBang hypothesis 'expansion/inflation etc processes.
If you actually read ALL of the MAINSTREAM comments from ALL the later scrutineers of the BICEP2 announcement/claims etc, you will see that mainstreamers who KNOW about these things have ALSO sen that BICEP2 paper/claims/announcement as an obvious 'rivalry'-motivated announcement to be 'first/before' anyone else. On the way, that exercise was RIDDLED with UNscientific assumptions/interpretations/flaws and systemic/methodological 'short cuts' which they then used to dismiss as insignificant the data which was contradicting and the data which was MISSING as well, in order to claim that their 'massaged' GIGO math-treatments 'signal' was what they claimed...when it was immediately clear to anyone objectively reading that 'work' that it was no such thing based on what they had.
It seems that your predilection for your own brand of 'confirmation bias' has led you to 'read' what went down in your own self-serving way, rather than acknowledging
it was NOT ONLY CRANKS that saw the major flaws (and not just 'possible problems, as the 'team' put it which was still dismissed as probably insignificant and would not change their 'finding' etc).
Even after mainstreamers pointed all that out to them, the BICEP2 'team' STILL released their PAPER weeks later as if future Plank data would support their findings!
And more serious still, I had long made comments about the 'mixmaster' of processes across local AND far-deep space reaches of the universe which ATTENUATE and affect all radiation which tends to produce the observed CMB, and that is NOT 'primordial' in origin/process. Even now, the mainstream has yet to account for all the various relevant processes I have identified which would affect the observations made of the CMB. What they are still missing is identified in my upcoming ToE (FYI, I occasionally over the years attempted to start discussions on some of these processes/observations etc, but the usual mod-troll idiocy sabotaged all proper discussion of same so I gave up and will only now explain them via my complete and consistent reality-based ToE publication).
Anyhow, Declan, even mainstreamers saw the farce unfold and why and how it went down as it did from the moment the BICEP2 team decided that rivalry, ego and publish-or-perish imperatives/motives were more important than the strict and rigorous scientific method. So your above biased and 'apologist-for-flawed science' version of that farce is obviously your own 'confection', and not history as it was. So, Declan, now that you have been set straight on what went down with that BICEP2 work/announcement/paper fiasco, please learn from it and drop that unscientific penchant or yours for presenting partial info and confirmation biased 'versions' of what went down there.
If that BICEP2 paper/claims was offered up by some alleged 'crank', you would have crucified them! Yes?
But since it came from 'mainstream' team,
you and your fellow 'true believer' zealots/trolls swallowed it hook-line-and-sinker, simply based on 'mainstream authority/source', even before doing due diligence scrutiny of your own (as I strongly suggested) to find the serious and many FLAWS (no other word for it except maybe 'frauds'?) in that sloppy mainstream offering.
Do better and THOROUGH 'due diligence' before you again attempt to 're-write history' to suit your own personal subjective ego needs and apologist bias for mainstream authority/sources/claims/assumptions etc EVEN WHEN THEY ARE SO PATENTLY WRONG. If you are ever to become a truly objective scientific observer/commentator, you must do better! Good luck, Declan.
Now, if there is no more 'cheap shot' revisions of history and other people, I shall return to read-only mode. Read ya round, Declan, everyone!
