Contrabang! #18 If Cosmology Is In Crisis...

This week there are only a couple brief items from Starts With A Bang! to address. We'll also take a look at a couple bonus news items from this week that are relevant to that blog's doctrine.

If Cosmology Is In Crisis, Then These Are The 19 Most Important Galaxies In The Universe (link)

Since cosmology is in crisis, I guess those 19 galaxies are pretty important. Contrabang! has previously covered the so-called crisis, which is that scientists get different numbers when they estimate the age of the universe with different methods. One method has been to use cepheid variable stars, which oscillate with a frequency that is believed to be proportional to luminosity. There are many such stars in our own Milky Way. Another method is to use Type 1A supernovae, which are believed to have consistent luminosity (an assumption we doubt). Supernovae are much rarer than cepheid stars, but powerful enough to be observed at far greater distances.

There are 19 galaxies where both cepheid variable stars and Type 1A supernovae have been observed. We should expect that the two different methods would at least produce similar results for those 19 galaxies.

This small sample could be inherently biased, a legitimate worry among astronomers in the field. [...] With more examples and improved data, cosmologists hope to finally resolve this conundrum.

It's the usual pattern. When evidence seems to contradict the favored theories, assume that there must be other evidence somewhere else that doesn't.

Astronomy Faces A Field-Defining Choice In Choosing The Next Steps For The TMT (link)

This discusses opposition in Hawaii to the construction of a massive new telescope atop Mauna Kea.

The overwhelming majority of astronomers recognize that the preferred site for TMT, atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, would be the technically superior location to build it. But doing so would ignore the objections of many citizens whose concerns and values have been marginalized for over a century.

The left like to use the word marginalized. Apparently, if someone has been marginalized in the past, they must be exalted today. There is also some loose language in here of the objections of "many citizens." It is not US citizens at-large being considered. For example: I, a citizen, object to not building a 30-foot telescope on Mauna Kea. See? No one cares. What he really means is that the people of the Hawaiian nation have objections. They are Hawaiians, not Americans. The slippery language here is meant to convey that they are a separate nation of people without actually saying they are a separate nation of people.

A substantial percentage of the native Hawaiian population not only opposes the construction of any new telescopes or structures atop Mauna Kea, but view the very proposal of the TMT atop Mauna Kea as continuing a long history of disregard for their basic rights.

Which basic rights are being disregarded? As citizens of the US, none are. They have no particular religious claim to the mountain peak, nor is the US government allowed to acknowledge it, as we can't even have tributes to the Ten Commandments in Bible Belt courthouses. The claim, basically, is that the Hawaiians have different rights regarding public land use because of their race.  It is an inherently racist viewpoint, which is why the language is so carefully nonspecific.

The history of Hawaii tells a story of imperialism, colonization, exploitation and legal violence.

I agree. This blog's post from almost exactly two years ago - Democracy's Demographic Demonry - took on the subject of America's treatment of Hawaiians. From that post:

Hawaii is only 10% Hawaiian. When they were annexed by the US in 1898 they were 20% Hawaiian. Just a few decades before that they were 97% Hawaiian. The largest ethnic group in Hawaii today is Japanese, followed by whites. The Japanese are there largely because US businesses dominated the islands and recruited Japanese laborers as plantation workers. The Hawaiians were outnumbered before 1898 but still ruled the islands through their monarchy. It's pretty appalling really. The Americans drastically altered the islands' demographics, then forced democracy on them, meaning the Hawaiians lost control of their own lands. They are so hopelessly outnumbered today that there's no chance of Hawaiians regaining control of their islands. They are doomed to forever be a minority in their own land.

 Reportedly, many do not comprehend just what the Hawaiians have been subjected to.

A lot of people, even within the astronomy community, are having a difficult time understanding why a segment of the population is reacting to TMT with the furor and vitriol they’ve seen

The Hawaiians have been rendered virtually powerless in the land of their ancestors. They have little opportunity for positive acts of self-determination, so they pursue the other side of things - obstructionism. Whether or not another telescope is built is not the major issue so much as venting a nation's worth of grievances. The real problem isn't the astronomy, it's the invasion.

When I am emperor, I will handle Hawaii by fully restoring the old monarchy. The Hawaiian nation will regain power over the Hawaiian islands, with the exception that military protection will be provided by America, which will maintain control of a few key areas such as Pearl Harbor and the Mauna Kea scientific zone.

Glitch in neutron star reveals its hidden secrets (news link)

If there's one thing in all astronomy that we know is false, it is neutron stars. In order to explain regular oscillations of powerful X-ray and gamma radiation seen in distant stars, they've come up with an exotic model of a star collapsed to a hypothetical state of pure neutronium, which spins at relativistic speeds and somehow powers the strongest magnetic fields in the cosmos. While it never should have been accepted as standard science in the first place, it certainly should have been thrown out when "glitches" of oscillation speed were observed. Instead, they've created increasingly complex models to account for "starquakes" where mass moves vertically within the star, altering the rotational velocity.

“Immediately before the glitch, we noticed that the star seems to slow down its rotation rate before spinning back up,” Dr Ashton said. “We actually have no idea why this is, and it’s the first time it’s ever been seen. It could be related to the cause of the glitch, but we’re honestly not sure,” he said adding that he suspects this new paper to inspire some new theories on neutron stars and glitches.

In modern astronomy, contradicting evidence doesn't throw out absurd theories, but reveals "hidden secrets" which are really just highly complex and improbable models that have been conjured up by physicists.

Bonus: Dark Matter May Be Older Than the Big Bang (news link)

Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang.

If there is a second construct from astronomy we know is false, it is dark matter.

For a long time, researchers believed that dark matter must be a leftover substance from the Big Bang. Researchers have long sought this kind of dark matter, but so far all experimental searches have been unsuccessful. "If dark matter were truly a remnant of the Big Bang, then in many cases researchers should have seen a direct signal of dark matter in different particle physics experiments already," says Tenkanen.

All efforts to find this dark particle have been futile. The obvious conclusion...that it doesn't exist? Nope. That dark matter is so ancient and mysterious that it predates the existence of the entire universe. They're getting really weird, even by their own standards.