- Ben Stein achieved notoriety as a numbingly deadpan schoolteacher
in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Now, he is working on a project
that promises to expose the unfair censorship of "smart ideas"
from scientific discussion.
-
- The documentary "Expelled," due out in February
2008, already has a trailer. Its promotional tagline is: "Big Science
has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom. What they forget is that
every generation has its Rebel!" However, the trailer exclusively
discusses the Neo-Darwinism Vs. Intelligent Design debate -- very unfortunate,
in my opinion, since said debate is, as one brilliant skeptic described
it, a false dilemma. (See The False Dilemma of Neo-Darwinism Vs. Intelligent
Design, by Ted Pace:
- http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/controversies/Dace_evolution.htm)
-
- Nevertheless, I hold out hope that Stein might be willing
to examine scientific censorship outside the confines of the inane, diversionary
"science vs. religion" hoax. The truth, from my perspective,
is that scientific and religious officialdom have almost equally failed
us (although since religion has killed many more people, at least to date,
I think we have to say it has failed us more.)
-
- On the film's official website --
- http://expelledthemovie.com -- members of the public
can submit suggestions for film subjects. If you think a heroic, "vanguard"
scientist or researcher has been unfairly ridiculed and dismissed by scientific
officialdom, this is your chance to speak up about it. The list of such
individuals is (sadly) quite long -- far too long for all the deserving
candidates to receive proper coverage in a feature-length film.
-
- At least one Electric Universe enthusiast has submitted
his own suggestion on behalf of the science. His name is Chris Reeve, a
smart, dynamic young man who has been working tirelessly, with no compensation
or accolades, to raise public awareness of the Electric Universe and Plasma
Universe. His commentary below is a very thoughtful yet conversational
synopsis of mainstream astronomy's and astrophysics' disastrous omission
of electrodynamics and experimental plasma science from their models. I've
no idea if Ben and his team will "get it," but Chris' commentary
serves as a thought-provoking introduction to the issues involved....
-
- Ridiculing Electricity in Space
-
-
- By Chris Reeve
-
- My hope is that David Talbott will create his own entry.
I'm entering this one just in case he lacks the time.
-
- The story is quite a long one, but I'll do my best as
it is also perhaps the most important thing happening within science today.
What I ask of any readers is that you dispose of your current belief system
in regards to space at least long enough to understand what is being said.
I'll break the situation into "background" and then "ridicule".
-
- The Background
-
-
- Plasma is the fourth state of matter. It is like a gas,
but differs in that some of its electrons have been stripped from the atoms,
resulting in particles that possess either negative or positive charges.
Within the laboratory, these charged particles behave as complex electromagnetic
phenomenon that act independently of the gravitational force. Turning a
gas into a plasma requires surprisingly little such ionization. Less than
1% ionization is required to turn a gas, which largely acts as a fluid,
into an electromagnetic phenomenon that ignores gravity. Within the laboratory,
a plasma will change in luminosity and electrical resistance based upon
differences in charge density input. What many people do not realize is
that plasmas can continue to conduct electricity in a dark mode, where
they do not emit any electromagnetic energy. But there are more things
that people do not understand.
-
- First, space is filled with plasmas. This has become
an accepted fact. Many astrophysical textbooks now acknowledge that matter
within the plasma state constitutes 99.99% of all visible matter in space.
Another thing that people do not fully consider is that astrophysics is
an interpretive science. It is rare that we get the opportunity to perform
input-output experiments. Instead, astrophysicists are constantly having
to interpret their observations. Unlike the amazing technology that surrounds
us, an astrophysicist will not necessarily receive negative feedback if
their interpretation is incorrect. There are numerous interpretations that
can work for any specific observation, and we don't always have the luxury
of observing objects change over time. What people don't realize is that,
relative to the general manner in which the field is perceived, there is
great potential for error within the field of astrophysics. Our survival
or success depends little, at least at the moment, on the efficacy of these
theories in describing our immediate surroundings. But, considering that
astrophysics acts as a surrogate queen of the sciences, attempting to link
all of the domains together in a unified manner, it's critical that we
pay close attention to the danger, as it can percolate into the other sciences.
The mainstream astrophysicists are all unanimously taught to believe that
space plasmas can be modeled as fluids (rather than with electrodynamics
equations, which are used within the laboratory to model plasmas). This
is due to a field called magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), where they are taught
that given some volume of space, the number of positive charges will be
equal to the number of negative charges. In other words, over some volume
of space, the space can be considered to be mathematically "quasi-neutral".
And this allows them to assert that gravity is the dominant force acting
upon matter within the universe in light of the relatively recent (last
few decades) observations that space is filled with charged particles.
The Electric Universe Theorists allege nothing more shocking than that
space plasmas are being incorrectly modeled as fluids within the field
of MHD. We should model them as they appear to us within the laboratory.
Were it not for the observational evidence that suggests it is so, they
would have no case. The evidence for electrical space plasmas continues
to build on a weekly basis. Week after week, astrophysicists who do not
understand what EU Theory states continue to ignore it in formulating their
interpretations in favor of interpretations that conform to the theories
we developed long before we even had the ability to observe so many charged
particles in space.
-
- The Ridicule
-
-
- My name is Chris Reeve and I have been an advocate of
the EU Theorists for a year and a half now. I spend large amounts of time,
free of charge, trying to educate people about what the theory says on
Slashdot under the handle, "pln2bz". I'm one of the few people
who have actually read enough of their materials to realize that these
people are onto something extremely important. That basically constitutes
reading two or three books: "The Electric Sky" by Don Scott,
"The Electric Universe" by Wallace Thornhill and "God Star"
by Dwardu Cardona. The majority of my attempts to educate people on Slashdot
have been met with ridicule. Most people would prefer to call me a "nutcase"
or "crackpot" advocating my "pet theory" rather than
consider the arguments that I put forth. I am for the most part the only
person advocating the theory there because everybody else, over time, has
been chased away.
-
- Dave Talbott has surely sustained his own dose of ridicule
for his own research. Dave started out in the field of comparative mythology,
a discipline which attempts to parse out historically irrelevant information
from that which possesses true historical value from ancient documents
and stories. Contrary to popular belief, it is a real discipline with actual
scientific methodology. What a lot of people do not realize is that the
field has been plagued for decades with difficulty. Many of the interpretations
of documents have been somewhat nonsensical in an astrophysical sense.
People from completely different continents tell of a Sun that was fixed
in the sky and unmoving, among many other major problems. This is not Dave
Talbott's problem. This is a problem for the discipline. Dave ultimately
met Wallace Thornhill, an independent thinker who introduced him to the
concepts of plasma cosmology, and ultimately realized that comparative
mythology *did* make sense within a plasma-based cosmology. In retrospect,
it's a bit strange that it has been so elusive that a theory of the universe
would be based upon the universe's primary visible constituent (!). But
anyways, things started to fall into place for Dave once he learned about
the behavior of electrical plasmas within the laboratory. For the first
time in human history, a person was finally able to understand the common
thread that links together many of the stories of mythology and unusual
writings in ancient documents. What has been discovered is truly historical,
but there was one big problem: it was extremely strange. Strange is perhaps
even an understatement. The sequence of events that Dave learned occurred
to ancient humans was both catastrophic and eminently unusual.
-
- The story of the past 10,000 years of existence on this
planet, as Dave Talbott and Dwardu Cardona eventually learned, would not
pass the stink test for most people. Although they can discuss in great
detail the evidence supporting their theories, all the way down to specific
translations of specific documents, most people will ridicule them for
their findings rather than consider the evidence that supports the findings.
Then, there was Halton Arp, who discovered that matter was being created
at the centers of spiral galaxies and ejected along the axes. His numerous
observations disturbed mainstream astrophysicists so much that they refused
to publish his paper within the Astrophysical Journal. He subsequently
lost his telescope time in the United States and had to move to Germany
to continue his observations, which were not predicted by EU Theory, but
which do work with it. He and his observations have been largely ignored.
The guy that actually created the field of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD),
Hannes Alfven, was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize for his creation. But,
during his acceptance speech, he attempted to dissuade astrophysicists
from modeling space plasmas as fluids (specifically, the frozen-in magnetic
field concept). He called the frozen-in concept "pseudo-pedagogical"
-- an idea that appears to help, but which dangerously misrepresents what
is truly happening. He was completely ignored, and the technique continues
to be used to this day. When Kristian Birkeland discovered that the aurora
borealis was accompanied by changes in the magnetic field in the Arctic
Circle, he concluded that this was the result of electric currents in space
originating from the Sun. In addition to his expeditions to the Arctic
Circle, he also built a terrella ("small earth") to simulate
the phenomenon, which added further confirmation for his theory. The British
weren't having any of it (Birkeland was Norwegian). One of his detractors,
Sydney Chapman, refused to actually observe the terrella in operation,
and continued to denigrate Birkeland's work long after it became accepted
that the Sun was in fact sending charged particles at the Earth. Wallace
Thornhill successfully applied the Electric Universe Theory in the mid-90's
to the Deep Impact Mission. He accurately predicted most of the results
of that mission by postulating that comets were in fact electrical phenomenon,
as opposed to sublimating volatiles. His accurate prediction has been completely
ignored even though NASA's own theories on that mission defy common sense.
-
- Just last week, I was called a "psychopath"
for believing in and advocating EU Theory on Slashdot. I oftentimes have
difficulty getting people to even look at links, images or videos that
confirm EU Theory. Forget convincing people to read entire books! The idea
that space plasmas are electrical is apparently less acceptable to people
than the notion that space-time is warped or even some of the strange concepts
of quantum mechanics. When I show people canyons on rocky planets and moons
in the solar system that move both up and down with the terrain, in apparent
defiance of gravity, people refuse to consider the implications. There
was a day when the "Martian Spiders" at Mars' south pole were
considered to be one of the most enigmatic features of the solar system.
People completely ignore the fact that these objects look like electrical
patterns (technically called Lichtenberg Figures). If they saw one in their
front yard, it goes without saying that they'd *assume* that it was a lightning
strike. EU Theory has become the punching bag for physicists. When I post
to the Slashdot forums, I am consistently called a "Troll" if
I mention anything about "Electric Universe". But, if I just
talk about space plasmas being electrical, I will receive a more favorable
response. There is a knee-jerk reaction to the phrase "Electric Universe"
that brings out the playground bully in people. I hope Dave Talbott or
somebody else decides to write about it here, as they can surely relate
more stories of ridicule than my specific experiences, and they've been
struggling to raise awareness of the issue for many years now.
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