02-21-20 - Science Groupthink and the Invisible Heretics by Stephen Goodfellow

Science Groupthink and the Invisible Heretics

by Stephen Goodfellow, 2020

"Time Gentlemen, please" 4 x 6ft Primary Micropointillism on canvas (by author)

What is Groupthink? Groupthink - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Groupthink is the greatest and most destructive impedance to the survival of our species. This presentation touches on one of the greatest facets of this curse: Groupthink in science.

Before we go to the scientific aspect of Groupthink, here are some other examples you may be familiar with; habitual pitfalls for our species, some of which have caused the death of millions and have resulted in untold misery. War: "...This tendency for acute stress to increase perpetual rigidity in individuals may be reinforced by similar mechanisms operating at other levels of analysis. At the smallgroup level, stress-induced in-group pressures can under certain conditions generate 'groupthink' Uanis, 1972), a concurrence-seeking tendency which can increase resistance to policy change through illusions of unanimity and invulnerability, moral certainty, self-censorship, and collective rationalization. At the organizational level, although crisis stress can improve performance,39 under certain conditions it can lead decision-makers to perceive that their own already limited options are narrowing, while those of the adversary are both larger in number and expanding (Holsti, 1972: ch. 6). There is also a tendency for decision-makers to perceive the policymaking processes of other states as more centralized than they actually are Uervis, 1976: ch. 8), and thus to assume that an adversary's policies are freely chosen to achieve certain goals rather than forced by bureaucratic or domestic pressures. This tendency is reinforced by a parallel psychological tendency for individuals to perceive that the actions of others are intentional rather than constrained, and to perceive that one's own actions are limited and forced by circumstances, as emphasized by attribution psychology (Kelley, 1972). These factors, acting independently and also interactively with military routines, further impede the likelihood of change..."

Link: Organizational Routines and the Causes of War

http://fas-polisci.rutgers.edu/levy/articles/1986%20Organizational%20Routines.pdf

Actual war Groupthink examples: A. The "Schlieffen Plan" (linked below) 1914, confidently invoked in WWI by the German high command, believing it would lead to a swift victory. It didn't. (See link below)

B. "Operation Barbarossa"; WWII; Germany confidently invaded Russia expecting to win before winter arrived. There was no 'Plan B'. The German army froze. C. The "Final Solution", a small group of Nazis sit around a table and calmly discus the an implementation to exterminate millions of Jews. At the Nuremberg Trials several of the decision makers claimed they essentially went along to get along. Groupthink at its worst.

Link: The ‘Balance of Power Paradox’ The Schliffen Plan:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390600566423

Groupthink examples in Business

https://work.chron.com/groupthink-examples-business-21692.html

The main theme of this presentation,

Groupthink in science and its consequences:

History: One of the most egregious historical Groupthink pitfalls has to be the 1,500 year dark age of Geocentrism, in which astronomers insisted that the Earth was in the center of the Solar System despite Aristarchus' (300 BC) proposal that it is a Heliocentric system, with the Sun at the center.

It ought to have been a warning to contemporary science.

A short, succinct video overview of Groupthink in science:

Link: PYSci: Groupthink, a silent threat to your Science

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=KH8GugvYbfg&feature=emb_logo

The human factor can be the Achilles Heel of an entire scientific discipline. Collected data is interpreted, a cohesive model emerges and starts to gather proponents. These write papers, publish books, teach students. In short, the model becomes a livelihood.

Imagine then, reinterpretation based on new data comes along and completely negates the standard model and makes your achievements invalid.

This becomes fertile ground for Groupthink, and has infected the Astrophysical and Cosmological community.

When a concept becomes ingrained, no matter how convincing, when a revolutionary paper proceeds through the scientific process and is eventually submitted for review to the peer group for evaluation, the personal, financial incentive to to find reasons for disqualification becomes a justification; the Groupthink belief system comes into play because the submission is viewed as a threat to the status and financial well being of the group model. This is especially true it the peer group is confronted with an aspect of science that the group is largely unfamiliar with.

Examples of scientists who became victims of scientific Groupthink:

Radio astronomer Halton Arp, disputed the 'Big Bang' and challenged Redshift interpretation. Both of these concepts are 'holy cows' in the scientific cosmological community, which earned Arp the ire of the astrophysical community, relegating him to Groupthink ostracization. For his data interpretation he found himself denied time on the radio telescopes which were his bread and butter:

"...He was known for his 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which (it was later theorized) catalogs many examples of interacting and merging galaxies, though Arp disputed the idea, claiming apparent associations were prime examples of ejections.[1] Arp was also known as a critic of the Big Bang theory and for advocating a non-standard cosmology incorporating intrinsic redshift...''

Link: Halton Arp:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp

Hannes Alfvén, Nobel prize recipient who advanced the field of plasma study was rarely published in astronomical and cosmological journals, despite plasma consisting of 99.9% of the Universe. Being mostly versed in gravitational behaviour, his cosmological peers' knew little to nothing about plasma physics. Rejecting his papers, he became a victim of the same Groupthink that very much pervades the discipline to this day.

"...Alfvén's disagreements with Chapman stemmed in large part from trouble with the peer review system. Alfvén rarely benefited from the acceptance generally afforded senior scientists in scientific journals..."

Nobel Prize winner, Hannes Alfvén - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannes_Alfv%C3%A9n#Research

This segue brings us to two particular scientific subjects that have fallen victim to Groupthink in science.

The first is the 'Big Bang', the cosmological claim that the Universe had a beginning.

For decades. arguments against the Big Bang have routinely been dismissed by peer group review, the proponents of alternative theories regarded and relegated to the status of cranks and heretics.

It is important to understand that possibly as much as 99.99% of the matter that makes up the Universe a state called 'Plasma'. Not the biological stuff that flows through your body, but a physics Plasma.

With solid, liquid and gas, plasma is considered to be the 4th state of matter, so before we proceed, here is a short primer on Plasma:

PLASMA - The Boss Of All States Of Matter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqzWfguYj1c

Heretic resources:

Plasma phenomenon in contemporary popular media is rarely mentioned, possibly even less so in astronomical and cosmological journals (although by the sheer pressure of new observational data in the last couple of years, this appears to be slowly changing.)

On the below site you are treated to the daily solar behaviour and summerizations of physics papers, especially those dealing with the plasma and electrical phenomena that is largely excluded from the more influential journals.

The video site has a very strong heretic tenor, the antithesis of the gravity-centric Groupthink that presently pervades contemporary astronomical and cosmological physics journals and their powerful itinerant media.

The site has 250,000 subscribers.

Suspicious0bservers

https://www.youtube.com/Suspicious0bservers

This below video clip is from the above-mentioned site. This is one of many astrophysical phenomena that that have been discovered to exist in such close proximity to the moment of the hypothesized Big Bang, that they would not have sufficient time to evolve within the context of the theory. Despite this accumulating evidence, the Big Bang remains virtually unassailable in the cosmological community.

Perhaps the advent of the Webb Space Telescope, 20 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope may finally overwhelm this Groupthink.

(Clipped video from Suspicious Observers, first item, ignore the rest)

Too old, too close to the 'Big Bang'

https://youtu.be/H7dU8eLogqo?t=227

(Clipped video from Suspicious Observers, first item, ignore the rest)

Here is a follow-up with good visual on the same Big Bang conundrum:

Big Bang and pesky Galaxies too close:

https://youtu.be/MMn3ftBk3vA?t=156

Unless you live in a cave (with no internet) you must have very much been aware of what is deemed the greatest #1 astrophysical discovery of 2019:

First Ever Image Of A Black Hole Captured By Astronomers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oONOMQM2JM8

If you obtain your news from the popular scientific journals or the media, you would never know that there are dissenters who suspect the data is corrupt, but they are out there; you just don't get to know about it:

(Clipped video from Suspicious Observers, first item, ignore the rest)

M86 'Black Hole' data under scrutiny

https://youtu.be/MMn3ftBk3vA?t=220

There are more but for brevity's sake, here are two heretics that comment on the M86 'Black Hole' data:

The first one, Dr. Robitaille was already mentioned by the above link. Here is his fairly extensive criticism of the M86 image:

The Black Hole Image - Data Fabrication Masterclass!

https://youtu.be/yc9PB_4F-OU?t=26

So who is this Robitaille fellow, and what qualities him to make such pronouncements?

Here, the Groupthink guardians spring into action:

"...Pierre-Marie Luc Robitaille a.k.a. Sky Scholar (born 1961) is an accomplished radiologist and a Nobel disease-type crank..."

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pierre-Marie_Robitaille

And here, a less vociferous overview:

"...Dr. Pierre-Marie Robitaille joined The Ohio State University in 1989. From 1989-2000 he served as Director of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research..."

http://wiki.naturalphilosophy.org/index.php?title=Pierre-Marie_Robitaille

As a layperson, considerable effort has to be expended to decide what version you wish to go with, but from a personal perspective, I would not necessarily take the conventional narrative at face value.

Here is another individual who has issues with the M86 Big Bang image. Wal Thornhill is one of the progenitors promoting awareness of electric fields and plasma:

(Clipped video for brevity)

Black Hole or Plasmoid? Thornhill

https://youtu.be/J4NffTr_GMk?t=34

So who is Wally Thornhill?

I did a search on Wikipedia. Nothing there.

Then I searched his name on the Web; 25,400 results, leading to articles and videos.

How could someone so influential in the plasma community not be mentioned in Wikipedia? Could the scientific Groupthink guardians have such power? The answer is yes.

Example: Despite there being several alternative solar models to be found in papers and journals, only the problem-frought Hydrogen-Fusion solar model is presented. Again, dedicated Groupthink Guardians make sure you don't get to know about these. (You can see them in action by making a Wikipedia account and search the publishing history. You will see the dedicated Groupthink guardians hard a work, censoring the topic.)

Now one could argue that this is pure resentment, that these are resentful crackpots on the scientific fringe that only serve to muddy the waters of knowledge.

However, staying on the subject of Black Holes and plasma phenomena, consider this:

Black Holes, Plasma and Peer Review

Here is a study on Black Hole published journal papers that DO and DO NOT mention “Plasma”.

Writing a paper about Black Holes without mentioning Plasma is like writing a paper about Water Management without mentioning water.

Try this experiment. Go to Google Scholar and type: ["black hole" and "plasma"]* into the query box. You will receive about 47,400 results. These are publications that mention plasma.

Now type: ["black hole" -plasma]* You will receive 1,010,000 results. These are black hole publications that do not mention plasma.

1,010,000 divided by 47,000= 21.3080

(*the numbers fluctuate daily, but not to any significant degree.)

So, for every Black Hole paper that mentions plasma, 21 black hole papers do not.

What's the problem with that?

The purported violence that is supposed to surround Black Holes is reasonably assumed to be in the form of a rapidly spinning accretion disk.

This disk would almost certainly have to be in a high energy plasma state, and the only observable, hard data that can be derived from a surrounded Black Hole phenomenon would have to be emissions from the radiative plasma.

It is these emissions that scientists must rely on to tell them anything about the purported Black Hole phenomenon, so not mentioning this aspect of Black Holes in any published paper on the subject is positively ludicrous.

Let's take this a step further.

What are the ratios of Black Hole Journal papers that DO refer to plasma, in relation to those that DO NOT - on an annual basis from 1958 to 2016?

Using a Google Scholar* search of journal paper publication output, a comparison of those Black Hole papers that DO NOT include the word “plasma” ["black hole" -plasma] (graph line in red,) to those Black Hole papers that Do include the word “plasma” ["black hole" and "plasma"] (graph line blue.)

(*The Google Scholar data was gathered April 21st, 2018)

In light of this data, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the peer review system is largely made up of cosmologists who have little or no understanding on what plasma phenomenon must have on a hypothesized Black Hole system.

In order to get a paper published in a relevant journal, it must pass a peer review process.

If only one in 21 published papers mention the plasma phenomenon, either there simply too few papers addressing the plasma phenomenon, or such papers are consistently rejected. Either way, if the data graph below is correct, the evidence is disturbing.

Moderating the following statement acknowledging that some of the papers that do not mention plasma behaviour might be specific in topic (I'm sure there must be articles written about 'water utilities' that don't include the word 'water',) I would suggest that individuals that have published - and I suspect the vast bulk of these papers which are intended to be descriptive...these individuals and groups are either ignorant of the existence of plasma, don't consider it of any consequence (in other words, fools,) or are outright charlatans who have no business in the field of Astrophysics or Cosmology.