The Politicization of Climate Science

[dodge]

“Stage Director” -- that’s the problem with not being familiar with current science, you jump to erroneous conclusions. You make an unsubstantiated statement, “Yet here we are today with science acknowledging that it (dark matter) isn’t where they thought it would be, and current data doesn’t concretely support dark matter.”

What are your sources that would lend credence to such a statement? Can you point to any astrophysicists who say “current data doesn’t concretely support dark matter?”

Fact is, though we can’t directly see dark matter, we know it’s out there.

Did you know that all the planets, stars, galaxies and gas that can be seen today make up only four percent of the Universe? The other ninety-six percent is made of stuff nobody can see, even with the most powerful telescopes. This strange invisible stuff is actually two things: dark matter and dark energy. Astronomers know this stuff is out there because of the effects of gravity they can see on the objects that are observed. Most mathematical models support the assumption that dark matter exists. The argument isn’t so much about whether or not it does exist, rather what dark matter actually is.

If you really were interested in educating yourself about this subject, I could suggest some books that would help you to understand.

DARK MATTER, DARK ENERGY, DARK GRAVITY: Enabling a Universe that Supports Intelligent Life, by astrophysicist Stephen Perrenod,

THE 4 PERCENT UNIVERSE: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, by Richard Panek (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, copyright 2011).

Just last week, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope studied a giant filament of dark matter in 3D for the first time. It extends sixty million light-years, and is part of the cosmic web that constitutes large-scale structure of the Universe. The theory that at the first moments of the Universe the bulk of the matter in the cosmos condensed into a web of tangled filaments is supported by computer simulations of cosmic evolution, which suggest that the Universe is structured like a web, with long filaments that connect to each other at the locations of massive galaxy clusters. However, these filaments, although vast, are made mainly of dark matter.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1016092208.htm

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but astrophysicists are talking about cosmic evolution that suggest galaxy clusters form where filaments of the cosmic web meet, with filaments slowly funneling matter into the clusters. Filaments of the cosmic web are largely made up of dark matter which can’t be seen directly, but their mass is enough to bend the light and distort the images of galaxies in the background in a process called gravitational lensing.

You can learn about this by reading Evalyn Gates’ book EINSTEIN’S TELESCOPE: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe, where she tells us that gravitational lensing “is the only way to map the strands and filaments of dark matter that stretch across the vast reaches of the Universe in a web that was sculpted by gravity and stamped with the imprint of dark energy.”

The standard “big bang” cosmological model is called Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (Lambda-CDM), that includes dark matter because it’s necessary to account for gravitational effects observed in very large scale structures that can’t be accounted for by the quantity of observed matter. Lambda-CDM became the standard model following the observation in 1998 that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion, and supported by other observations.

It looks to me that you haven’t spent a lot of time looking into these things, “Stage Director.” Every book I’ve mentioned I have and read. I go out of my way to become informed about these things, because science is a passion of mine.

I suppose now you’re going to do some flash searches in an attempt to find sources that refute all of this, being the contrarian that you are.

[stage director]

Survey finds no hint of dark matter near Solar System
In the largest survey of its kind to date, astronomers scouring the space around the Solar System for signs of dark matter — the hypothetical material believed to account for more than 80% of the mass in the Universe — have come up empty-handed......If confirmed, the surprising result would upend a long-established consensus, researchers not involved in the study say
http://www.nature.com/news/survey-fi...system-1.10494

Serious Blow to Dark Matter Theories? New Study Finds Mysterious Lack of Dark Matter in Sun's Neighborhood
The most accurate study so far of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the Sun. According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighbourhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0418111923.htm

Dark matter mysteriously missing around sun
Astronomers first proposed the existence of dark matter to explain why stars moved the way they did in the Milky Way. It was as if extra matter was present, exerting a gravitational pull that influenced the motions of the stars.........According to widely accepted theories, the neighborhood around the sun should be filled with dark matter, with billions of these particles rushing through us every second. However, the most accurate study yet of motions of stars in the Milky Way now has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the sun.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47101905...ng-around-sun/

Dark Matter Is Missing in Sun's Neighborhood?
Substance isn't "where we needed it" to match theories, researcher says.......Dark matter is mysteriously missing from the sun's neighborhood, according to a new study that could provide ammunition for skeptics who argue that the invisible substance is just an illusion.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...space-science/

See that's the thing, Dodge. Every last article admits that dark matter is a theory, that it's hypothetical, yet it has been put forth as fact. ESSE QUAM VIDERI... To be, rather than to seem.

Does dark matter exist? I sure don't know, but neither do scientists despite the fact it seems the most likely explanation. Science today is having a major problem distinguishing between what has been absolutely proven vs what it rationalizes as being the most likely explanation. It is depending on circumstantial evidence and ignoring contradictions to that evidence.

It's not that someone like me doesn't think a good case has been made for human induced climate change, or even for dark matter. It's that I don't totally trust the findings of a scientific community that establishes theories as facts when they are still under investigation.

[stage director]

Stage Director” -- that’s the problem with not being familiar with current science, you jump to erroneous conclusions

Exactly, Dodge. But don't feel bad. Maybe you were busy with other important things when this report came out?

[dodge]

Well, “Stage Director,” let’s look at your sources one by one. The first is from Nature magazine, by Ron Cowen, in an article titled Survey Finds No Hint of Dark Matter Near Solar System dated April 19, 2012.

This is about a study trying to find dark matter by surveying the space around our solar system by Christian Moni Bidin and his colleagues. Their results indicated that “only about one-tenth the amount of dark matter predicted by models could exist in the volume of space they examined.”

If you read the article, you would see that it says Scott Tremaine, an astrophysicist at Princeton, and others, “won’t be convinced unless other teams, making their own observations, arrive at the same conclusion.” (By the way, I have an email correspondence with Professor Tremaine; so I'll ask him what he thinks about all of this)

Also in the article you linked to is Chris Flynn, an astronomer at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, who reviewed the paper. What he said at the time was that the “measurement being made is very challenging, and there are a number of ways for it to miss the dark matter even if it is there.” Flynn agreed to disagree with the authors of the paper and approved it for publication.

Another astronomer mentioned in the article is Heidi Newberg, from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, who noted that the measurement is “dominated by the matter near the plane of the Milky Way, which, unlike the rest of the Galaxy, is expected to be made up mainly of normal matter. That makes it more difficult to tease out whatever dark-matter component may exist in the region.” She went on to say that “in my opinion, many of them will turn out not to be true in detail.”

Flynn agreed that there are a number of ways that the method employed by Moni Bidin and his co-authors “could be wrong.”

“Stage Director,” what you’re seeing here is the process of peer review. Christian Moni Bidin and his colleagues conducted a study, wrote a paper, and had it published. Just in this article alone we find three dissenting opinions about the methodology and the results.

Copying and pasting an article with it’s title and a short paragraph from it doesn’t prove anything. All it does is point out that some scientists have written a paper presenting their research and conclusions.

You sarcastically said “maybe you were busy with other important things when this report came out?” Well, three months after this article, in July of 2012, the University of Michigan published a piece titled:

DARK MATTER SCAFFOLDING OF UNIVERSE DETECTED FOR THE FIRST TIME

University of Michigan July 9, 2012

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Scientists have, for the first time, directly detected part of the invisible dark matter skeleton of the universe, where more than half of all matter is believed to reside.

The discovery, led by a University of Michigan physics researcher, confirms a key prediction in the prevailing theory of how the universe's current web-like structure evolved.

The map of the known universe shows that most galaxies are organized into clusters, but some galaxies are situated along filaments that connect the clusters. Cosmologists have theorized that dark matter undergirds those filaments, which serve as highways of sorts, guiding galaxies toward the gravitational pull of the massive clusters. Dark matter's contribution had been predicted with computer simulations, and its shape had been roughed out based on the distribution of the galaxies. But no one had directly detected it until now.

"We found the dark matter filaments. For the first time, we can see them," said Jörg Dietrich, a physics research fellow in the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Dietrich is first author of a paper on the findings published online in Nature and to appear in the July 12 print edition.

Dark matter, whose composition is still a mystery, doesn't emit or absorb light, so astronomers can't see it directly with telescopes. They deduce that it exists based on how its gravity affects visible matter. Scientists estimate that dark matter makes up more than 80 percent of the universe. To "see" the dark matter component of the filament that connects the clusters Abell 222 and 223, Dietrich and his colleagues took advantage of a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

The gravity of massive objects such as galaxy clusters acts as a lens to bend and distort the light from more distant objects as it passes. Dietrich's team observed tens of thousands of galaxies beyond the supercluster. They were able to determine the extent to which the supercluster distorted galaxies, and with that information, they could plot the gravitational field and the mass of the Abell 222 and 223 clusters. Seeing this for the first time was "exhilarating," Dietrich said.

"It looks like there's a bridge that shows that there is additional mass beyond what the clusters contain," he said. "The clusters alone cannot explain this additional mass," he said.

Scientists before Dietrich assumed that the gravitational lensing signal would not be strong enough to give away dark matter's configuration. But Dietrich and his colleagues focused on a peculiar cluster system whose axis is oriented toward Earth, so that the lensing effects could be magnified.

"This result is a verification that for many years was thought to be impossible," Dietrich said.

The team also found a spike in X-ray emissions along the filament, due to an excess of hot, ionized ordinary matter being pulled by gravity toward the massive filament, but they estimate that 90 percent or more of the filament's mass is dark matter.

The researchers used data obtained with the Subaru telescope, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. They also used the XMM-Newton satellite for X-ray observations. This work is funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Other contributors are from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University; Ohio University; Max Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in Germany; The University of Edinburgh and the University of Oxford.

The paper is titled "A filament of dark matter between two clusters of galaxies."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture11224.html.

http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/206...the-first-time

[dodge]

By the way, all of your other references are repeats of the first. You have four different versions of the same story.

[dodge]

CLIMATE SCIENTIST SUES OVER JERRY SANDUSKY COMPARISON

Live Science October 24, 2012

Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann has filed a lawsuit against The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute for articles that compared him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

Mann's lawsuit concerns two blog posts. The first appeared July 13 on openmarket.org, the blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a nonprofit that promotes free enterprise and limited government. In the post, author Rand Simberg wrote that Mann manipulated data in creating his famous “hockey-stick graph,“ which shows global temperatures rising sharply with increased carbon-dioxide output by humans.

"Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science," Simberg wrote, referring to the Penn State football coach now imprisoned for child sex abuse, "except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data."

Nine investigations of Mann's work, including one by the Environmental Protection Agency and another by the National Science Foundation, have found no evidence of academic fraud.

The CEI removed the references to Sandusky in the original blog post several days after publication, but not before the "The Corner," the blog of the National Review Online, picked up the quote in full and repeated the accusations. Mann and his lawyers filed suit against both organizations on Monday (Oct. 22) in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

To win the suit, Mann's lawyers will have to show that the statements made by the CEI and National Review were harmful, false and made with the malicious intent to injure Mann. They'll also have to show that the organizations should have known the statements were false but published them anyway.

"We do not believe he will succeed," said Sam Kazman, the general council attorney for CEI. "Mr. Mann is a very prominent person in a highly controversial issue involving both science and politics, and I would have thought by now he'd be accustomed to rhetoric that can be quite heated." (Mann is typically referred to as a "Dr." since he has a doctoral degree.)

On his website, Mark Steyn, the author of the National Review blog post, wrote, "I'll have more to say about this when I stop laughing."

Mann said he was motivated to file the suit by years of similar accusations.

"There is a larger context for this latest development, namely the onslaught of dishonest and libelous attacks that climate scientists have endured for years by dishonest front groups seeking to discredit the case for concern over climate change," Mann wrote in an email to LiveScience.

Climate-change belief has become increasingly polarized in the last decade. According to long-running surveys by Yale University researchers, in 2003 only 7 percent of Americans called climate change a "hoax" or a "scam." By 2010, 23 percent were using those terms to describe climate change, indicating an increasing perception of intentional wrongdoing by scientists.

Some of the politicization dates back to the polarizing Clinton era, said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. After Al Gore took on the role of environmental advocate with his 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," Leiserowitz said, those on the other end of the political spectrum began to link Gore and Democrats not only to climate-change policy, but also to climate-change belief.

"They loathe Al Gore," Leiserowitz told LiveScience in August. "Sometimes I joke that Al Gore could hold a press conference tomorrow to say that science has determined that the Earth is round and people out there would say, 'Well, no it isn't.'"

http://www.livescience.com/24253-cli...omparison.html

The most persistent accusation of mistaken temperature measurements focuses on the “hockey stick” chart of global temperatures, first presented by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes. It was included in the IPCC’s Third Annual Report in 2001.

Given its iconic status, it’s no surprise that the “hockey stick” controversy reached the press, the public, and Congress. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), now retired, asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the “hockey stick.” Twelve experts from fields including climate science, geochemistry, statistics, and meteorology were recruited to be part of the Academy Panel.

What happened is that the Academy Panel confirmed the original findings, writing, “The committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the twentieth century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676

Two researchers published a review of the original “hockey stick” in 2007 that left no doubt as to its validity.

Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes Reconstruction, by E.R. Wahl and Caspar M. Ammann, published online August 31, 2007.

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/m...Change2007.pdf

[stage director]

By the way, all of your other references are repeats of the first.You have four different versions of the same story.

Actually, what I have is four mainstream sources that found the research credible enough to publish.

[dodge]

What you said, “Stage Director,” is that “every last article admits that dark matter is a theory, a hypothesis, yet has been put forth as fact.”

That's misleading. There's only one story there, about a group of scientists who studied the space around our solar system and said they didn't find any dark matter. You need to follow up on what you find.

CRISIS AVERTED: Dark Matter Was There All Along
NewScientist May 23, 2012 by Lisa Grossman

Fans of dark matter can rest easy. A study published last month raised eyebrows by suggesting that our cosmic neighborhood is empty of the extra mass needed to hold the galaxy together. But a re-analysis shows that the dark matter was there all along.

But the team made a subtle error, say Jo Bovy and Scott Tremaine of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Moni-Bidin and colleagues considered stars whose orbits take them far above or below the Milky Way's main bright disc, and used the speed at which they orbit the center of the galaxy to figure out how much of a pull they feel from the nearby mass of stars and dark matter. They assumed that the stars' speeds would be the same no matter how far they were from the galactic center. Observations of dust clumps have shown that this assumption is true for young stars orbiting in the galactic disc, which mostly move in a near-perfect circle.

But the stars that orbit high above or far below the disc can't have circular orbits, Bovy says. The only stars that reach such great heights have been kicked away from the disc by matter in the galaxy's spiral arms, which sent them on highly elliptical orbits.

Bovy and Tremaine re-analysed the data and found that the amount of dark matter in the sun's neighborhood agrees with previous prediction – if anything, there might be a littler more nearby dark matter than we thought.

Dark matter's true believers were never really worried. Dan Hooper of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois was sceptical of the original study from the beginning.

“The evidence is going to have to be very strong before you dislodge the long-held opinion that there's a lot of dark matter nearby,” he says.

See On the Local Dark Matter Density, by Jo Bovy and Scott Tremaine at the following link:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4033

“Stage Director” – dark matter exists, we know it does indirectly from gravitation effects...like black holes. Saying that it's a theory or a hypothesis that scientists are "putting forth as fact" is meaningless. A scientific theory is a "well substantiated explanation based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment." Scientists create scientific theories from hypotheses that have been corroborated through the scientific method, then gather evidence to test their accuracy. They are reliable accounts of the real world, and may be simply referred to as scientific fact.