It is amusing to note that the way many scientists promote a novel theory is to argue that their theory is true because the alternative is to accept the hypothesis that the Earth is in a very privileged position in the universe.
For those bored with my rejection of the chance hypothesis in 500 fair coins being heads, here is a far more technical question as to whether chance can create clustering of redshifts by quasars. If quasar redshift grouping is not the product of chance, this implies either the Earth is in a privileged position (which has all sorts of unacceptable metaphysical implications to materialists), or quasar redshifts are not due to expanding space of the Big Bang, or maybe both.
Here is the paper by YP Varshni:
Is the Earth in the Center of the Universe?
Varshni echoes Halton Arp’s observation that The Fingers of God are pointing at you.
NOTES
1. Varshni defends his thesis from other critics here:
Part II
2. Filed under “Privileged Planet”. I recall Jerry Coyne went ballistic when the Privileged Planet hypothesis was presented at the Smithsonian Institution. See:
Showdown at the Smithsonian
3. Here is Varshni’s wiki entry: YP Varshni
Y.P. Varshni (born 1932) is a scientist in the areas of physics and astrophysics.
Varshni studied at Allahabad University, where he obtained his B.Sc in 1950, his M.Sc. in 1952, and his Ph.D. in 1956. He published his first research paper in 1951 at the age of 19. He served as an Assistant Professor in the Physics Dept., Allahabad University for the period 1955-60.
Varshni emigrated to Canada as a postdoctorate fellow at the National Research Council, Ottawa, Canada in July 1960. For the next two years he worked in theoretical physics under Ta-You Wu, a distinguished physicist who in China taught T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957. In July 1962, Varshni was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa. He became Associate Professor in July 1965 and Full Professor in July 1969. He retired in June 1997 and was then appointed as Emeritus Professor. Varshni has worked in a number of areas of physics and astrophysics. He wrote on the Plasma Laser Star Theory of quasars.
He has published more than 260 research papers in important scientific journals. Varshni has also contributed three biographies to the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers.
Varshni is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Institute of Physics (UK) and Royal Astronomical Society (UK) He is also a Full Member of the American Astronomical Society.
This a good example of how worldview effects a person’s interpretation of the evidence. Observations do not interpret themselves and sometimes can be explained in more than one way.
Everyone, no matter who they are, has a framework through they interpret the evidence. Science that deals with the untestable unobservable and unverifiable past, is not as objective as scientists like to portray. It is not anywhere near the same level of objectivity as science that deals with the here and now, and with things that can be observed, repeatedly tested, and verified.
Sal,
When dealing with observational statistics, it is better to look at latest data, not 1970s data on which the paper is based.
It is extremely unlikely that earth is positioned at the center of the universe. So the only alternative is that astrophysicists are misinterpreting the meaning of the redshifted light from distant quasars and the universe is neither expanding nor accelerating. IOW, the Big Bang hypothesis is hogwash. LOL.
There’s a documentary coming out that shows how the scientific community is in panic-mode because of all the evidence coming in suggesting that the Earth is in a special place. Top cosmologists are interviewed:
http://www.theprinciplemovie.com/
Cool George E., As well you might like to know, later this year, 2014, is rumored that “The Privileged Species”, based (I think) primarily on Michael Denton’s work, is coming out. My expectations are high that it will be of exceptional quality since, again I believe, it is being made by the very same people who made the documentary “The Privileged Planet’.
The Place of Life and Man in Nature: Defending the Anthropocentric Thesis – Michael J. Denton – February 25, 2013
Summary (page 11)
Many of the properties of the key members of Henderson’s vital ensemble —water, oxygen, CO2, HCO3 —are in several instances fit specifically for warm-blooded, air-breathing organisms such as ourselves. These include the thermal properties of water, its low viscosity, the gaseous nature of oxygen and CO2 at ambient temperatures, the inertness of oxygen at ambient temperatures, and the bicarbonate buffer, with its anomalous pKa value and the elegant means of acid-base regulation it provides for air-breathing organisms. Some of their properties are irrelevant to other classes of organisms or even maladaptive.
It is very hard to believe there could be a similar suite of fitness for advanced carbon-based life forms. If carbon-based life is all there is, as seems likely, then the design of any active complex terrestrial being would have to closely resemble our own. Indeed the suite of properties of water, oxygen, and CO2 together impose such severe constraints on the design and functioning of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems that their design, even down to the details of capillary and alveolar structure can be inferred from first principles. For complex beings of high metabolic rate, the designs actualized in complex Terran forms are all that can be. There are no alternative physiological designs in the domain of carbon-based life that can achieve the high metabolic activity manifest in man and other higher organisms.
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/.....O-C.2013.1
selvaRajan,
I liked the title of the work, so that’s why I picked it.
The work focused on 384 quasars, but more recent work has 46,000 to sample from!
See the graph on the first page of the following paper (which I don’t endorse except for the graph):
http://www.mrelativity.net/Papers/14/tdm26.pdf
The 46,000 points peak exactly at where Varshni’s sample of 384 peaked at. So Varshni’s statistics are even more strongly affirmed by lager samples! You won’t get that peak unless you’re in the center of the universe or the quasar redshifts are not of cosmological origin.
What do I think. I think the Earth is in a privileged position, but it is inappropriate to make that inference based on the quasar grouping.
A more mundane explanation is probably in play which Varshni argued quite successfully in my humble opinion, namely, the quasars are not redshifted at all and the emission lines have been totally misinterpreted and the apparent quantization in the emission lines is due to natural laser action in the plasma, and since lasers emit quantized emissions, were seeing peaks due to laser action plus some other real redshifting due to some other mechanisms.
Natural lasers were found on mars:
http://laserstars.org/history/mars.html
and
Discovery of Natural Gain
It stands to reason, other natural lasers may exist in plasmas surrounding stars!
As far as the supposed redshifts:
Alternative Explanation for Spectral Lines in Quasars
The alternative, of course, in light of the data is to infer the Earth is in the center of the universe. 🙂
And a picture is worth a thousand words. See the diagram on page 448:
O IV and He II
That suggests to me there is no redshift in those quasars.
Kind of OT:
Here is another example of how worldview bias effects our interpretation of the facts.
http://www.icr.org/article/7879/“Elephant Shark Research Team Misses Creation Clues”
The elephant shark has remained unchanged for – get this! – 300 million years!
Research on this shark highlights the problems of going from a cartilaginous fish to one with bones and a skeleton. Both types of fish appear side by side in the Cambrian and there are no real transitional forms, but since both types of fish exist, they “know” the unlikely transition had to have taken place.
This is not true scientific knowledge. It is not the type of knowledge science is known for.
It is known simply because of their a priori starting point of naturalism. (whether methodological in nature or not)
As Dr. Hunter says, “religion drives science and it matters.”