Re: Planet X: Alternative Explanation 2

tholen@AntiSpam.ham wrote:
> 
> The Small Kahuna writes:
> <snip>
> The very fact that Nancy's descriptions have been self INconsistent
> should tell you that the object cannot exist!

What Nancy says does not relate to whether or not PX exists.  PX exists
or does not regardless of Nancy's ability/reluctance to point to it or
the ability or reluctance of anybody else, for that matter.  They are
"independent variables".

> 
> Why bother?  The object as described by Nancy cannot exist.

You (and others) keep saying this over and over.  Again, either PX is
there or not.  Her descriptions clearly contain ambiguities and
seemingly irreconcilable assertions, but this has no impact on the
existence of PX, it does, however, shed light on the scientific
credibility of the reporter.  The real question is not magnitude 2 or
11, but is it there.  A picture, in fact a series of pictures can settle
the discussion forever:  "See, Nancy, here is a friggin picture of your
coordinates.  Notice the absence of an object.  See, Nancy, here is a
picture a few days later.  Notice differential processing shows nothing
but noise.  See, Nancy, here is a picture a week later.  Same thing."
and so on, interpolating between the several coordinates she provides.

> 
>> I need sleep, food, water and oxygen.
> 
> Irrelevant.

not to me...

> 
> > I want a Mercedes Benz S600.
> 
> Also irrelevant.

also not to me...

>>> Do you need a picture
>>> of a parking stall that someone claims to be a frequent host to a
>>> blue Honda that is a red Chevy to prove that such a car doesn't
>>> exist?
> 
> > No,
> 
> So why do you need a picture of the piece of sky Nancy points to?
> 
>> but not for the reason you allude to.  I really could care less if
>> it is a blue Honda -or- a red Chevy.
> 
> You're missing the point!  Your use of "or" demonstrates that fact.
> The proper word here is "and".  Nancy has done the equivalent of
> describing her alleged object as being both a blue Honda and a red
> Chevy.  It cannot be both.  It therefore cannot exist as both.
> Similarly, a person cannot exist as both 25 and 45 years old.

I'm not sure where the Red Honda <=> Blue Chevy analogy came from or
what it means, even though it keeps popping up in many threads.  You
could be surprised if person 'A' came into your office and said "there
is a red chevy in your parking place" followed by person 'B' who said
"there is a blue Honda in your parking place" followed by myself who
says "there is a red Chevy in your parking place AND there is a blue
Honda in your parking place AND they are the same car".  You immediately
discount me as a raving lunatic.  Only later do you discover that in
fact what is in your parking place is a vehicle that someone welded
together from the front half of a blue Honda and the back half of a red
Chevy.

Of course your answer was "well, that is not what I thought you
MEANT"...  General semantics is such a bitch...

>> If there is even something remotely like PX out there,
> 
> There cannot be anything remotely like Nancy's description of "PX".

So you are saying that the laws of the universe preclude the discovery
of a planet four times the size of earth at ~20 times the distance of
Pluto?  You are saying that there is no possibility that the current
laws of gravitation will be discovered to need modification to explain
new observations and data?


>> There is a lot of talk in the scientific press lately about doomsday
>> scenarios involving asteroids.
> 
> That "talk" is scientifically credible.  Nancy's object is not.

Give me a break.  All that asteroid stuff happened a long time ago when
the dinosaurs roamed the earth.  When the solar system was young. 
Things are different now.  It cannot happen now, or at least you can't
have my tax dollars to look into something that cannot happen now.  Also
you keep saying that "approximately every million years blah blah" and
frankly, I do not care what happens a million years from now.  Etc. etc.

<snip>

> 
>> I really believe most of you actually enjoy Nancy's postings just so you
>> can pick on her.
> 
> What you believe is irrelevant.  I do not "enjoy" Nancy's postings.  She
> is doing a disservice.

Then stop responding...

>> Science is about the accumulation of data and the intellectual analysis
>> of what that data might mean.
> 
> Science is also about rational thought.  Now, when you finally come to
> the realization that a person cannot be both 25 and 45 years old at the
> same time, and therefore will not bother to look for such a person,
> even if some random poster insists that such a person does exist, then
> we'll have made some progress.

Hmmm.  Ask two people how old someone is that they both know.  One lives
on Earth and another on Mars and the person is a traveler between the
two planets.  You might discover that you could legitimately get the
same seeming paradox.  (two different definitions of the term "year")
Again, general semantics is a bitch.  The definition of terms that
people share is NOT intuitively obvious.  The Greek philosophers were
wrong, you cannot discover reality by just "thinking about it and
discovering essences".

You and others have been more than adequate at explaining Nancy's
inability to create a scientifically sound suite of facts and
observations to support the PX theory.  What you have not succeeded in
doing is in substantiating why your ability to point out the
deficiencies in Nancy's arguments necessarily means PX does not exist.

I will agree with you that Nancy's arguments and statements contain
inconsistencies.  I will agree that the scientific analysis of the
presence of PX does not fit the normal mold for astronomical science or
physics.  But how do you go from there to "therefore PX CANNOT exist"?

> Please distinguish your motivation.

Either my motivation is self evident or it isn't.  If it isn't, me
making a statement about it will not clarify things any more because I
may be lying.  The truth comes from what I post, no more no less.

>> Given what is obviously huge stakes if there is *any* truth to it all,
>> what is the harm?
> 
> Tell me, would you complain as a taxpayer if I wasted research grant
> money to take images of the piece of sky where Nancy's claim her object
> to be?  Especially if it took telescope time away from the tracking of
> a legitimate near-Earth asteroid?

I could take this several directions.  If I want to just advance science
and enable astronomers to look at the universe, I don't much care what
they look at, PX is as good as Mars is as good as asteroids.  If
instead, I am more concerned with AIDS, world hunger, poverty, childhood
diseases, and other very real human concerns I might consider every
$1.00 (pound, lira, franc ruble or whatever) spent on a telescope to be
completely irrelevant and wasteful.  If the issue is the search for a
near-Earth asteroid on a collision course, you might have to convince me
that you can actually do something about it, and that the risks are
greater than those that I assume every day (like crossing the street).

Personally, I am simply incensed that the data provided by research
projects funded by public funds is not simply freely available on the
Internet for download and inspection.  The Hubbell video stream should
be live.  Primal data should be on the NASAgov site available for
anonymous ftp.  "Yes, but it will clog up our servers blah blah" - get
bigger servers its not *your* data...

What remains after all of this is the simple fact that you cannot
readily prove a negative.  You have failed to prove that PX does not
exist.  You have failed to prove that because a poster to this news
group displays any number of inadequacies this necessarily can be used
to demonstrate something else.

By way of extreme example, suppose where you work there is this homeless
man who is clearly paranoid schizophrenic, wandering around, swatting at
invisible things and ranting and raving about how "*they* are inside his
head".  You walk by him each day and occasionally he seems to come close
to accosting you.  The police do nothing about it based on the fact that
he is on public property and has, in fact, never actually hurt anyone. 
One day you are walking into the building where your office is and this
man is running out screaming that there is a bomb in the hallway and it
is about to explode.

What, pray tell, do you do?  Do you think that maybe a bomb is a bomb
even to a crazy man or do you disregard his statement and yank open the
(BOOM)

The Small Kahuna