Ahh - the power of cheese... and hypnotic repetition!
According to the college Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary:
Hypnosis - An artificially induced sleeplike condition in which an individual [or group of individuals] is extremely responsive to suggestions made by the hypnotist[s].
I would venture to say that accurately describes about 90% of the population of this planet. No big news flash there, though. Now, even though the hypnosis syndrome can be spread across just about the entire spectrum of human experience, I'd like to talk briefly about how it has affected the various scientific disciplines - astrophysics in particular.
First of all, I am not a Ph.D.-wielding astrophysicist. Nevertheless, I have always had an interest in the subject. Besides, since when did the quest for knowledge require a special pass?
For most of my life I, like just about everyone else, naively bought into pretty much everything the scientific community put forth. I saw it as being 100% honorable and trustworthy, the same as so many other authoritative structures. But then something happened. A lot of it began to not feel quite right at an intuitive level, and I learned long ago to trust my intuition. So, I began to question a lot of what has been represented as being "fact." And, lo and behold, much, if not most, of those "facts" aren't facts at all but, rather, theories (many of them half-baked at that) that have been repeated so often that they have taken on a factoid persona, i.e, gravity and its children; the big bang, black holes, dark matter, dark energy, etc.
There are literally thousands of examples of this but for the sake of discussion I'll just concentrate on one of the biggies, if not the biggie: the "gravity only" model of the physical universe, which had been gaining momentum ever since people began to embrace Newton's theories. Of course, Newton didn't really discover anything. Almost everybody already knew that some sort of force was at work that held things to the ground and heavenly bodies in their orbits. All Newton really did was to give it a name without attempting to explain exactly what this force is or where it comes from or, most importantly, WHY. Sadly, We have all been unquestioningly accepting Newton's rhetoric based on faith alone ever since! You can read a sample of Mark McCutcheon's very provocative take on this topic in PDF format here: http://www.thefinaltheory.com/pages/6/index.htm I'd like to point out that I've only read the first chapter of his book presented here so, I don't know what the "final theory" is that he's leading up to. If anyone knows what that is, I'd love to hear it!
So, how did a discipline that was originally based on the idea of collecting empirical evidence derived from direct observation and reproducible experimentation become the convoluted mess that it currently is? From its dogmatic, often contradictory, proclamations that no longer require any sort of direct observation or rational explanation, to its untouchable hierarchical order of "priests," astrophysics seems to have become just another pseudo-religion. Oh, sure - one can cite the mathematics that have been and continue to be created to bolster these proclamations but, in the entire world, there are only a handful of "priests" who can even claim to understand most of it. Interesting how that mimics the same sort of dynamic that has been present in most of the world's religions over the past few thousand years, isn't it? I have always maintained that given enough "chalk and blackboard space," virtually any concept, no matter how preposterous, could eventually be mathematically "proven."
Well, my personal take on how this transformation happened is simple; money, prestige, credibility and power. That's probably not much of a news flash to anyone here either. Like just about everything else, discovery has been hijacked by the corporate elite and, since much of this exploration and discovery requires massive funding, the power elite have placed themselves in the position of calling the tune to which those engaged in said exploration must dance... or go find some other vocation. Scientific enquiry has been forced to sell out to the development of saleable commodities as opposed to the pursuit and advancement of knowledge.
A parallel dynamic can be seen in mass media. The sharing of factual information has been usurped in favor of merely selling things, whether they be ideologies or tangible objects. This, in my opinion, has been most noticeable in the genre of motion pictures and, most especially, television. I'm old enough to remember TV in its infancy back in the early 50's. Believe it or not, there were those back then who were convinced that TV was just a flash in the pan - that it was just a passing fancy and would soon disappear through lack of interest. Oh, if only it had! I'm probably over simplifying this but it seems that back then the whole arrangement was simple. The sharing of audiovisual entertainment and information could be offered "free" to the general public. This, of course, would cost money - lots of it, so those who had products or services to sell could pay to have their businesses exposed to potentially vast audiences which, in turn paid for the production and dissemination of the entertainment and info. Obviously, it didn't take long for those with a darker agenda to see the possibilities of this new medium and within just a few short years the sponsors were able to easily and quietly gain control over program content and any cencorship thereof. Nowadays, it's recognized as the most powerful hypnotic propaganda tool in existence. Ever wonder why all the content is called "programing?"
Okay, back to pounding on the Church of Astrophysics and its proponents/slaves. Below are links to just two of the more recent examples of unquestioned dogmatic beliefs obscuring perception and the open-minded pursuit of knowledge. First, I present examples of the "official" version as presented by head-scratching acolytes wearing big red noses and flap shoes. Then, the "electric universe" version presented by amused plasma cosmologists based on direct observation backed by reproducible laboratory experiments. I leave it up to you to decide which, if either, of these approaches resonates within you and which is a crock of bovine excrement.
The Tempel 1 fiasco:
(The Bozo version)
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/results/excavating.html
Question: Why, for the first time in human space exploration history is NASA still withholding all pertinent data on this mission using the lame excuse that they want to evaluate it first before releasing it to the public? just guessing here, but is it possible that the data completely contradicts what they expected to find and they'll need several months to sort through and "cook" the numbers in order to make them fit the currently accepted model? I know that Hoagland and others have been scoffed at for suggesting such a scenario. Of course, Hoagland gets scoffed at pretty much on a daily basis!:lol: Also, what's up with this? Initially, the folks at NASA were publicly jubilant about the unprecedented quality and resolution of the visual images both before and immediately after impact. Then, when none of these images seemed to be forthcoming, the official story was changed to: Well, sorry folks, but unfortunately the mother ship wasn't pointed "in the right direction" to get any decent shots. To which I respond with a $333 million WTF??!!! Are we all wearing "stupid" signs on our backs? Personally, if you buy that excuse then I have a very large bridge in New York City I'd like to sell you. Cheap!
(The EU version)
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/ … ctions.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/ … moking.htm
Enceladus:
(The "Hey Moe! Hey Larry - ngack, ngack, ngack!" version)
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20 … s_spa.html
(The EU version)
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/ … eladus.htm
I'm not even going to get into the nuclear vs. electric star debate here as that's a subject for a whole other thread. What I will briefly comment on is how very fragile and precariously perched the entire "gravity only" model of the universe is. As far as I can tell, that whole model is predicated on a single crucial misinterpretation of "red shift" as always indicating speed and distance. As Halton Arp so eloquently explained in his book "Seeing Red," that's not necessarily always the case. In fact, it may never be the case. Either way, literally everything we think we know about the cosmos is either seriously skewed or flat out wrong! Hence, the extreme resistance to this line of thinking and research by the Holy Church of Astronomy and its adhearants.
Okay, I know this rant could have been tightened up and polished a bit more but I'm sure ya get my point. And, as has been pointed out already by tiospaye1 and others, the hard work of the heretics is finally making inroads into mainstream thinking. I think these brave individuals could use all the support they can get cuz it's an uphill battle, Sisyphus style!
So if any of this resonates, I say, by all means be an earache and pass it on! 