by alter-ego » Mon Aug 15, 2011 5:17 am
maicman wrote:Interestingly, I had started to do precisely that, when I remembered Arp's work, and conclude it would not prove anything. But I stand by my original statement, it was not meant facetiously, and believe my negative response was in fact a contribution to the discussion because it will, I hope, prevent the propagation of potentially fallacious statements and ensure that individuals state any assumptions they have made explicitly. In today's world of instant communication and internet, what is put in writing seems to be there virtually forever, or at least until our galaxy collides with another, we should not condone possible inaccuracy, the next reader may not know that the information is unproven.
Generally speaking, no argument with your point of how easy it is to publish false statements on the web, and the importance of asking questions (true with all media by the way). But I'm not sure what theoretical foundation(s) you have to evaluate conjectures, true or false. Regarding this APOD, you seemed to grapple onto a statement by R. Jay Gabany:
magicman wrote:see, there it is again "NGC7337, NGC7335, NGC7336 are ten times farther away and would dwarf the largest in this scene if their distances were equalized." For the original statement of one tenth size so 10 times further to be true they would have to be the same size if distance was equalised.
Had you trusted existing GR theory, and dug into the NASA data extragalactic database, some good would've come from it. Long story short, you would have realized that it is Gabany's statement about relative sizes appears plain wrong. In fact, when distances are equalized with NGC 7331, NGC 7337 and 7335 are the same size or smaller (within 20% or so), and NGC 7336 is about half the size. The point is, you posed a question about distance and angular size dependence which was wrong. Then you used Gabany's comment to criticize assumptions, or lack of, made by the APOD. When in essence, the general, simply put, APOD statements about approximate distances and angular sizes of neighboring galaxies were correct. In fact it was your objections that were founded in falsehoods, or at least you showed the desire to criticize without facts. I sincerely appreciate your points about representing truth, but unless you have some basis from which you can find the truth for youself, don't expect people to take your criticisms seriously. I apologize if you have taken offense, none is intended.
[quote="maicman"]Interestingly, I had started to do precisely that, when I remembered Arp's work, and conclude it would not prove anything. But I stand by my original statement, it was not meant facetiously, and believe my negative response was in fact a contribution to the discussion because it will, I hope, prevent the propagation of potentially fallacious statements and ensure that individuals state any assumptions they have made explicitly. In today's world of instant communication and internet, what is put in writing seems to be there virtually forever, or at least until our galaxy collides with another, we should not condone possible inaccuracy, the next reader may not know that the information is unproven.[/quote]
Generally speaking, no argument with your point of how easy it is to publish false statements on the web, and the importance of asking questions (true with all media by the way). But I'm not sure what theoretical foundation(s) you have to evaluate conjectures, true or false. Regarding this APOD, you seemed to grapple onto a statement by R. Jay Gabany:
[quote="magicman"]see, there it is again "NGC7337, NGC7335, NGC7336 are ten times farther away and would dwarf the largest in this scene if their distances were equalized." For the original statement of one tenth size so 10 times further to be true they would have to be the same size if distance was equalised.[/quote]
Had you trusted existing GR theory, and dug into the NASA data extragalactic database, some good would've come from it. Long story short, you would have realized that it is Gabany's statement about relative sizes appears plain wrong. In fact, when distances are equalized with NGC 7331, NGC 7337 and 7335 are the same size or smaller (within 20% or so), and NGC 7336 is about half the size. The point is, you posed a question about distance and angular size dependence which was wrong. Then you used Gabany's comment to criticize assumptions, or lack of, made by the APOD. When in essence, the general, simply put, APOD statements about approximate distances and angular sizes of neighboring galaxies were correct. In fact it was your objections that were founded in falsehoods, or at least you showed the desire to criticize without facts. I sincerely appreciate your points about representing truth, but unless you have some basis from which you can find the truth for youself, don't expect people to take your criticisms seriously. I apologize if you have taken offense, none is intended.