How Science Works (And Why Religion Doesn't)

The Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31). The small Messier 32 galaxy is seen above and slightly to the left (directly south) of the centre of M31, and Messier 110 is below and to the left. Above and to the left of M32 is the star HD 3914. This is an RGB image + some h alpha data. Captured in the Israeli desert (the Negev). Equipment: Celestron Cpc1100 Millburn wedge Starizona hyperstar Zwo asi294mc for imaging + asi178mc for guiding Finderscope for guiding Acquisition: 60 subs of 32 seconds for RGB 20 subs of 64 seconds for hydrogen alpha (This is an f/2 config) Captured with sharpcap and guided with phd2 Processing: Stacked in pixinsight Processed and enhanced in photoshop including noise reduction, sharpening etc.

By ;David (Deddy) Dayag - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Too many disk galaxies than theory allows — University of Bonn

Science's greatest strength, and the thing that seems to baffle Creationists most, is the way it constantly reassesses and revises its theories and never holds any opinion as sacred and unchallengeable. Religions, by contrast, have fundamental tenets, almost literally cast in tablets of stone, which, if they are ever seriously questioned, leads to internal conflict, schisms and often open violent hostilities. To question the fundamental beliefs of a religion is tantamount to leaving that religion.

Here, for example, we have scientists examining a fundamental theory in cosmology and concluding, quite amicably and dispassionately, that the generally accepted Standard Model of Cosmology is fundamentally flawed. What will happen now is that others will try to replicate these findings, a debate will ensue and, if necessary former ideas that were held to be true will be abandoned and revised, and, in all probability if they are proved to be correct, the scientists who made the discovery will be rewarded with prizes and plaudits and top jobs in prestigious institutes.

I don't pretend to be an expert in this subject, but what the cosmologists from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany, St Andrews University, Scotland, UK and Charles University in the Czech Republic believe they have shown is that there is a significant discrepancy between the number of disk galaxies that can be observed and what the 'Standard Model' predicts, therefore the Standard Model is wrong and needs revising. And they are proposing a new one which would require a far-reaching revision of other areas of physics. And all because the accepted Standard Model of Cosmology does not appear to model the reality it was designed to explain.

The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn news release accompnying the team's open access publication in The Astrophysical Journal, explains:

The Standard Model of Cosmology describes how the universe came into being according to the view of most physicists. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now studied the evolution of galaxies within this model, finding considerable discrepancies with actual observations. The University of St. Andrews in Scotland and Charles University in the Czech Republic were also involved in the study. The results have now been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Most galaxies visible from Earth resemble a flat disk with a thickened center. They are therefore similar to the sports equipment of a discus thrower. According to the Standard Model of Cosmology, however, such disks should form rather rarely. This is because in the model, every galaxy is surrounded by a halo of dark matter. This halo is invisible, but exerts a strong gravitational pull on nearby galaxies due to its mass. "That's why we keep seeing galaxies merging with each other in the model universe," explains Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa of the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn.

Here we encountered a significant discrepancy between prediction and reality. There are apparently significantly more flat disk galaxies than can be explained by theory. However, even if we take [that the number of disk galaxies that would form in the Standard Model of Cosmology might have been underestimated due to the limited resolution even of today's supercomputers] into account, there remains a serious difference between theory and observation that cannot be remedied

Moritz Haslbauer, lead author
PhD student
Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics
University of Bonn, Germany.

This crash has two effects, the physicist explains: "First, the galaxies penetrate in the process, destroying the disk shape. Second, it reduces the angular momentum of the new galaxy created by the merger." Put simply, this greatly decreases its rotational speed. The rotating motion normally ensures that the centrifugal forces acting during this process cause a new disk to form. However, if the angular momentum is too small, a new disk will not form at all.

Large discrepancy between prediction and reality

In the current study, Kroupa's doctoral student, Moritz Haslbauer, led an international research group to investigate the evolution of the universe using the latest supercomputer simulations. The calculations are based on the Standard Model of Cosmology; they show which

Our research group in Bonn and Prague has uniquely developed the methods to do calculations in this alternative theory. MOND's predictions are consistent with what we actually see.

Our study proves that young physicists today still have the opportunity to make significant contributions to fundamental physics. [My ephasis]

Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa, Co-author
Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics
And Transdisciplinary Research Units "Modelling" and "Matter" University of Bonn., Germany.

galaxies should have formed by today if this theory were correct. The researchers then compared their results with what is currently probably the most accurate observational data of the real Universe visible from Earth.

The situation is different for an alternative to the Standard Model, which dispenses with dark matter. According to the so-called MOND theory (the acronym stands for "MilgrOmiaN Dynamics), galaxies do not grow by merging with each other. Instead, they are formed from rotating gas clouds that become more and more condensed. In a MOND universe, galaxies also grow by absorbing gas from their surroundings. However, mergers of full-grown galaxies are rare in MOND.

Nevertheless, the MOND theory solves all known extragalactic cosmological problems despite being originally formulated to address galaxies only.

Dr. Indranil Banik, Co-author
Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik (HISKP)
University of Bonn, Germany
And Scottish Universities Physics Alliance
University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, UK.

Challenge for the Standard Model

However, the exact mechanisms of galaxy growth are not yet fully understood, even with MOND. Additionally, in MOND, Newton's laws of gravity do not apply under certain circumstances, but need to be replaced by the correct ones. This would have far-reaching consequences for other areas of physics.

In the abstract to their open access paper, in The Astrophysical Journal, the scientists say:

Abstract

Any viable cosmological framework has to match the observed proportion of early- and late-type galaxies. In this contribution, we focus on the distribution of galaxy morphological types in the standard model of cosmology (Lambda cold dark matter, ΛCDM). Using the latest state-of-the-art cosmological ΛCDM simulations known as Illustris, IllustrisTNG, and EAGLE, we calculate the intrinsic and sky-projected aspect ratio distribution of the stars in subhalos with stellar mass M_* > 1010 M_⊙ at redshift z = 0. There is a significant deficit of intrinsically thin disk galaxies, which however comprise most of the locally observed galaxy population. Consequently, the sky-projected aspect ratio distribution produced by these ΛCDM simulations disagrees with the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey at ≥12.52σ (TNG50-1) and ≥14.82σ (EAGLE50) confidence. The deficit of intrinsically thin galaxies could be due to a much less hierarchical merger-driven build-up of observed galaxies than is given by the ΛCDM framework. It might also arise from the implemented sub-grid models, or from the limited resolution of the above-mentioned hydrodynamical simulations. We estimate that an 8⁵ times better mass resolution realization than TNG50-1 would reduce the tension with GAMA to the 5.58σ level. Finally, we show that galaxies with fewer major mergers have a somewhat thinner aspect ratio distribution. Given also the high expected frequency of minor mergers in ΛCDM, the problem may be due to minor mergers. In this case, the angular momentum problem could be alleviated in Milgromian dynamics because of a reduced merger frequency arising from the absence of dynamical friction between extended dark matter halos.

Haslbauer, Moritz; Banik, Indranil; Kroupa, Pavel; Wittenburg, Nils; Javanmardi, Behnam
The High Fraction of Thin Disk Galaxies Continues to Challenge ΛCDM Cosmology
The Astrophysical Journal 925(2); p. 183; DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac46ac

Copyright: © 2022 The authors. Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Anti-science Creationists, with their cavalier regard for truth, often claim scientists are not allowed to publish anything which goes against accepted scientific orthodoxy, citing the failure of creation 'scientists' to get their falsifications accepted by the peer-review process. This is manifestly untrue, as can be seen from the fact that the lead author of this paper is a young PhD student who is questioning an established consensus view and calling for it to be revised and replaced with a better model that the team thinks more accurately reflects observed reality, even though this would have "a far-reaching consequences for other areas of physics".

In other words, this paper represents a fundamental reassessment of an accepted model and, if it is confirmed, the overthrow of that model, by a young PhD student at the start of his career.

It is this ability of science to question, reassess and replace established opinions that gives science its great power to move ever closer the truth about the world about us. Contrast that with Christianity, in which even minor revision of a fundamental doctrine has resulted in yet another schism to give the present mutually hostile 38,000 plus Protestant cults alone, in addition to the first major schisms that resulted in Orthodox, Maronite, Armenian and Coptic Christianity, and Catholicism, and the religion's supposed sacred texts becoming more and more ‘allegorical’ or ‘metaphorical’ as science shows more and more of it to be scientifically and historically wrong.

Indeed, some of the divisions run so deep that there is no common agreement even about the contents of the sacred book which contains the supposedly God-inspired texts but which resembles an evolving species giving rise to local subspecies and varieties according to local conditions and competitive struggles.

A religion with a 'moral compass' based on brutal Middle Eastern tribal warlordism from the Bronze Age where marauding robber bands looted and pillaged, war crimes were lauded, and greatness was measured by the number of enemies slaughtered, the number of women captured and taken into forced sex-slavery, and the amount of war booty and land stolen.

Catholic Christians and Cathars settling a theological dispute
Bezier, France, July 22, 1209.

A moral code where genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape and infanticide were encouraged and rewarded, women were chattels to be traded and slavery was the norm. Not surprisingly, most of what the sacred books command have had to be outlawed to maintain civilised, stable societies as human cultures have evolved under the influence of scientific knowledge and understanding and religious dogma has been replaced by enlightened humanism.

And to be fair to Christianity, the same can be said for Islam, fundamentalist Orthodox Judaism, Shintoism, Hinduism and the hundreds of minor religions that still survive in places. The history of religions is that, because they are unchangeable, they become increasingly irrelevant and are eventually overthrown by a new set of dogma and a new priesthood who set themselves up as the arbiters of right and wrong - dogmas and doctrines which invariably serve the priesthood more than the people. And these too are destined for failure and are eventually abandoned in their turn, often following murderous attacks from followers of other faiths, keen to impose their dogmas on others using force in the absence of evidence and reason.

Science, in contrast, constantly revises, refines and replaces ideas and understanding, quite casually and without fuss or conflict or the head of some scientific academy or other calling for a holy war against the heretics because in science, the facts are neutral and the evidence leads to the answer. In religion, the dogma is the answer, and the 'facts' are selected, or in many cases, invented or simply assumed to be true, to support it.

Science - Reasonable uncertainty.
Religion - Unreasonable certainty.

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