<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>I'm not sure where you decided that the net charge in the universe is zero, so therefore, it's zero no matter what corner you're looking in. If they had peer review during the times of Galileo, Copernacus, and Kepler, we would be even further behind than we are now. They went against mainstream, they were outcast, and they were right. Now you say mainstream is right and anyone who thinks outside that box is simply not to be published, and you think that's a smart way to utilize limited resources. Has history taught you nothing? <br />Posted by KickLaBuka</DIV><br /> </p><p>Like the general EU crowd you like to twist words. </p><p>I did not say that because the net charge in the universe is zero, which is does most certainly appear to be, that it is zero on all scales and in all locations. If it were, we would not have need of electrodynamics, we would not have electrical power, and we would not have electronic devices. There is charge all around us and in some situations that charge is a factor. But at large scales and in most cases the positive and negative charges balance one another. Even ioniized materials, plasmas, are, in most cases, treated on a macroscopic scale as charge neutral -- reference: <em>Cosmical Electrodynamics</em> by Hannes Alfven. </p><p>I did not say that anyone who thinks outside the box should not be published. People who think oustside the box are regularly published and lauded. Perleman thought outside the box and solved the Riemann conjecture. Wiles thought outside the box and provided the link to prove Fermat's last theorem. Einstein thought outside the box and we have relativity. Feynman thought outside the box and we have quantum electrodynamics.</p><p>But there is a big difference between vision and halucination. Peer review serves, in part, to cull the wacky from the prescient. There has been peer review throughout science, in one form or another. When applied by scientists it has proved to be most beneficial. When applied by religious authorities, as with Galileo it has not been so beneficial. But today peer review means what it says and it is applied by scientists in a generally objective manner.</p><p>Peer review is necessary precisely because of the limited resources available for the publication of solid science. It is a very effective means of allocating those resources so that maximum scientific progress can result from use of those resources. Peer review is a good thing.</p><p>You objection arises solely because you are an advocate for one of the more irrational proposals in the history of science, the so-called "Electrical Universe". The fact that wacko rantings of EU advocates are not generally published in mainstream peer-reviewed journals is a sign that the system is working well and that precious journal pages are not being wasted on notions that violate known observational data and predictions from well-established theories in domains in which those theories are known to be valid. The review process culls the correct but unimportant. It most certainly culls, as it should, the ridiculous and irrational. </p><p>There are many scientists who do not adhere to the currently fashionable research perspectives. Roger Penrose is one. Lee Smolin is another. They follow a path different from the majority. But that path is consistent with that which is known to be valid. They have no trouble publishing their ideas and their reasoning. I personally think that their perspectives may, in the long run, win out. I don't know. What I do know is that they are receiving and will receive appropriate consideratin for their rational and well-supported views. Science does not discriminate against ideas simply because they are not in fashion. Science does discriminate against positions that have been demonstrated to be incorrect by principles that have themselves been demonstrated to be correct. Wackos need not apply.</p><p>History has taught a great deal. Among the things that is has taught is that those theories of science that have stood the test of time and of many experiments ought not be cast aside lightly, and that the predictions of those theories derived from the application of rigorous mathematics are valid. It has taught that many wacko theories are proposed, and wacko proponents are legion, but they have no validity and in time they fade away and are forgotten. It has taught that the scientific method and the scientific community that adhere to that method provide great progress in the search for understanding.</p><p>In short history has taught that wacko theories are indeed wacko. It has taught that scientists have shown great and disciplined imagination and continue to do so. It has taught that imagination must be disciplined. It has taught that people who do not know the difference between the purely imagined and the objectively real are not visionaries, but rather are simply wacko.</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
A video made by me about space and the loneliness in the universe
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