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Previous Next Up Topic Cosmology / Alternative Cosmology / Haltonarp.com (16027 hits)
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-03-02 15:25
Hey! The text in Haltonarp.com has changed. Now it's "The new www.haltonarp.com is now being installed. Check back later.". If all this was just an installation of a new version of the website, why it wasn't announced well in advance? Perhaps they wanted to tickle our curiosity nerves with all secresy.

I wonder how many months the installation phase lasts...
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-03-03 05:38
Now it's back online! Forum is not yet online, though. Seems to me that there's even less content (= less articles) than before.
By David Russell Date 2007-03-03 18:30
I think the update is not yet complete.   We'll see. 
By turbo-1 Date 2007-03-03 19:32
The site has a cleaner appearance.  Hopefully, the forum will work well.  It would be nice if the webmaster provided links to all of Arp's papers, as well, with hot-links in relevant articles.
By Jade Annand Date 2007-03-04 03:50
Intriguing :)

Perhaps it isn't yet done. Hard to say, though; our illustrious webmaster was never king of advance warnings *grin*

I'm slightly pleased, though; I thought - almost for sure - that it was gone for good.
By Jade Annand Date 2007-03-05 07:27
New teaser on haltonarp...

P.S. Discussion board will be back.


The plot thickens :)
By David Russell Date 2007-03-07 03:52
Now that it seems to be opened back up it appears that the information provided is not updated, just in a nicer format.
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-03-07 06:02
One thing is for sure, I won't miss that red color scheme they had going.
By turbo-1 Date 2007-03-07 08:14
I've had a brief email exchange with the webmaster, and it appears that unless Arp suggests changes in content, the updates will be primarily cosmetic, with an emphasis on consistent appearance and browser compatibility.  Having built and maintained a web site for a former employer, I can tell you that these are legitimate concerns, though it should not have been necessary to take down the whole site in order to make such changes.

(I, too, am relieved to see the bright red backgrounds go away.)
By Jade Annand Date 2007-03-20 21:40
Likewise, though you can still see that red theme in the buttons :)

Anyone want to take bets on how long it will be until the discussion boards are up? I'll bet 40 quatloos on mid-July :)

-- Ritchie
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-04-04 05:13
It looks like it's taking some time. I wonder if there's a new forum software coming up, and if so, what happens to old threads, one big thread for archived old contents vol. II?

There's some new articles now. Well, most of them were already there before updates, but I think there's one new article... ("Quick, the mustard!" ;) )
By David Russell Date 2007-04-11 18:31
The website needs to be updated more frequently - people simply are not going to go to it if it never changes.   I also think that the website should have links to the ADS abstracts for Arp's important papers - perhaps grouped by category (eg - quasars, quantization, galaxies, ...)
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-04-12 06:31
I agree. I also have always thought that Arp's website has way too little content. For example, I think that an introduction to discordant redshift issue might be in order. I don't think a random visitor necessarily understands what's the images and abstracts about there (well sure, the abstracts might give them some idea about it).
By David Russell Date 2007-05-06 12:46
Still nothing new. 
By Jade Annand Date 2007-05-06 20:05
Ari said:

I don't think a random visitor necessarily understands what's the images and abstracts about there


Strongly agreed. I can figure them out... sort of... without context, but a casual visitor is going to have no clue why they should care about "RADIO QUASARS ACROSS DISTURBED GALAXIES" :)

DGR said:

Still nothing new.


Thank the lot of you for letting us have... how many months' of discussion now? I think I would have gone squirrelly without a forum and quite frankly, with WMAP revelations and SDSS results like identical quasar spectra (I watched the whole dang presentation) out to pretty high z, it's a more intriguing time than ever to discuss things, despite the otherwise seeming slow pace between mainstream announcements that can stir up the pot.

The announcement that the discussion board would be back was back in late February. I wonder if he's putting together the forum software from scratch?
By David Russell Date 2007-05-07 12:22
Ritchie said:

Thank the lot of you for letting us have... how many months' of discussion now? I think I would have gone squirrelly without a forum and quite frankly, with WMAP revelations and SDSS results like identical quasar spectra (I watched the whole dang presentation) out to pretty high z, it's a more intriguing time than ever to discuss things, despite the otherwise seeming slow pace between mainstream announcements that can stir up the pot.

The announcement that the discussion board would be back was back in late February. I wonder if he's putting together the forum software from scratch?


Thank you for running this board.   Frankly,  unless you will only be running this board as a temporary service I think  we should stay here and not depend upon the webmaster of Haltonarp.com.   At least here we have some stability.  
By Jade Annand Date 2007-05-07 19:43
DGR said:

Frankly,  unless you will only be running this board as a temporary service I think  we should stay here and not depend upon the webmaster of Haltonarp.com.   At least here we have some stability.


I don't like surprising people in that arbitrary sort of way. If I had to take down this board for any reason that I had control over, I would tell you all. I was half-considering even asking for a volunteer to take the occasional backup, forum code and all, in case of badness happening.

Ari said:

Well, I registered the last day of last year, so it's little over 5 months now.


It really has been that long... wow, and haltonarp.com had been offline for a significant amount of time back then!

Ari said:

Mind you it's been rather quiet lately (on and off), we probably still don't have enough posting members to really get discussions going.


It does take a little bit more critical mass to have something going on all the time. In the meantime, I quite like what you all have wrought.

DGR said:

What is not present here is the opposition.


That is what makes BAUT so lively, albeit exhausting :)

DGR said:

I recently heard a great term for many of the people that are "defenders of the mainstream"  - pseudoskeptics akin to pseudoscientists.


*laugh* Not a bad term for it, really. If you are defending something you know to be right, but with bad arguments and techniques, that would qualify. In the best-case scenario, it's a temporary condition of the young and over-enthusiastic, but there is certainly a more epoxied, encrusted and distinctly less desirable version of the above.

I get to see such dynamics on both sides. On the subject of evolutionary biology, I'm a hard-line but not unreasonable mainstreamer, and I see in particular a number of young people whose heart is in the right place defending evolutionary biology using some pretty bad arguments. I ought to help correct them more than I do, because I really do like mentoring, but it's such a popular topic nowadays that I'm constantly being beaten to the punch :) It seems hard to apply "pseudoskeptics" to these.

In that whole 'fight', however, pseudoskeptics seems an even more appropriate term for the creationists, for they are "skeptical", but only in the sense of disbelieving. Their arguments are constantly recycled from disproven or misquoted sources, and are highly agenda-based. They even push "critical analysis", but it has always come down to either the same bad arguments or merely "casting aspersions" just upon evolution (and sometimes geochronology, if they can manage it)

It certainly makes for a different dynamic than the mainstream/non-mainstream in cosmology. While the non-mainstream has its share of cranks and half-cranks, a lot of it still harks back to the legitimate doubt of the likes of Einstein and Hubble through Reber, Hoyle (however much of an odd duck he was), Marmet and Arp. It's not religiously motivated or simply about casting aspersions. Given how much interpretation (selection effects - yikes) is involved in cosmology and how unfamiliar most are with the history or why anyone would propose alternatives in the first place, it's not surprising that people would have to turn to particular mainstreamers to make the counter-alternative arguments for them.

I'd blame them, but quite frankly I lean on other people, too. I don't know why the supernova curves would not be a slam-dunk argument against alternatives. I have a suspicion that they are a selection or interpretation effect, simply based on precedent of such 'proofs', but I haven't the foggiest how to go about gainsaying (Ari: there's a fun word for you to look up :) the arguments. Would that make me a pseudoskeptic in the same sense? I hope not.

What sort of behaviours would a pseudoskeptic in the definition you're thinking of engage in? *laugh* Perhaps that's fodder for another thread? :)
By David Russell Date 2007-05-08 03:06
What sort of behaviours would a pseudoskeptic in the definition you're thinking of engage in? *laugh* Perhaps that's fodder for another thread?


Well, here is a perfect example - Nereid's comment - a classic pseudoskeptic response:

http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=57127

Unbelievable arrogance. 
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-05-07 12:29
Ritchie said:

Thank the lot of you for letting us have... how many months' of discussion now?

Well, I registered the last day of last year, so it's little over 5 months now.

And like Dave, I thank you for running it!

Mind you it's been rather quiet lately (on and off), we probably still don't have enough posting members to really get discussions going.
By David Russell Date 2007-05-07 13:47
Mind you it's been rather quiet lately (on and off), we probably still don't have enough posting members to really get discussions going.


What is not present here is the opposition.  I recently heard a great term for many of the people that are "defenders of the mainstream"  - pseudoskeptics akin to pseudoscientists.   The term describes people that don't know how to be a skeptic - what we often consider naysaying.  
By Ari Jokimäki Date 2007-05-08 06:32
Our comments are in strange order in this thread now. :)

Dave said:

What is not present here is the opposition.  I recently heard a great term for many of the people that are "defenders of the mainstream"  - pseudoskeptics akin to pseudoscientists.   The term describes people that don't know how to be a skeptic - what we often consider naysaying.

I have sometimes wondered why people call themselves sceptics when they reject everything that is non-mainstream and accept everything that is mainstream. Real sceptic doubts everything. I try to be a real sceptic.

It's strange how sceptics societies usually are only about debunking woo-woo ideas (however, debunking woo-woo ideas as such is a good thing), there's no "official" scepticism directed to mainstream science.

Ritchie said:

It really has been that long... wow, and haltonarp.com had been offline for a significant amount of time back then!

Yes, it was months already back then.

Ritchie said:

It does take a little bit more critical mass to have something going on all the time.

I think we would need a lot of it, haltonarp.com had lot more members than we do, and it was sometimes as quiet as this place. First thing would be to tease our quiet members to become active posters. ;)

Ritchie said:

...Hoyle (however much of an odd duck he was)...

Well, I think that Hoyle's approach was always very scientific, even if his subjects might have been somewhat strange every now and then. And I also think that Hoyle has a lot of appreciation from mainstream scientists as well.

Ritchie said:

(Ari: there's a fun word for you to look up :)

Thanks. My dictionary had that word, so it was easy to look up. :)

Ritchie said:

Would that make me a pseudoskeptic in the same sense? I hope not.

I don't think so. You don't analyse (or correct) your own argumentation when you are a pseudosceptic.
By Guenter Werner Date 2008-04-19 19:28
"discussion board will be back" a man a word - an astronomer a .........
By Mike Petersen Date 2008-04-20 09:40
Hi, Gunter...

I have been critical of Halton's website myself, and agree with you that the stupid comment on his site's home page about the discussion board does not argue well for his standing in the cosmological community. 

Regards,
Mike Petersen
By Jade Annand Date 2009-04-28 21:50
Might I just note that it has been over two years with no sign of the discussion board ever coming back? :)
By Mike Petersen Date 2009-04-30 05:25
In my opinion Halton has abandoned his website.  Unfortunately, I believe that Halton more than likely is suffering the ravages of aging and has more important things to worry about.

Does anyone here know for sure?

- Mike Petersen
By Jade Annand Date 2009-04-30 06:51
Mike said:

In my opinion Halton has abandoned his website.


Well, from what I remember of the old website, his interaction with the population of forum-goers was... shall we say, minimal? :)

Mike said:

Unfortunately, I believe that Halton more than likely is suffering the ravages of aging and has more important things to worry about.


He did just turn 82 this year, but I've heard no rumours of either health nor illness. He doesn't have an expiry date on Wikipedia yet!
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