Lyndon said:
Playing the Devils Advocate here, what is more important, peer review or promoting ones theories to the world?
It depends on what "important" means in this case. Also, "peer review", "promoting" and "the world".
I don't think what Ari was advocating was the current system whereby your paper can be rejected not just for matters of internal consistency and techniques, but also for mere subject domain prejudice/disagreement. I
do think what he was recommending was tantamount to proofreading. Like putting out a company brochure rife with spelling mistakes, you can't look good with avoidable mistakes.
That said, we probably want to operate at different levels anyhow. I know that a few contributors here have more specific thoughts about singularities, relativity, geometry, redshift causes, etc. that I cannot necessarily "get behind" inasmuch as they make assertions I cannot agree with. That's fine. That includes even some more 'mainstream' alternatives like Arp & Narlikar's VMH. The complaint is often that there's nothing to substitute for Big Bang Theory, so we have to go with it and fix it even if it's flawed. You folks are impassioned that way, and any way you can get your message out is good.
Like so many other things, though, the more trusted the outlet, the more trusted the source.
(That can even work cynically, like that numbnuts William Dembski getting his paper into IEEE and then using that to claim the right to bash evolutionary theory based on the journal's prestige)
Lyndon said:
This is the value of the internet. One can get one's ideas out there. Good or bad and let the people decide.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
I understand what you're going for, but I have a few words:
• vaccinations
• evolutionary theory
• homeopathy
"The people" can decide that the first two are bad and the third is good, but that doesn't make them so. They do not have the background; it's not even a matter of intelligence in this regard.
Technically speaking, the public's trust in Big Bang Theory is going through "the right channels": the researchers. Researchers by and large think they're doing the right thing, the right way. There are some oppressed souls, surely, that are merely clamming up for fear of losing telescope time, but I do not think it is all that pervasive. They're far too busy reading tea leaves in the WMAP data and thinking they're finding clues to the first aeons of the universe, running simulations and doing gruntwork.
It's the researchers that ultimately need convincing, in the "high road" case. That's an interesting-enough challenge in itself. Are we, for example, at the point yet where we've got the observational power for a phenomenon that, in the attempt of disproof, researchers will come up empty-handed? Do we need to wait for the Webb? Better parallax measurements? It's a frustrating field where most everything must have its measure taken through a de facto interpretation.
You could also take the more dangerous road of taking the road show to the public, but that needs funding, and since we're not the mouthpieces of some political or religious bloc, that would be hard to come by... at least, unless you somehow managed to get the creationists interested in anti-mainstream information just because they like the thought of anything that might cause public confusion about science. You also end up much more open to blind spots - hoping you've noticed everything that could be directly picked on.
One thing I would be interested in is a composite of every one of 'our'* generally-solid claims contrasted with how the mainstream explained it. Like quasar ejection countered as background objects, or microlensing, or what have you (*I lay no claim; I'm riding on the coattails of those doing the real work), and what might confirm or deny the mainstream explanation, on until the mainstream explanations get iffy. I have no idea "where we are" overall nowadays, just a fair bit of the ground we have covered in past.
Anyhow, sorry for the rambling - it's late - but to summarize: there's a lot of stuff out there, and the public's got no reason they can think of to trust your stuff. So you get the freedom, but not the trust. How does that help?
