Severe Inaccuracies Inward Media Stories Nearly Verlinde's Speculations

Last month, Erik Verlinde released around other speculative paper that he intended to sell every bit a breakthrough to the media. It's his version of what I coined every bit the holographic MOND paradigm. Dark thing doesn't genuinely exist.

Instead, the effects attributed to it outcome from around modification of the green laws of gravity that is guaranteed past times "fundamental physics" inward combination with nighttime unloose energy (or cosmological constant). One outcome is that the parameters controlling the observations displaying "dark matter" together with those displaying "dark energy" aren't independent. Verlinde uses unlike details inward the justification but they're every bit speculative every bit holographic MOND together with remove maintain similar observational consequences every bit other MOND papers.

The Dutch media remove maintain persuaded themselves that it's the greatest lawsuit inward scientific discipline since the Big Bang. The journalistic score of the Netherlands – together with other countries – is an echo sleeping accommodation where around amazing grouping shout out back is nurtured. I've been asked for interviews past times 4 Dutch scientific discipline journalists together with rejected those offers for diverse reasons. The hype inward the English-speaking media is much weaker than the hype inward the Netherlands but it's nevertheless excessive.




To present around serious problems with the electrical current state of the scientific discipline journalism, allow me alternative 2 articles that quote a judgement of mine:

Nude Socialist, Mark Anderson: First bear witness of competitor to Einstein’s gravity kills off nighttime matter, 2 days ago

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Science Alert, Fiona Macdonald: A controversial novel gravity hypothesis has passed its starting fourth dimension test, today

One thing you lot tin notice is that these 2 articles are extremely far from existence independent of each other.




They re-create non alone the plausible "reporting" nigh the "news". They portion most of the mistakes, bizarrely picked details, together with misinformation. To encounter that, commence with the sentences that incorporate my name. New Socialist wrote:

String theorist Lubos Motl savaged Verlinde’s ideas inward a recent weblog post: “I wouldn’t okay this wrong slice of piece of work every bit an undergraduate term paper.”

Science Alert told us:

String theorist Lubos Motl of late took downward Verlinde's ideas a weblog post, saying: "I wouldn’t okay this wrong slice of piece of work every bit an undergraduate term paper."

The deviation is that i journalist wrote "savaged" together with the other i wrote "took down" patch the word "recent" was changed to "recently" together with moved to a unlike house of the sentence. ;-) That's the sort of "qualified editing work" for which these journalists are existence paid hundreds of dollars per day.

Try to quantify the probability that these 2 sentences arise from 2 independent journalists' evaluation of the actual stories that they uncovering inward the existent world. Needless to say, this score of similarity is implausible. There are over 7,000 weblog posts on this website, a dozen is nigh Verlinde's speculative ideas, together with each of them contains a large let on of sentences.

And I am evidently non the alone soul who has criticized Verlinde's ideas.

What is your approximate of the probability that 2 journalists alternative just the same judgement from the same critic of Verlinde's ideas together with innovate it inward almost the same way? The probability is tiny. In other words, the evidence that what is going on is genuinely a shape of plagiarism is extremely strong, much stronger than the evidence for whatever speculative ideas of Verlinde's.

I don't wish to unmarried out Fiona Macdonald. Journalists – together with perhaps particularly scientific discipline journalists – are copying materials from each other all the time. Most of the materials they re-create from each other is garbage.

OK, I was critical together with they could remove maintain informed the readers nigh the criticism. Another work is that the content of the criticism is reported completely incorrectly past times both of them. If you lot read my actual text nigh the term paper, you lot volition see:

I wouldn't okay this wrong slice of piece of work every bit an undergraduate term newspaper but he got 6.5 millions of euros for this absolutely worthless pile of feces thus many people who are impressed past times the money but don't remove maintain an thought nigh scientific discipline – which includes virtually all journalists – started to shout out back that Verlinde is a top physicist.

The shout out for is that the comment nigh the "term paper" wasn't a comment nigh the recent Verlinde's newspaper at all. It was a comment nigh an erstwhile thought – namely the "entropic gravity" that Verlinde has gotten lots of money for years ago. You don't demand to read the whole context of my weblog post. The judgement they "quoted" is absolutely self-sufficient together with makes it clear that I am talking nigh around older piece of work past times Verlinde. They simply ignore this self-evident fact. Independently of my sentences, both of these journalists remove maintain been completely unable to notice that it's 2 totally inequivalent ideas past times Erik Verlinde that we're looking at. They remove maintain completely conflated them.

In 2010, Erik Verlinde incorrectly wrote that gravity arises from the physical objects' wish to growth the entropy i.e. gravity is an entropic force. H5N1 calendar month ago, he wrote nigh emergent gravity that unifies the nighttime thing together with nighttime unloose energy phenomena. The words "entropic" together with "emergent" may audio the same to a really sloppy journalist but they're non the same at all. These 2 papers are inward no agency equivalent.

And the newer newspaper is inward no agency edifice on the assumptions made past times the before paper. The 2010 newspaper is the reference [14] inward the novel newspaper together with the alone house where the newspaper [14] is referred to inward the novel newspaper are the sentences:

In this agency it was proven [10, 11] that the entanglement entropy indeed obeys (1.1), when the vacuum state is divided into 2 parts separated past times a Killing horizon. This fact was subsequently used to extend before piece of work on the emergence of gravity [12, 13, 14] past times deriving the (linearized) Einstein equations from full general quantum information theoretic principles [15, 16, 17].

So a calendar month ago, Verlinde was simply reviewing around vaguely related speculations nigh the possible non-fundamental graphic symbol of gravity together with his 2010 newspaper was i of them. But this 2010 newspaper isn't genuinely an "important pillar" underlying the novel 2016 paper. In fact, they're belike incompatible with each other. You may conclude that the journalists are writing nigh 2 totally unlike speculations together with they don't encounter the difference. It's similar a journalist who writes nigh Einstein's special relativity together with identifies it with Einstein's theory of the photoelectric effect.

This sloppy civilisation of journalism may survive seen non alone inward scientific discipline journalism. These days, a genuinely crappy journalist inward a no-longer-credible daily, e.g. the Washington Post, writes something together with tons of similar inkspillers re-create it into all of their ain media. Many stupid readers shout out back that when the media together with journalists remove maintain many names, the information was confirmed past times independent sources together with must survive true. But that's a totally wrong assumption. The writing of these cliques of journalists totally neglect to survive independent. In fact, you lot tin oft survive almost sure that a slice of illogical junk volition survive uncritically copied from AB to CD together with EF together with GH if AB happens to write it.

Now, the Nude Socialist together with the derived Science Alert stories celebrate a fresh newspaper

First bear witness of Verlinde's theory of Emergent Gravity using Weak Gravitational Lensing measurements

by Margot Brouwer, Konrad Kuijken, together with xx other astronomers. They state that a graph i may extract from around lensing is consistent with the predictions of Verlinde's 2016 newspaper – which has no parameters. Note that this Brouwer et al. 2016 newspaper alone builds on Verlinde 2016. The newspaper Verlinde 2010 or 2011 (on entropic gravity) is simply vaguely mentioned along with Ted Jacobson's papers together with others, simply similar it's simply vaguely mentioned inward Verlinde 2016.

What is the graphic symbol of the agreement? Look e.g. at Figure 3 on Page xi of the 22 astronomers' papers. There are 4 graphs of ESD, the excess surface density, every bit a operate of the radius. The empirical information points (crosses) concur with the predicted curves – basically direct decreasing lines with the same gradient – rather well. But the understanding inward all the quantities amounts to a "correctly predicted ESD upwards to a element of 2 inward i direction or another".

I shout out back that this bear witness is basically equivalent to the green "numerological" tests of MOND theories together with doesn't strengthen the instance for MOND or whatever version of it – similar Verlinde's version – at all. I practise shout out back that a MOND-like image is plausible together with may remove maintain a justification. But the whole MOND image also has somewhat serious problems that could really good survive proofs that the image is wrong. Papers similar this i don't genuinely alter the province of affairs if you lot await at it carefully. They're looking at the same score of observations where MOND has "sort of worked" and, non likewise surprisingly, nevertheless "sort of works" – together with they are satisfied with the green unimpressive accuracy – patch they ignore the places where "MOND doesn't seem to survive likewise healthy".

The positivity of the message inward the Nude Socialist together with derived Science Alert articles is excessive. But the journalists aren't experts together with maybe they should survive forgiven, you lot mightiness suggest. Maybe they're non deliberately deceptive, they simply don't quite empathise what's going on. However, around titles are simply outrageous together with you lot may survive sure that they were used to deliberately deceive the readers. The championship of the Nude Socialist article reads:

First bear witness of competitor to Einstein’s gravity kills off nighttime matter

Oh, really? So Verlinde's ideas are thus neat that you lot simply alternative the starting fourth dimension bear witness together with it non alone validates Verlinde's theory but also "kills off nighttime matter" every bit a side effect – i of the most famous concepts of the 20th century cosmology is simply ruled out easily. The bear witness sure as shooting cures cancer, too. Is the Nude Socialist's summary of the article past times 22 astronomers accurate? Well, let's inquire i of the 22 astronomers who genuinely wrote the paper:

I am a co-author on this paper, patch the attending is prissy this headline is TOTALLY misleading. NS shld know meliorate https://t.co/c8VBh7Bp9m

— koen kuijken (@koenkuijken) December 16, 2016

The headline is totally misleading, Kuijken says. H5N1 curt give-and-take nether his tweet agrees that the character of Nude Socialist wasn't goodness for many years together with the headline is a typical representative of "click bait". The newspaper past times 22 astronomers clearly doesn't brand whatever controversy that would inward whatever agency imply that they remove maintain "killed off nighttime matter".

The nighttime thing image – or a model with a somewhat larger let on of parameters than Verlinde's MOND – is evidently consistent with the lensing information studied past times the 22 astronomers. Nude Socialist together with Science Alert know that. Brouwer has told Nude Socialist that Verlinde's MOND has fewer parameters but nighttime thing fits the information meliorate than Verlinde's formula. If it fits better, it couldn't remove maintain been perchance "killed off", could it?

"Click bait" has move omnipresent inward the media that pretend to survive scientific discipline media – such every bit Nude Socialist. They are trying to attract every bit many readers together with clickers every bit possible. Titles such every bit "quantum mechanics or string theory or supersymmetry or nighttime thing is killed off" audio similar "intriguing stories" for them play an analogous operate every bit the headlines "look at the celebrities who remove maintain aged badly" – except that the texts nigh the celebrities, patch annoying, are much to a greater extent than truthful than the claims nigh physics. The "science journalists" simply don't give a damn that their titles are consummate lies.

So you lot tin easily bear witness that both pop-science authors knew that the observations are compatible with nighttime matter. But that didn't foreclose Nude Socialist from picking the championship maxim that the bear witness "killed off nighttime matter". They are simply lying direct into your face. And this is extremely far from existence the alone major prevarication inward these articles. They also enjoin you, alongside other things, that Verlinde basically discovered MOND. The character of the scientific discipline journalism inward Nude Socialist, Science Alert, together with lots of similar "mainstream" media has collapsed beneath all tolerable threshold. These inkspillers remove maintain turned into a stinky worthless cesspool.