Evidence of gravitational waves, or evidence of confirmation bias?

[Michael]

As expected your response doesn’t address SelfSim’s question nor does it provide supportive evidence for LIGO’s “initial” σ values or the presence of environmental noise in the statistical noise data.

The only significant or meaningful figures in my coin flip analogy are the mean and sigma values related to actually getting four tails in a row, of generating my supposed 'alien signal'. The only meaningful mean would be 4*.5=2, and the sigma would be 1/2(sqrt(4)) = 1. There is a 1 in 16 chance (1/(2^4)) of getting four consecutive tails in a row in four consecutive flips, and I flipped a total of 48 times, so I had 12 "four flip opportunities" to get four tails in a row. I therefore had a 75 percent (12/16) chance of getting my "alien signal" to start with. In other words, there's nothing statistically unusual about my so called "alien signal".

Any sigma calculations or mathematical comparison between my cherry picked "statistical noise" set and the so called "alien signal" is utterly "made up", contrived, irrelevant, and of no useful scientific value whatsoever in determining the real "cause" of my "signal"!

LIGO's methodology and their claim is *so bad*, it can't even distinguish itself from the typical "null hypothesis". In LIGO's case, the null hypothesis would assume that all noise patterns, correlated or not, regardless of frequency or duration pattern selected, are caused by *anything other than* gravitational waves. The null hypothesis therefore would not expect to observe any time correlation between any specific subset of noise and any specific celestial event. Indeed, since LIGO has not delivered on multimessenger astronomy as promised, the null hypothesis is completely compatible with LIGO's findings to date! Holy Cow!

What a really poor methodology if they can't even distinguish their claims and their results from a typical null hypothesis. Wow! I'm not impressed.

But you two go right ahead and blame me for pointing out LIGO's useless cherry picked sigma calculation, their *complete lack* of a quantified sigma figure related to eliminating *ordinary background noise*, their inability to distinguish between blip transients and gravitational waves, and their blatant confirmation bias related to giving all celestial claims a free pass. Sure, it's all my fault that LIGO can't even distinguish between the predictions of a null hypothesis and their "discovery". Sheesh. What shoddy methodology.

 

[Michael]

Oh great another person who thinks they are a legend in their own mind.

No, my personal opinions about section 9 of that BICEP2 paper were actually demonstrated to have had greater predictive value than the collective "professional opinions" of all 200+ BICEP2 authors. In that case I only had to wait few months to watch their discovery claim turn to dust. In the case of dark matter I've already waited for more than a decade for you folks to to produce your laboratory evidence of exotic forms of matter, and you just won't admit to that mistake yet.

Amateur being the operative word…..

Even an amateur can see that LIGO cannot even externally distinguish its discovery claim from the predictions of a typical null hypothesis, and they have *many* serious problems in their methodology. Even an amateur like me can see for themselves that LIGO hasn't delivered on their promise of multimessenger astronomy to date. Wake me up when you can actually distinguish your claims from a typical null hypothesis.

 

[SelfSim]

... No, my personal opinions about section 9 of that BICEP2 paper were actually demonstrated to have had greater predictive value than the collective "professional opinions" of all 200+ BICEP2 authors ...

EGO = 1/Knowledge

 

[Michael]

EGO = 1/Knowledge

Sure, somehow its all my fault that LIGO can't even distinguish it's "discovery" claims from a typical null hypothesis. Oy Vey.

 

[sjastro]

No, my personal opinions about section 9 of that BICEP2 paper were actually demonstrated to have had greater predictive value than the collective "professional opinions" of all 200+ BICEP2 authors. In that case I only had to wait few months to watch their discovery claim turn to dust. In the case of dark matter I've already waited for more than a decade for you folks to to produce your laboratory evidence of exotic forms of matter, and you just won't admit to that mistake yet.

Really Micheal is this your predictive power at work from a previous post.

In section 9 however, they put all the responsibility on the folks at Planck to justify their false claim to have eliminated dust, and to do all the hard work of demonstrating the validity of their claim for them. I'm sure that irritated the hell out of the folks working on Planck. They sealed their fate with that lame move.

If this is the best you can do then rather than coming across as the intellectual giant that soars above BICEP2 collective, it's more like someone who is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

 

[sjastro]

The only significant or meaningful figures in my coin flip analogy are the mean and sigma values related to actually getting four tails in a row, of generating my supposed 'alien signal'. The only meaningful mean would be 4*.5=2, and the sigma would be 1/2(sqrt(4)) = 1. There is a 1 in 16 chance (1/(2^4)) of getting four consecutive tails in a row in four consecutive flips, and I flipped a total of 48 times, so I had 12 "four flip opportunities" to get four tails in a row. I therefore had a 75 percent (12/16) chance of getting my "alien signal" to start with. In other words, there's nothing statistically unusual about my so called "alien signal".

Your attempts to calculate the probability is so ridiculously wrong and not even relevant.

You have tossed the coin 48 times, the total number of combinations possible is 2^48 = 2.81 X 10^14.
In order to calculate the number of combinations for four tails in a row one needs to refer to the sequence of Tetranacci numbers {0,0,1,1,2,4,8,15,29,56,108,208,401,773,1490.......}

The total number of combinations of four straight tails occurring anywhere in the 48 toss sequence is given by the formula:

2^48- tetranacci(52) where tetranacci(52) is the 52nd number in the sequence.
This is 52298426843184.

Hence the total number of combinations is 2^48- 52298426843184= 2.81 X 10^14- 52298426843184 = 2.29 X 10^14

The probability is (2.29 X 10^14)/(2.81 X 10^14)=0.81

It is a total fluke you got somewhere near the answer with your nonsense and it is not what I requested.

Getting back to the point you have done half the calculations for σ, now do the calculations where no cherry picking has occurred and then explain why it contradicts your idea that cherry picking increases the σ value.

 

[Michael]

Your attempts to calculate the probability is so ridiculously wrong and not even relevant.

False. I simply provided you with a ballpark estimate to point out that I was likely to get four heads somewhere in my 48 flips. You're simply using a more exact calculation.

The probability is (2.29 X 10^14)/(2.81 X 10^14)=0.81

It is a total fluke you got somewhere near the answer with your nonsense and it is not what I requested.

What a bunch of nonsense. My calculation is a fine rough estimate and it was no "fluke" that it's in the right ballpark. The only reason the more exact number is slightly higher is because I simply separated out the coins into groups of four and divided 48 by 4. I didn't bother to include the probability of getting a few consecutive tails in the last few flips of one group of four, and a few consecutive tails in the first few flips of the next group of four. There's actually a slightly greater probability of getting four consecutive tails for that reason in the total of 48 flip attempts. Your description of my number being a "fluke" is pure nonsense. It was simply a rough estimate to demonstrate that my signal is *likely* to occur, and it's not likely to be related to "aliens".

Getting back to the point you have done half the calculations for σ, now do the calculations where no cherry picking has occurred and then explain why it contradicts your idea that cherry picking increases the σ value.

As my cherry picking example demonstrates, the cherry picking process can be used to filter out the data which you don't want to include in the sigma calculation, just like LIGO removed the environmental noise so that the sigma figure would be higher than if they had used all the available data. The sigma comparing the statistical "cherry picked" noise is a meaningless calculation as it relates to cause. It doesn't matter what sigma figure you produce, it doesn't demonstrate a "discovery" of anything. It could be 8 sigma and it wouldn't matter one iota.

 

[Michael]

If this is the best you can do then rather than coming across as the intellectual giant that soars above BICEP2 collective, it's more like someone who is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

More ad homs and personal attacks. Who would have guessed. Yawn...

200+ guys all got it wrong sjastro, and just like I figured, their claim went down in flames just a few years ago, so what makes you think there is any strength in numbers related to LIGO? Their volume of authors didn't weed out any of the methodology errors I cited, and apparently they collectively missed the correlated noise problem too. Their methodology is so bad, that their results can't be distinguished from a typical null hypothesis. Until and unless LIGO makes good on their promise of multimessenger astronomy, their claims of "discovery" are meaningless. The sigma figure is meaningless, and they have no quantified way to eliminate environmental noise as the real cause of the noise patterns.

LIGO didn't even provide a quantified sigma figure to eliminate either environmental noise which can be safely vetoed, nor blip transients for which no vetoes even exist. Their rationale for eliminating blip transients was based on their claim that blip transients couldn't be correlated, but LIGO has correlated noise!

 

[SelfSim]

More ad homs and personal attacks. Who would have guessed. Yawn...

Incorrect ... sjastro's comment about the justification you offered in support of your self-declared 'prediction' (regarding the Bicep2 issue) also reflects my own impressions. Such impressions are a consequence of the obvious invalidity of your reasoning, and nothing to do with a 'personal attack'.

In fact, you yourself, brought on this response with the 'evidence' you presented ...

200+ guys all got it wrong sjastro, and just like I figured, their claim went down in flames just a few years ago, so what makes you think there is any strength in numbers related to LIGO? Their volume of authors didn't weed out any of the methodology errors I cited, and apparently they collectively missed the correlated noise problem too. Their methodology is so bad, that their results can't be distinguished from a typical null hypothesis. Until and unless LIGO makes good on their promise of multimessenger astronomy, their claims of "discovery" are meaningless. The sigma figure is meaningless, and they have no quantified way to eliminate environmental noise as the real cause of the noise patterns.

... More wild unsupported claims.
i) Your 'correlated noise problem' is not yet agreed;
ii) You have not demonstrated that the signal detection is indistinguishable from your null hypothesis;
iii) You are unable to demonstrate that a future of 'multimessenger astronomy' is unachievable and thereby you cannot substantiate your claim of 'meaningless'(ness);
iv) The sigma figure has physical significance when random noise presents itself;
v) 'Environmental' noise is routinely detected by a myriad of deployed sensitive PEM sensors (which you continue to conveniently completely ignore).

LIGO didn't even provide a quantified sigma figure to eliminate either environmental noise which can be safely vetoed, nor blip transients for which no vetoes even exist. Their rationale for eliminating blip transients was based on their claim that blip transients couldn't be correlated, but LIGO has correlated noise!

You continually ignore the 20dB (approx) SNR figure. Over the many years of LIGO operation, there has never yet been a correlated 'blip transient' with such intensity.
'Correlated noise' is not yet agreed.

 

[Michael]

Incorrect ... sjastro's comment about the justification you offered in support of your self-declared 'prediction' (regarding the Bicep2 issue) also reflects my own impressions. Such impressions are a consequence of the obvious invalidity of your reasoning, and nothing to do with a 'personal attack'.

Nah, it's a personal attack. You even did the very same thing to Donald Scott. You spewed hateful, baseless accusations at him personally, and you provided no supporting facts or even specific citations. When cornered for specifics, you ran too.

It's just par for the course with you guys to personally attack and and all EU/PC proponents.

In fact, you yourself, brought on this response with the 'evidence' you presented ...

... More wild unsupported claims.

LOL! LIGO made visually unsupported 'discovery' claims from a cooked up and useless sigma figure, and you have the audacity to talk about *my* unsupported claims? Wow! Irony overload.

i) Your 'correlated noise problem' is not yet agreed;

Except the Danish group was able to actually pick out the offending lines of bad python code in LIGO's public "rebuttal" in a matter of days if not hours, so I have zero confidence in LIGO's assertions. All I've seen from LIGO thus far is a couple of blog entries and the "promise" of an eventual response, and nothing on the table to refute the Danish teams findings.

I already see LIGO hedging on their website about a so called "misunderstanding of public data products" like they have a secret, super special way of processing the "private" data, that everybody else has to conform to. I'm not impressed so far with their public rebuttals to date, or their unwillingness to discuss the specifics of that missing veto, so why would I worry about what LIGO might say in the future? For all I know the Danish team will pick them apart *again* the moment they try to justify their "special" noise processing techniques.

Even if they did somehow deal with that problem it wouldn't resolve any of the problems I pointed out in their methodology.

ii) You have not demonstrated that the signal detection is indistinguishable from your null hypothesis;

You're funny. It's not up to me to do that in the first place. The null hypothesis predicts that all noise is *not* related to gravitational waves, therefore there will not be a correlation between any observed events in space, and any noise pattern in LIGO, even correlated noise patterns. So far the null hypothesis is *completely compatible* with the LIGO "discovery" claims. LIGO hasn't even provided a quantified way to eliminate environmental noise to begin with!

iii) You are unable to demonstrate that a future of 'multimessenger astronomy' is unachievable and thereby you cannot substantiate your claim of 'meaningless'(ness);

Man, that's funny. You're on a roll today. You can't demonstrate that 'multimessenger astronomy' (LIGO's term and promise, not mine) will *ever* happen. It's been close to 2 years and it's certainly never happened to date. You have no evidence it ever will happen. Keep in mind that I'm not claiming a great "discovery" of epic physics proportions, so it's not up to me to demonstrate it *cannot* be done. It's up to them to deliver on their promise or admit they messed up!

iv) The sigma figure has physical significance when random noise presents itself;

It's a meaningless sigma figure that does not eliminate environmental noise and there is no *quantified* way to eliminate environmental noise in their entire method!

v) 'Environmental' noise is routinely detected by a myriad of deployed sensitive PEM sensors (which you continue to conveniently completely ignore).

No, you just conveniently completely ignore the fact that there *was* a veto of that exact signal, and someone deemed it "unsafe" without even mentioning it in the public paper, again without bothering to quantify anything related to "safety". Worse for LIGO, they won't even explain why that veto was originally written and added, what type of noise it was designed to filter out, and how it managed to achieve a "high" level of rejection.

You continually ignore the 20dB (approx) SNR figure. Over the many years of LIGO operation, there has never yet been a correlated 'blip transient' with such intensity.

LIGO wasn't even out of the *engineering run* after *major* upgrades, so why would it be surprising that background noise is observed at higher intensities than their older, less sensitive equipment?

'Correlated noise' is not yet agreed.

Where's your argument against it? I've seen the argument for it and it looks rather solid to me. Why should I even trust LIGO after that bogus nonsense about there being no vetoes present within an hour of the event when there was at least one veto within 18 seconds of it being uploaded to the GraceDB database?

Sorry, but LIGO completely burned their "trust" bridges with me over that veto they won't talk about. I'll have to see their arguments before I'm likely to doubt the existence of correlated noise. It seems only logical that when you increase sensitivity by a thousand fold in terms of volume space that it's possible to pick up correlated noise in at a least a few instances.

I went though this whole 'attack the messenger' nonsense 11 years ago when I dared to publicly "doubt" the baryonic mass estimation techniques that were used in that bogus 2006 lensing study too. Look how that turned out. I had no idea they had so many *different* problems in their baryonic mass estimation techniques and it took *years* to discover them all. You've also blown *billions* in the lab and you have nothing to show for any of it.

I went though the attack the messenger game again when I dared to publicly doubt that BICEP2 had realistically eliminated every other possible cause of polarized photon patterns from space from a single Planck image too, but look how that turned out.

Your personal attacks aren't going to fix LIGO's basic problem, or save them from public humilitation. They can't even distinguish their claims from a null hypothesis, and they have no legitimate quantified way to eliminate ordinary background noise as the cause of the noise patterns.

It's really not going to matter one iota what you say about me Selfsim. If LIGO can't deliver on their promise of multimessenger astronomy, they're toast. LIGO painted themselves into this corner all by themselves, not me. Had they been *conservative* in terms of picking an event which *could* be correlated to an observable celestial event, I'd be the first to pat them on the back. Since they didn't do that, and they pulled another blatant Joseph Weber routine, I've got no confidence in their claims and a real problem with the way they dealt with that original veto, including their unwillingness to answer any of my specific questions about it.

Time is on my side, just like time was on my side with the dark mater claims. LIGO has obligated themselves to deliver on their promise of multimessenger astronomy, but if all they're seeing is correlated background noise, that's never going to happen. They can't cry invisible wolf forever.

 

[SelfSim]

Keep in mind that I'm not claiming a great "discovery" of epic physics proportions, so it's not up to me to demonstrate it *cannot* be done.
...
It's a meaningless sigma figure.

... You don't have any understanding whatsoever about how they've distinguished this signal, as was revealed by your enormous boot-in-mouth claims and subsequent enormous back-down of the challenge put forth in post #158. You clearly need reminding about this so, I will continue to cross-reference this, and the conclusion post#160.

No, you just conveniently completely ignore ... {blah, blah, blah, etc} ...

 

[Michael]

... You don't have any understanding whatsoever about how they've distinguished this signal, as was revealed by your enormous boot-in-mouth claims and subsequent enormous back-down of the challenge put forth in post #158. You clearly need reminding about this so, I will continue to cross-reference this, and the conclusion post#160.

What are you even talking about? The only thing I had to "back-down" about is any insinuation that I had provided math in my analogy. I simply demonstrated a way to make it statistically impossible to get a cherry picked set of 16 heads of "statistical noise" to reproduce a four tail "test signal". It wasn't even necessary to go any further.

As I mentioned before, the odds were in my favor that I'd simply get four tails in a row in 48 tries based on statistics. Likewise it's likely that the background noise would statistically reproduce the "test signal" a lot sooner than a five figure sigma, so that background noise was "cherry picked" by LIGO out of the 'statistical noise" to get the sigma figure to get to the 'discovery' zone. The sigma figure doesn't even rule out environmental noise, and LIGO has no quantified way to eliminating environmental noise as the cause.

For crying out loud, LIGO's published paper misrepresented the veto of that very signal, they won't even explain why they wrote that veto, or what type of noise it was designed to detect. They won't explain why or how that veto achieved a "high confidence" rejection of that very signal. They won't describe a quantified method of "safety" for any so called "non safe veto"! That secretive behavior is not consistent with a group that has true public confidence in their conclusions.

Bash me personally all you like Selfsim, but it won't save LIGO, anymore than it helped LHC find exotic forms of stable matter over the past decade. It didn't help BICEP2 either.

Let's be real. If LIGO doesn't deliver on their promise of multimessenger astronomy, they will eventually be toast. They can only cry invisible black hole wolf so many times before nobody will believe them anymore. It's already approaching 2 years, they have 3 detectors online to better triangulate any "signal", and they have a *dedicated telescope* at their beckon call, and every other telescope on Earth and in space to find the appropriate celestial event. Where's the visual beef? Why can't LIGO ever manage to find gravitational waves from anything that is actually visible in the whole wide universe?

LIGO originally estimated a 5/3 ratio of neutron star mergers vs BH-BH mergers so they should already have 5 visually verified merger events by now, even if they already have three invisible events. This whole claim is getting more tattered, torn and unbelievable by the day. It has all the earmarks of the Joseph Weber scenario and his claims fell apart eventually due to a lack of any external corroboration. The same thing is bound to happen here if LIGO doesn't make good on their promise of multimessenger astronomy, no matter how much you beat up on me personally in public. It's not about me to begin with. It's about LIGO's claim as to cause of noise patterns that have no quantified support in term of of eliminating environmental noise, and not a single photon of external support. This scenario has all the signs of a Joseph Weber train-wreck in slow motion. The LIGO train is quickly approaching the brick wall of multimessenger astronomy and it's not slowing down or showing any signs of caution.

 

[SelfSim]

Nah, it's a personal attack. You even did the very same thing to Donald Scott. You spewed hateful, baseless accusations at him personally, and you provided no supporting facts or even specific citations. When cornered for specifics, you ran too.

It's just par for the course with you guys to personally attack and and all EU/PC proponents.

Just noticed your above off-topic comments and I really do need to present you with as formal a warning as this forum allows.

If you continue with the above kind of slanderous abuse, you are in direct violation of the rules of this forum, which prohibit personal attacks directed at individual members. Regardless of your opinions about my Scott analysis, (which did provide clear evidence that he had committed professional plagiarism), you are not permitted to hijack your own unrelated thread by using the matter as a means for continuing slanderous attacks on me.

Unless you cease and desist your above off-topic abuse, I will have no option other than to report you to the moderators who have a legal responsibility to enforce their own rules.

You have been warned .. and I assure you I am quite genuine in following through, if you continue with this standard of behaviour.

 

[Michael]

In the interest of bringing this thread back on topic......

After almost two years of operation after the upgrades, I'm still waiting for LIGO to deliver on their promise of multimessenger astronomy. Do you have any idea if or when that might actually happen?

Can you even explain how LIGO's so called 'discovery' claims are incompatible with a null hypothesis?

 

[sjastro]

Just noticed your above off-topic comments and I really do need to present you with as formal a warning as this forum allows.

If you continue with the above kind of slanderous abuse, you are in direct violation of the rules of this forum, which prohibit personal attacks directed at individual members. Regardless of your opinions about my Scott analysis, (which did provide clear evidence that he had committed professional plagiarism), you are not permitted to hijack your own unrelated thread by using the matter as a means for continuing slanderous attacks on me.

Unless you cease and desist your above off-topic abuse, I will have no option other than to report you to the moderators who have a legal responsibility to enforce their own rules.

You have been warned .. and I assure you I am quite genuine in following through, if you continue with this standard of behaviour.

Good on you SelfSim for taking a stand on his behaviour.

 

[sjastro]

False. I simply provided you with a ballpark estimate to point out that I was likely to get four heads somewhere in my 48 flips. You're simply using a more exact calculation.

Rubbish for the reasons as given below.

What a bunch of nonsense. My calculation is a fine rough estimate and it was no "fluke" that it's in the right ballpark. The only reason the more exact number is slightly higher is because I simply separated out the coins into groups of four and divided 48 by 4. I didn't bother to include the probability of getting a few consecutive tails in the last few flips of one group of four, and a few consecutive tails in the first few flips of the next group of four. There's actually a slightly greater probability of getting four consecutive tails for that reason in the total of 48 flip attempts. Your description of my number being a "fluke" is pure nonsense. It was simply a rough estimate to demonstrate that my signal is *likely* to occur, and it's not likely to be related to "aliens".

Your methodology is nonsensical because all you have done is to illustrate the case of tossing 48 tails in row which has a probability p= (1/2)^48 = 0.0000000000000036, not 0.75.
Then there is question of why you added the probabilities of the 12 separate groups instead of multiplying as is the case of calculating the individual probabilities of each group.
If the 12 separate groups were multiplied which is the correct way since each coin toss is an independent event, then p = (1/16)^12 = 0.0000000000000036 which as expected is the same as tossing the coin 48 times.

Even if it is assumed your methodology is a ballpark estimate for all 4 tail combinations in the toss sequence then it should apply for any number of coin tosses.
For example a 100 coin toss, you are adding up the probabilities of 25 groups or (100/4)/16 =1.56.
Notice anything wrong, well according to your “maths” there is 156% “certainty” of 4 tails in a 100 coin toss sequence.
Sorry to disappoint you but in probability theory 100% (p=1) is the absolute upper limit.

The correct method gives p = (2^100- tetranacci(104))/2^100 = (2^100-34587793007077449264905225769)/2^100
=0.9999999999999998.

As the number of coin tosses increases, the probability of having 4 successive tails approaches 100% certainty (p=1).

Your post is yet another example of your total incompetence in mathematics, your “maths” is not only out of the ballpark but somewhere in the realms of LaLa land.

As my cherry picking example demonstrates, the cherry picking process can be used to filter out the data which you don't want to include in the sigma calculation, just like LIGO removed the environmental noise so that the sigma figure would be higher than if they had used all the available data. The sigma comparing the statistical "cherry picked" noise is a meaningless calculation as it relates to cause. It doesn't matter what sigma figure you produce, it doesn't demonstrate a "discovery" of anything. It could be 8 sigma and it wouldn't matter one iota.

Translation:- I’m not going to do the calculations as it would illustrate how wrong I am that cherry picking increases sigma and would wreck my primary argument against LIGO.

 

[Michael]

Rubbish for the reasons as given below.

Your reasoning below is rubbish.

Your methodology is nonsensical because all you have done is to illustrate the case of tossing 48 tails in row which has a probability p= (1/2)^48 = 0.0000000000000036, not 0.75.

Did you even read my post? Did you see how I came up with the figures?

Then there is question of why you added the probabilities of the 12 separate groups instead of multiplying as is the case of calculating the individual probabilities of each group.
If the 12 separate groups were multiplied which is the correct way since each coin toss is an independent event, then p = (1/16)^12 = 0.0000000000000036 which as expected is the same as tossing the coin 48 times.

Even if it is assumed your methodology is a ballpark estimate for all 4 tail combinations in the toss sequence then it should apply for any number of coin tosses.

It does.

For example a 100 coin toss, you are adding up the probabilities of 25 groups or (100/4)/16 =1.56.
Notice anything wrong, well according to your “maths” there is 156% “certainty” of 4 tails in a 100 coin toss sequence.
Sorry to disappoint you but in probability theory 100% (p=1) is the absolute upper limit.

If I had gone over 100 percent, I probably would have bothered to look up the exact formula. Since all I was demonstrating is that it's very likely that I would have seen a 4 sequential tail "signal" at least once in 48 flips, it wasn't necessary for me to be "exact".

In my simplified rough estimate I suppose that 1.56 figure would simply mean that I'd be very likely (virtually 100 percent likely) to get at least one 'signal', and I'd have a better than 50/50 shot of getting two of them.

Your post is yet another example of your total incompetence in mathematics, your “maths” is not only out of the ballpark but somewhere in the realms of LaLa land.

Baloney. You guys just don't have any actual science to offer so all you ever do is avoid the *topic*, and hijack the thread to fixate on the *individual*. Your constant personal attacks are just a function of your empirical scientific incompetence on this topic. You can't even demonstrate that the LIGO findings are in any way inconsistent with the null hypothesis, so you have to change the subject in every single post.

Translation:- I’m not going to do the calculations as it would illustrate how wrong I am that cherry picking increases sigma and would wreck my primary argument against LIGO.

Translation: It's been my consistent experience that it's pointless to provide any math for you folks because even if I use a simplified estimate for purposes of illustrating a point, you simply go ballistic, go off on a tangent, and use it as an excuse to launch yourself into more personal attacks. You just did it again too.

Can you two demonstrate that the so called LIGO 'discoveries' are at all inconsistent with the null hypothesis, yes or no? Can you cite a *quantified* sigma figure which eliminates environmental noise as the cause, yes or no? Can you site a quantified sigma figure which eliminates blip transients as the cause *without* assuming that they cannot be correlated, yes or no? The answers are all no of course, which is why you always go right back to attacking the messenger. Cue the next personal attack....

Yawn. And you two talk about *me* and my behaviors? Sheesh. You two are entirely transparent and entirely predictable. Stop hijacking the thread and stick to the topic.

 

[SelfSim]

... You can't even demonstrate that the LIGO findings are in any way inconsistent with the null hypothesis
...
Can you two demonstrate that the so called LIGO 'discoveries' are at all inconsistent with the null hypothesis ..

The context within which the LIGO measurement is interpreted has its basis in the measurement and findings of the Hulse-Taylor binary system study:

Their discovery of the system and analysis of it earned them the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."

In particular:

The orbit has decayed since the binary system was initially discovered, in precise agreement with the loss of energy due to gravitational waves described by Einstein's general theory of relativity. The ratio of observed to predicted rate of orbital decay is calculated to be 0.997±0.002.

The LIGO measurement(s) represent subsequent major pieces of empirical evidence in direct support of the broader context.
Collectively, all of these pieces of evidence far outweigh the unevidenced credibility of your so-called null hypothesis.

 

[Michael]

The context within which the LIGO measurement is interpreted has its basis in the measurement and findings of the Hulse-Taylor binary system study:
In particular:

The LIGO measurement(s) represent subsequent major pieces of empirical evidence in direct support of the broader context.
Collectively, all of these pieces of evidence far outweigh the unevidenced credibility of your so-called null hypothesis.

Since LIGO provides no quantified way to eliminate ordinary environmental noise as the cause, the presumed "weight" of your argument is not quantifiable to start with.

I don't think you understand the point of a null hypothesis. A null hypothesis doesn't require or necessitate "evidence" in the first place. All the null hypothesis assumes in this case is that all noise, correlated or otherwise, is cause by *anything other than* gravitational waves, so no time correlation between any subset of noise in LIGO detectors should be able to be visually correlated to any specific celestial event. So far at least, the null hypothesis is 100 percent consistent with all LIGO findings to date. Better luck next time.

Do you two have any prediction as to if or more specifically "when" we might see an example of multimessenger astronomy from LIGO? It's already been almost two years now and so far LIGO hasn't made good on that promise which is why their results to date are still 100 percent consistent with a null hypothesis.

 

[sjastro]

Your reasoning below is rubbish.



Did you even read my post? Did you see how I came up with the figures?



It does.



If I had gone over 100 percent, I probably would have bothered to look up the exact formula. Since all I was demonstrating is that it's very likely that I would have seen a 4 sequential tail "signal" at least once in 48 flips, it wasn't necessary for me to be "exact".

In my simplified rough estimate I suppose that 1.56 figure would simply mean that I'd be very likely (virtually 100 percent likely) to get at least one 'signal', and I'd have a better than 50/50 shot of getting two of them.



Baloney. You guys just don't have any actual science to offer so all you ever do is avoid the *topic*, and hijack the thread to fixate on the *individual*. Your constant personal attacks are just a function of your empirical scientific incompetence on this topic. You can't even demonstrate that the LIGO findings are in any way inconsistent with the null hypothesis, so you have to change the subject in every single post.



Translation: It's been my consistent experience that it's pointless to provide any math for you folks because even if I use a simplified estimate for purposes of illustrating a point, you simply go ballistic, go off on a tangent, and use it as an excuse to launch yourself into more personal attacks. You just did it again too.

Can you two demonstrate that the so called LIGO 'discoveries' are at all inconsistent with the null hypothesis, yes or no? Can you cite a *quantified* sigma figure which eliminates environmental noise as the cause, yes or no? Can you site a quantified sigma figure which eliminates blip transients as the cause *without* assuming that they cannot be correlated, yes or no? The answers are all no of course, which is why you always go right back to attacking the messenger. Cue the next personal attack....

Yawn. And you two talk about *me* and my behaviors? Sheesh. You two are entirely transparent and entirely predictable. Stop hijacking the thread and stick to the topic.

The big yawn Michael is how you play the victim card in every post.
The facts are that your posts are littered with stupid and idiotic comments, pointing these out to you are not a personal attack.
Your determination in defending your “formula” which are not you prepared to admit is so comprehensively wrong at the cost of embarrassing yourself is one such example.