It is Haisch's assertion, Jay; I merely repeated it.
I personally cannot "provide the physics" you need to accept the point.
But Haisch, he submitted this paper, it was peer reviewed and published, even while it asserts "our best current physics and astrophysics."
You don't accept such an assertion but JBIS does?
What gives?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

It is Haisch's assertion, Jay; I merely repeated it.

If you agree with it and cite it in support, you are responsible to defend it. Either defend it or concede.

I personally cannot "provide the physics" you need to accept the point.

Then concede.

You don't accept such an assertion but JBIS does?

JBIS can do whatever they want. I don't know of any journal that implies agreement with an author's conclusion as part of successful completion of a peer review.

There is no physics in that paper, and in fact a gross and egregious lack of it. Where physics should have been discussed, there was only silence.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

It seems to me regardless if a journal agrees with a paper's conclusion, the review process would challenge such an assertion as "our best physics and astrophysics predicts ET visitation" if there were such an egregious lack of it.
Is the peer review process so fallable?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

As Jay posts and you know if you bring it to this forum as support then you either defend it or or concede, there is no defence in 'merely repeating' it's an attempt to get out of Rule 13.

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I don't understand how Inflation, String, Mbrane theories, the age, size, composition, and physical processes in the universe (argument by scale), Copernican principle etc. are not rooted in physics / astrophysics, how Fermi came to his conclusion through mere speculation and wishful thinking.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

You do realize that no one but you is talking about Fermi, right?

Look. Our best physics, so far as I've read, says that there is no way to exceed the speed of light. That's pretty much accepted as just true. So in order for our best physics to say that there's some certainty that we should be visited, you have to explain 'round that. I don't want to hear how Fermi calculated his paradox. I really don't. I want to hear how this particular contradiction is resolved.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

All of which are trumped by interstellar distance. The authors acknowledge that interstellar distance is a problem, wave their hands at speculative potential solutions to it, assume that ETs are magical enough to solve them, and then go their merry way.

Fail.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You do realize "Inflation-theory Implications for ET Vistation" is based on Fermi's paradox, don't you?

Apparent FTL is not excluded by GR.
Alcubierre Warp Drives and Einstein Rosen bridge are two possibilities.

__________________
"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Interstellar distance might "trump" Inflation, String, Mbrane theories, etc. but that does not mean there is no physical basis for them.
You said there are no physics / astrophysics involved here.
Which is it, there are physics / astrophysics involved but are "trumped" or the these things have no physical basis?

I acknowledge the interstellar distance problem but I refuse to impose on hypothetical ETi our limitations to overcome it.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Both are speculative and problematic from both theoretical and practical standpoints. Again, simply waving one's hands at speculation and magical ETs does not constitute "our best physics."

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You said there are no physics / astrophysics involved here.

I said no such thing. I said there was no physics in the article you cited and characterized as "our best physics."

Which is it, there are physics / astrophysics involved but are "trumped" or the these things have no physical basis?

Your authors allude to these problems but do not propose a solution. They simply assume ETs would somehow have solved them. That is not physics; it is an evasion of physics.

I acknowledge the interstellar distance problem but I refuse to impose on hypothetical ETi our limitations to overcome it.

"Magical ET" hypothesis noted. And rejected. Do you concede?

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that the Alcubierre Warp Drives and Einstein Rosen bridges are strictly FTL mechanisms, they are more a warping of space-time that in simple terms brings one point closer to the other. No need to physically travel greater than c.

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Talkie Toaster: The question is this: given that God is infinite and that the universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted tea-cake?

What does that have to do with your claim? Your claim was, "Reality is that our best physics and astrophysics arguably predict we could've or should've been visited by now." Please support your statement or withdraw it. All you've done so far is present a highly speculative article that threw out some physics buzzwords.

What conclusion are you referring to?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

That may be, but it brings me back to an earlier question about the peer review process not challenging such an assertion; I don't think you answered it.

Shouldn't Haisch's assertion have been challenged during peer review?
Wouldn't his peers prefer he didn't say "our best current physics" if there were such a egregious lack of it in his paper?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Peer review isn't magic. Its rigor varies per publication. Peer reviewers may get different instructions on what to pass and what not. There are other problems that get papers published which should not have been. Not passing peer review in a well respected publication is more significant than passing it, IMHO.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
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Meet the OOONG TOE.

But the author draws on these (Inflation, String, Mbrane, mediocrity principle,etc) things to make his point and you say he involves no physics / astrophysics.

From the paper:

"Clearly when it comes to engineering warp drive or wormhole solutions, seemingly insurmountable obstacles emerge, such as unattainable energy requirements [16] or the need for exotic matter [17]. Thus, if success is to be achieved, it must rest on some yet
unforeseen breakthrough about which we can only speculate, such as a technology to cohere otherwise random vacuum fluctuations [18]. Nonetheless, the possibility of reduced-time interstellar travel by advanced extraterrestrial (ET) civilisations is not, as naive consideration might hold, fundamentally ruled out by presently known physical principles. ET knowledge of the physical universe may comprise new principles which allow some form of FTL travel. This possibility is to be taken seriously, since the average age of suitable stars within the ‘galactic habitable zone’, in which the Earth also resides, is found to be
about 10^9 years older than the sun [19] suggesting the possibility of civilizations extremely advanced beyond our own.

Nope.

I might concede Haisch (and I) overstated his position but I can't agree his paper is without foundation in physics /astrophysics, and that they arguably suggest Earth should've been visited by now.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Fermi's.

From wiki:

In 1950, while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the physicist Enrico Fermi had a casual conversation while walking to lunch with colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York. The men lightly discussed a recent spate of UFO reports and an Alan Dunn cartoon[9] facetiously blaming the disappearance of municipal trashcans on marauding aliens. They then had a more serious discussion regarding the chances of humans observing faster-than-light travel of some material object within the next ten years, which Teller put at one in a million, but Fermi put closer to one in ten. The conversation shifted to other subjects, until during lunch Fermi suddenly exclaimed, "Where are they?" (alternatively, "Where is everybody?")[10] One participant recollects that Fermi then made a series of rapid calculations using estimated figures (Fermi was known for his ability to make good estimates from first principles and minimal data, see Fermi problem.) According to this account, he then concluded that Earth should have been visited long ago and many times over.[10][11]

my emphasis

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

This looks to me like another case of taking something which is conceivable and sliding it across the table into the assumed category.

Heck, maybe the universe is teeming with aliens, and heck, maybe they've long ago surpassed our physics and can now routinely travel faster than light. The idea has formed the basis of some interesting (and even intelligent) science fiction.

But there's also a very real likelihood that the lightspeed barrier simply cannot be broken (whether for theoretical or practical reasons) no matter how clever the aliens might be.

I note the use of the word "arguable" to make a claim without making a claim. Same old, same old.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

"According to this account, he then concluded that Earth should have been visited long ago and many times over."

According to this account? How many version of that story are there? Sounds like somebody inserted a pet story into Wiki and you fell for it.

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Friendly Rabid Atheists (mostly)

So why the high standard for peer reviewed papers if the system is flawed?
Variable rigor, instructions on what to pass or not, other problems ...

So if Haisch had submitted to AJ, ApJ, etc. and was rejected you might consider his paper more significant?

__________________
"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

There is no credible evidence that ET's actually exist, yet these same unproven ET's "may" have the ability to traverse multi-lightyear distances?? This is the wildest of speculations, with absolutely NO science involved at all.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I think that is correct; apparent FTL that is.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Sure. But we are taking the speculation someone (and I note that you've only brought up one person's statement on the subject) has pushed forward based on Fermi's Paradox as the basis of the discussion, not the Paradox itself. How Fermi came up with the Paradox is actually totally irrelevant to the discussion unless you are directly citing Fermi, not the article. And even there, frankly, you'd have to provide an awful lot more people than just him in order to go with "our best physics/astrophysics." Unless you intend to demonstrate that Fermi, all by himself, was and is our best.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Not necessarily. It is not the job of the reviewer to ensure that the scientist has reached the correct conclusion, but simply to confirm that the methodology of the reasoning is sound. Haisch makes certain assumptions, states them as assumptions, and then reasons from them. That may be sufficient for JBIS' purposes.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Anything that has the effect of something arriving at Point B from Point A faster than a photon violates causality.

These handwaving fiascos are not physics.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

As I've mentioned in other threads, it isn't clear exactly what Fermi said or concluded. I previously linked to this pdf that discusses it:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/...a-10311-ms.pdf

That particular account continues, "As I recall, he went on to conclude that the reason we hadn't been visited might be because interstellar flight is impossible, or if it is possible, always judged not to be worth the effort, or technological civilization doesn't last long enough for it to happen."

What is clear is that most of the speculation around the "Fermi Paradox" came after Fermi.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Or rather the specific conclusion he came to one lunchtime is not necessarily the one that he intended to be taken seriously.

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Nothing beautiful was ever made from gravel.

First, although JBIS is a respected journal it is clearly intended as a forward-looking publication. As such it tolerates speculation and hypothesis to a greater extent than in a more rigorous scientific journal. Not all papers published in JBIS are reviewed.

Second, in any review context the intent of the author prevails. If the author intends to build his argument on a hypothetical premise, and the charter of the journal allows this, then a reviewer will not reject or amend a paper simply because it is hypothetical.

Just because a peer review does not do what you expect it to (i.e., insure correctness) does not mean it is "flawed" or that it is without value.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

As the line goes: "FTL, causality, and relativity. Pick any two."

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Emphasis mine...

Sounds remarkably like our own "reluctance" in persuing a manned Mars landing.

If we "judge" the aliens using our personal "yardstick", (as some do), then this simplest of explanations might just be the answer.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov