Flipper,
The interesting thing about gravitational lensing is that determining what "distortions" are taking place in the images one sees requires one to make assumptions about what ought to be seen as well as what mass distributions would cause such alleged distortions. And of course how does one verify the mass distribution of something that can only be detected by the effect it is assumed to be causing in the first place? Perhaps Zakath might wish to substitute his invisible pink unicorns as a replacement for the alleged "dark matter" and its alleged distortions in images that do not look like what we think we should be seeing.
In other words, there is an awful lot of "assuming" going on here and the fact that computers are used in such massive exercises gives new meaning to the old adage "garbage in - garbage out". I always argued that if you allow me to make whatever assumptions I desired I could prove whatever I felt like and could make it look quite impressive in a computer printout or computer generated picture. I certainly prevailed in a lot of managerial discussions over the years by tapping significantly on a large pile of computer printouts in front of me (that in retrospect probably amounted to less value than the paper they were printed on, but regardless it won the day!!!!).
The interesting thing about gravitational lensing is that determining what "distortions" are taking place in the images one sees requires one to make assumptions about what ought to be seen as well as what mass distributions would cause such alleged distortions. And of course how does one verify the mass distribution of something that can only be detected by the effect it is assumed to be causing in the first place? Perhaps Zakath might wish to substitute his invisible pink unicorns as a replacement for the alleged "dark matter" and its alleged distortions in images that do not look like what we think we should be seeing.
In other words, there is an awful lot of "assuming" going on here and the fact that computers are used in such massive exercises gives new meaning to the old adage "garbage in - garbage out". I always argued that if you allow me to make whatever assumptions I desired I could prove whatever I felt like and could make it look quite impressive in a computer printout or computer generated picture. I certainly prevailed in a lot of managerial discussions over the years by tapping significantly on a large pile of computer printouts in front of me (that in retrospect probably amounted to less value than the paper they were printed on, but regardless it won the day!!!!).
