Short, single topic post.
These posts were getting really long - and therefore daunting to undertake. Maybe doing shorter, single topic posts will be easier.
New Year, New MOND data
A personal itch, being scratched in publicOn a regular basis one hears assertions that "Big Science suppresses non-standard theories" - often followed up by "Free energy" schemes, Climate change scepticism, Anti-vaccination screeds and the like. It's a feature particularly of Slashdot, but more generally of the Internet. If I "did" Facebook, I'd probably cite them too. Kooks are everywhere and are vocal, and they love a "my voice is being suppressed" narrative.
So, a few months ago, I conducted an (admittedly crude) survey of a "controversial" idea in "non-standard" science using Arχiv. It was nothing complex (I searched for various terms ["Mordehai Milgrom", "MOND", "Non-Newtonian Gravity", "MOG", "Dark matter" in Arχiv's database (anywhere in article title, abstract, or body text, or figures) from Jan 01 to Dec 31 for each year, recording the counts. And now, it's time to update the numbers. They're not good reading for the conspiracy-of-suppression" theorists (well, is any reading good for them? It's not as if they like actual evidence).
Date of search | Mordehai Milgrom | MOND | Non-Newtonian Gravity | MOG | Dark matter |
1991 - 2001-12-31 | 75 | 1072 | 735 | 180 | 43348 |
2001-12-31 | 4 | 38 | 46 | 16 | 3404 |
2002-12-31 | 2 | 12 | 13 | 2 | 693 |
2003-12-31 | 1 | 22 | 17 | 2 | 765 |
2004-12-31 | 1 | 12 | 20 | 2 | 885 |
2005-12-31 | 2 | 35 | 22 | 2 | 1005 |
2006-12-31 | 2 | 35 | 27 | 4 | 1068 |
2007-12-31 | 2 | 49 | 24 | 2 | 1179 |
2008-12-31 | 3 | 61 | 20 | 3 | 1329 |
2009-12-31 | 4 | 51 | 23 | 6 | 1635 |
2010-12-31 | 5 | 50 | 38 | 4 | 1586 |
2011-12-31 | 4 | 60 | 35 | 5 | 1643 |
2012-12-31 | 5 | 42 | 23 | 6 | 1765 |
2013-12-31 | 6 | 56 | 33 | 3 | 1802 |
2014-12-31 | 3 | 58 | 33 | 8 | 1986 |
2015-12-31 | 3 | 40 | 33 | 5 | 2123 |
2016-12-31 | 6 | 51 | 32 | 6 | 2150 |
2017-12-31 | 2 | 55 | 39 | 17 | 2239 |
2018-12-31 | 3 | 48 | 35 | 16 | 2231 |
2019-12-31 | 4 | 55 | 34 | 8 | 2419 |
2020-12-31 | 3 | 51 | 46 | 19 | 2525 |
2021-12-31 | 2 | 43 | 47 | 9 | 2651 |
2022-12-31 | 4 | 63 | 44 | 11 | 2836 |
2023-12-31 | 4 | 85 | 51 | 24 | 3429 |
How long is it since I made a snide comment about conspiracists and their data aversion? Too long. See table above. For those who aren't familiar with the field, "Mordehai Milgrom" is a prominent researcher in "modified gravity" ; "MOND" is a popular theory of "modified gravity" ; "MOG" is a different such theory ; "non-Newtonian Gravity" is more general term for the field ("Newtonian Gravity" being the "Big Science" conventional theory in favour of which all the other theories are being suppressed for (whatever) reason(s) ; "Dark Matter" is just there for a marker of overall theoretical activity in astronomy.
Much clearer. Publications in these two particular theories of non-Newtonian gravity have continued to happen at comparable rates to general astronomical activity, though the relative popularity of these two theories varies a little, "MOG" having picked up in the last few years. Mr (Professor? Probably.) Milgrom continues to publish at a fairly consistent rate - which isn't so surprising, since he's been doing so for about 40 years.
That's not the sign of a field of research that is being "suppressed", "forced underground", or even "harmful to researcher's careers". It's a sign of a relatively unpopular topic within a field. Now, "unpopular" may not be a particularly nice state to be in (anthropomorphising "theories"), but it's not a sign of effective suppression. Effective suppression is samizdat publication on midnight press runs, and the occasional publisher's head boiled in tar and spiked over the entry gates to Physics & Astronomy Departments pour encourager les autres (a short-form Voltaire-ism [Candide, ch.xxiii]; the long form is darker than many people realise.)
Having done the leg-work, I'll continue to update the data file yearly (until I get bored). If you think I should be looking at different data, that's what the "Comments" are enabled for.
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