🚀 go-pugleaf

On May 24, 7:59 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/hutchison/080616
> "Like bronze idols that are hollow inside, Einstein built a cluster of
> "Potemkin villages," which are false fronts with nothing behind them.
> Grigori Potemkin (17391791) was a general-field marshal, Russian
> statesman, and favorite of Empress Catherine the Great. He is alleged
> to have built facades of non-existent villages along desolate
> stretches of the Dnieper River to impress Catherine as she sailed to
> the Crimea in 1787. Actors posing as happy peasants stood in front of
> these pretty stage sets and waved to the pleased Empress."
>
> http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
> The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock Paradox
> Peter Hayes: "The argument that Einstein fomented an ideological
> rather than a scientific revolution helps to explain of one of the
> features of this revolution that puzzled Kuhn: despite the apparent
> scope of the general theory, very little has come out of it. Viewing
> relativity theory as an ideology also helps to account for Poppers
> doubts over whether special theory can be retained, given experimental
> results in quantum mechanics and Einsteins questionable approach to
> defining simultaneity. Both Kuhn and Popper have looked to the other
> branch of the theory - Popper to the general and Kuhn to the special -
> to try and retain their view of Einstein as a revolutionary scientist.
> According to the view proposed here, this only indicates how special
> and general theories function together as an ideology, as when one
> side of the theory is called into question, the other can be called
> upon to rescue it. The triumph of relativity theory represents the
> triumph of ideology not only in the profession of physics bur also in
> the philosophy of science. These conclusions are of considerable
> interest to both theoretical physics and to social epistemology. It
> would, however, be naïve to think that theoretical physicists will
> take the slightest notice of them."
>
> http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wallace.htm
> Bryan Wallace: "There is a popular argument that the world's oldest
> profession is sexual prostitution. I think that it is far more likely
> that the oldest profession is scientific prostitution, and that it is
> still alive and well, and thriving in the 20th century. I suspect that
> long before sex had any commercial value, the prehistoric shamans used
> their primitive knowledge to acquire status, wealth, and political
> power, in much the same way as the dominant scientific and religious
> politicians of our time do. (...) Because many of the dominant
> theories of our time do not follow the rules of science, they should
> more properly be labeled pseudoscience. The people who tend to believe
> more in theories than in the scientific method of testing theories,
> and who ignore the evidence against the theories they believe in,
> should be considered pseudoscientists and not true scientists. To the
> extent that the professed beliefs are based on the desire for status,
> wealth, or political reasons, these people are scientific prostitutes.
> (...) Einstein's special relativity theory with his second postulate
> that the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin that
> holds the whole range of modern physics theories together. Shatter
> this postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce! (...)
> The speed of light is c+v."
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
> Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong
> with it?
> Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead,
> that's what's wrong with it!
> Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
> Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm
> looking at one right now.
> Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the
> Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Quantum gravity expert Lee Smolin suggests that Einstein's 1905 false
light postulate might have killed string theory. He also says that
"the field of fundamental theoretical physics is in trouble"; one
could suspect that Einstein's 1905 false light postulate is to blame
again:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/stringtheory.html
"Yet in his new book, The Trouble With Physics, theoretician Lee
Smolin argues that string theory is not only weird, it might be wrong.
A founding scientist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical
Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Smolin says that string theory is
unconvincing – maybe even nonscientific – and that physicists have
embraced it at the expense of other promising research. At home in
Toronto, Smolin talked about physicist cliques and the true nature of
the universe. So you're calling bullshit on a big chunk of modern
physics. I wouldn't put it that way, but that's fair. The field of
fundamental theoretical physics is in trouble, and this book is about
why.....Well, every string theory that's been written down says the
speed of light is universal. But other ideas about quantum gravity
predict the speed of light has actually increased. And an experiment
on the Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope, launching next year, will
check this. So I've said, look, if the speed of light isn't universal,
that disconfirms string theory."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com