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bertie.ccsu.edu/~dsb/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."

www.physics.queensu.ca/~phys242/Section2_3.pdf
"Because the GTs [Galilean transformations] are clearly not consistent
with Einstein's two postulates, we are going to have to develop a new
set of transformations: the Lorentz transformations."

Historically the protective belt (Lorentz transformations) was created
before the hard core (Einstein's 1905 postulates). Without the
protective belt, Einstein's postulates (more precisely, his light
postulate) would have been immediately refuted by the Michelson-Morley
experiment:

philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as
evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost
universally use it as support for the light postulate of special
relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had
suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one,
the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding
train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the
speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object
emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume
that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to
Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null
result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to
contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as
we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null
result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian
ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more
or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

James H. Smith "Introduction à la relativité" EDISCIENCE 1969 pp.
39-41: "Si la lumière était un flot de particules mécaniques obéissant
aux lois de la mécanique, il n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre
les résultats de l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par
exemple, qu'une fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à
un observateur et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la
vitesse de la lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la
lumière par rapport à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière
se déplaceraient à la vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à
l'observateur. Mais ce comportement ne ressemble pas du tout à celui
d'une onde, car les ondes se propagent à une certaine vitesse par
rapport au milieu dans lequel elles se développent et non pas à une
certaine vitesse par rapport à leur source..... Il nous faut insister
sur le fait suivant: QUAND EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA
LUMIERE SOIT INDEPENDANTE DE CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT
AUCUNE PREUVE EXPERIMENTALE. IL LE POSTULA PAR PURE NECESSITE
LOGIQUE."

Lakatos' PROTECTIVE BELT philosophy is a special case of the
MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy:

The MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy: Science is taken to constitute the
interior of a magician's hat where you put ties which are then turned
to rabbits. The magician is free to rearrange the interior of the hat
so that always rabbits and never wolves jump out of it. The public
declares itself ready to boycott the seances if wolves and not rabbits
jump out of the hat. On the other hand, the public loves the magician
so much (there are hymns "Divine Magician" and "Yes we all believe in
the hat, hat, hat") that seances would take place even if
Tyrannosaurus rex jumped out of the hat.

The major contributor to the MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy:

Karl Popper: "On the other hand, I also realized that we must not
exclude immunizations, not even all which introduce ad hoc auxiliary
hypothesis....All this shows not only that some degree of dogmatism is
fruitful, even in science, but also that logically speaking
falsifiability or testability cannot be regarded as a very sharp
criterion."

If the MAGICIAN'S HAT philosophy were to be given a more serious name,
the suitable one is perhaps MAGICAL INSTRUMENTALISM. Officially logic
is a crucial tool for instrumentalists but, somewhat paradoxically,
they place no emphasis on validity, that is, on the truth-preserving
procedure involved in any link of the deductive chain. It seems
inherent in the subconsciousness of philosophers of science that,
since many of the arguments in today's theories are invalid, no
verification inside the deductive chain should be undertaken if
trouble is to be avoided. Only the final predictions of the theory
deserve attention as they are suitably selected and shaped by the
magician and his followers.

The MAGICIAN'S HAT model of science made pet theories (Einstein's
relativity) virtually irrefutable:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/44abc7dbb30db6c2
John Norton: "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH
AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. The fact that this one experiment is compatible
with other theories does not refute relativity in any way. The full
experimental record refutes most if not all emission theories, but not
relativity."
Pentcho Valev: "THE POUND-REBKA EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN
EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."
Tom Roberts: "Sure. But this experiment, too, does not refute
relativity. The full experimental record refutes most if not all
emission theories, but not relativity."

Yet scientists who do not sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all
believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" may note that the two
experiments NATURALLY confirm Newton's emission theory of light (the
speed of light varies with both the speed of the light source and the
gravitational potential), in the sense that the confirmation does not
presuppose absurd auxiliary hypotheses (length contraction and
gravitational time dilation).

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com