🚀 go-pugleaf

On Feb 28, 11:03 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.

right, fundamental, you can't expect a new theory
from a smooth function, you need a quantum jump

so the protective belt only protects till it cannot protect anymore,



> (...) 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/44abc7dbb30...
> 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
> pva...@yahoo.com