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From: Pentcho Valev on 29 Jul 2010 03:40
The problem is getting more and more pressing:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/07/the_adults_arent_alright_every.html
"Everybody is worked up about the state of education in the United
States. The KIDS are FALLING BEHIND. No, it's not the KIDS, it's the
SCHOOLS. No, it's not the SCHOOLS it's the TEACHERS. No, it's not the
TEACHERS, it's the PARENTS. Okay, so if we fix the schools and the
teachers and the parents, will our kids stop falling behind? I'm
inclined to extend the ring of panic out one ring further. If it's
true that the supporting envelope of the home is crucial to education,
might it not also be true that the supporting envelope of society is
important, too? It's not just the kids or the schools or the teachers
or the parents, it's the CULTURE. Look around. Where is the support
for careful reasoning?"

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2010/0729/1224275683050.html
"...Isaac Newton would be astounded that his theories of motion and
gravitation had been usurped by Einstein's theory of relativity.
Christopher Wren would be amazed that modern astronomical measurements
had led to the discovery that we live in an expanding universe that
was once smaller than an atom. But what would surprise the founding
members most is that these, and other discoveries, remain the preserve
of a few. Far from being an indispensable part of the human
experience, science has remained a specialised subject understood by
only a fraction of society. Does it matter? (...) A second, and often
overlooked, reason for a public understanding of science is that
science is part of the human experience, just as history and music
are. Not everyone may want to partake in the actual discovery of the
workings of the natural world, but they deserve to know what has been
discovered! This science-as-culture argument was first articulated by
the physicist C P Snow when he realised that he could engage in
literary discussion with friends in the humanities, while they knew
nothing of his subject. Indeed, he felt that the general public was
being cheated out of a scientific education. This coincides with my
own belief, and that of many scientists, that society has a right to
know the discoveries of modern science. Indeed, I believe society also
has a right to know how those discoveries were made, as the story of
unfolding scientific discovery is an important part of human history."

Clues:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its
own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be
valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes
oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every
physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for
cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim
that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a
cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear
what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The
Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half
century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the
British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint
a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the
meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not
settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher
Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations
of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941,
p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it
continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is
the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and
mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical
development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He
characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal
swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that
physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p.
8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."

http://plus.maths.org/issue37/features/Einstein/index.html
John Barrow: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of
science. Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in
1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what
it was. When Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921,
he attributed his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the
ordinary person: Does it make a silly impression on me, here and
yonder, about my theories of which they cannot understand a word? I
think it is funny and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it
is the mystery of non-understanding that appeals to them...it
impresses them, it has the colour and the appeal of the mysterious."

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
57-78
"The prediction that clocks will move at different rates is
particularly well known, and the problem of explaining how this can be
so without violating the principle of relativity is particularly
obvious. The clock paradox, however, is only one of a number of simple
objections that have been raised to different aspects of Einstein's
theory of relativity. (Much of this criticism is quite apart from and
often predates the apparent contradiction between relativity theory
and quantum mechanics.) It is rare to find any attempt at a detailed
rebuttal of these criticisms by professional physicists. However,
physicists do sometimes give a general response to criticisms that
relativity theory is syncretic by asserting that Einstein is logically
consistent, but that to explain why is so difficult that critics lack
the capacity to understand the argument. In this way, the handy claim
that there are unspecified, highly complex resolutions of simple
apparent inconsistencies in the theory can be linked to the charge
that antirelativists have only a shallow understanding of the matter,
probably gleaned from misleading popular accounts of the theory. (...)
The argument for complexity reverses the scientific preference for
simplicity. Faced with obvious inconsistencies, the simple response is
to conclude that Einstein's claims for the explanatory scope of the
special and general theory are overstated. To conclude instead that
that relativity theory is right for reasons that are highly complex is
to replace Occam's razor with a potato masher. (...) The defence of
complexity implies that the novice wishing to enter the profession of
theoretical physics must accept relativity on faith. It implicitly
concedes that, without an understanding of relativity theory's higher
complexities, it appears illogical, which means that popular
"explanations" of relativity are necessarily misleading. But given
Einstein's fame, physicists do not approach the theory for the first
time once they have developed their expertise. Rather, they are
exposed to and probably examined on popular explanations of relativity
in their early training. How are youngsters new to the discipline
meant to respond to these accounts? Are they misled by false
explanations and only later inculcated with true ones? What happens to
those who are not misled? Are they supposed to accept relativity
merely on the grounds of authority? The argument of complexity
suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join the physics
profession, students must either be willing to suspend disbelief and
go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail to notice the
apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the inconsistencies
and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this merely shows
that they are unable to understand the theory. The gatekeepers of
professional physics in the universities and research institutes are
disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the
elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has
made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain
professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of
authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that
Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they
would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been
noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of
antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently
justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory
have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting
their opponents out of professional discourse."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev(a)yahoo.com
From: BURT on 29 Jul 2010 16:00
On Jul 29, 12:40 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> The problem is getting more and more pressing:
>
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/07/the_adults_arent_al...
> "Everybody is worked up about the state of education in the United
> States. The KIDS are FALLING BEHIND. No, it's not the KIDS, it's the
> SCHOOLS. No, it's not the SCHOOLS it's the TEACHERS. No, it's not the
> TEACHERS, it's the PARENTS. Okay, so if we fix the schools and the
> teachers and the parents, will our kids stop falling behind? I'm
> inclined to extend the ring of panic out one ring further. If it's
> true that the supporting envelope of the home is crucial to education,
> might it not also be true that the supporting envelope of society is
> important, too? It's not just the kids or the schools or the teachers
> or the parents, it's the CULTURE. Look around. Where is the support
> for careful reasoning?"
>
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2010/0729/1224275683...
> "...Isaac Newton would be astounded that his theories of motion and
> gravitation had been usurped by Einstein's theory of relativity.
> Christopher Wren would be amazed that modern astronomical measurements
> had led to the discovery that we live in an expanding universe that
> was once smaller than an atom. But what would surprise the founding
> members most is that these, and other discoveries, remain the preserve
> of a few. Far from being an indispensable part of the human
> experience, science has remained a specialised subject understood by
> only a fraction of society. Does it matter? (...) A second, and often
> overlooked, reason for a public understanding of science is that
> science is part of the human experience, just as history and music
> are. Not everyone may want to partake in the actual discovery of the
> workings of the natural world, but they deserve to know what has been
> discovered! This science-as-culture argument was first articulated by
> the physicist C P Snow when he realised that he could engage in
> literary discussion with friends in the humanities, while they knew
> nothing of his subject. Indeed, he felt that the general public was
> being cheated out of a scientific education. This coincides with my
> own belief, and that of many scientists, that society has a right to
> know the discoveries of modern science. Indeed, I believe society also
> has a right to know how those discoveries were made, as the story of
> unfolding scientific discovery is an important part of human history."
>
> Clues:
>
> http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
> Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its
> own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be
> valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know
> the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes
> oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every
> physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for
> cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim
> that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a
> cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear
> what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The
> Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half
> century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the
> British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint
> a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the
> meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not
> settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher
> Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations
> of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941,
> p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it
> continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is
> the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and
> mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical
> development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He
> characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal
> swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that
> physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p.
> 8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
> sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
> philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
> century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
> the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
> follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
> and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
> understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
> fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
> the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
> unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
> strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
> Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
> about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
> thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."
>
> http://plus.maths.org/issue37/features/Einstein/index.html
> John Barrow: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of
> science. Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in
> 1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what
> it was. When Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921,
> he attributed his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the
> ordinary person: Does it make a silly impression on me, here and
> yonder, about my theories of which they cannot understand a word? I
> think it is funny and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it
> is the mystery of non-understanding that appeals to them...it
> impresses them, it has the colour and the appeal of the mysterious."
>
> http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
> Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
> Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
> 57-78
> "The prediction that clocks will move at different rates is
> particularly well known, and the problem of explaining how this can be
> so without violating the principle of relativity is particularly
> obvious. The clock paradox, however, is only one of a number of simple
> objections that have been raised to different aspects of Einstein's
> theory of relativity. (Much of this criticism is quite apart from and
> often predates the apparent contradiction between relativity theory
> and quantum mechanics.) It is rare to find any attempt at a detailed
> rebuttal of these criticisms by professional physicists. However,
> physicists do sometimes give a general response to criticisms that
> relativity theory is syncretic by asserting that Einstein is logically
> consistent, but that to explain why is so difficult that critics lack
> the capacity to understand the argument. In this way, the handy claim
> that there are unspecified, highly complex resolutions of simple
> apparent inconsistencies in the theory can be linked to the charge
> that antirelativists have only a shallow understanding of the matter,
> probably gleaned from misleading popular accounts of the theory. (...)
> The argument for complexity reverses the scientific preference for
> simplicity. Faced with obvious inconsistencies, the simple response is
> to conclude that Einstein's claims for the explanatory scope of the
> special and general theory are overstated. To conclude instead that
> that relativity theory is right for reasons that are highly complex is
> to replace Occam's razor with a potato masher. (...) The defence of
> complexity implies that the novice wishing to enter the profession of
> theoretical physics must accept relativity on faith. It implicitly
> concedes that, without an understanding of relativity theory's higher
> complexities, it appears illogical, which means that popular
> "explanations" of relativity are necessarily misleading. But given
> Einstein's fame, physicists do not approach the theory for the first
> time once they have developed their expertise. Rather, they are
> exposed to and probably examined on popular explanations of relativity
> in their early training. How are youngsters new to the discipline
> meant to respond to these accounts? Are they misled by false
> explanations and only later inculcated with true ones? What happens to
> those who are not misled? Are they supposed to accept relativity
> merely on the grounds of authority? The argument of complexity
> suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join the physics
> profession, students must either be willing to suspend disbelief and
> go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail to notice the
> apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the inconsistencies
> and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this merely shows
> that they are unable to understand the theory. The gatekeepers of
> professional physics in the universities and research institutes are
> disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the
> elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has
> made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain
> professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of
> authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that
> Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they
> would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been
> noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of
> antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently
> justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory
> have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting
> their opponents out of professional discourse."
>
> Pentcho Valev
> pva...(a)yahoo.com

Civilization is at about 10 thousand. In the future science will
become more part of culture even the words we use will be shaped by
the reality it discovers.

Mitch Raemsch
From: Pentcho Valev on 30 Jul 2010 10:04
More clues to the question "Why is science not part of culture?":

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3338512/Think-big-like-Einstein.html
Martin Rees: "Cynics have said that Einstein might as well have gone
fishing from 1920 onwards. Although there's something rather noble
about the way he persevered in his attempts to reach far beyond his
grasp, in some respects THE EINSTEIN CULT SENDS THE WRONG SIGNAL."

http://articles.courant.com/2009-03-26/news/thorson0326.art_1_science-education-theory-of-general-relativity-arthur-eddington
"Albert Einstein strengthened science through his contributions, but
he may have inadvertently crippled science education through his
example. This notion is supported by an editorial, "Redefining Science
Education," published in January by Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of
the journal Science. His main concern is that "many college-educated
adults in the United States," including teachers, "fail to understand
that science is a way of knowing completely different from mysticism,
tradition and faith." Science is based on "evidence that can be
logically and independently verified," rather than on personal
authority. Most of the public accepted Einstein's 1915 theory of
general relativity based on his authority, rather than on the evidence
presented."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31/relativity-and-relativism/
Washington Times: "A frequently heard statement of cultural relativism
goes like this: "If it feels right for you, it's OK. Who is to say
you're wrong?" One individual's experience is as "valid" as another's.
There is no "preferred" or higher vantage point from which to judge
these things. Not just beauty, but right and wrong are in the eye of
the beholder. The "I" indeed is the "ultimate measure." The special
theory of relativity imposes on the physical world a claim that is
very similar to the one made by relativism. (...) So how come the
speed of light always stays the same? Einstein argued that when the
observer moves relative to an object, distance and time always adjust
themselves just enough to preserve light speed as a constant. Speed is
distance divided by time. So, Einstein argued, length contracts and
time dilates to just the extent needed to keep the speed of light ever
the same. Space and time are the alpha and omega of the physical
world. They are the stage within which everything happens. But if they
must trim and tarry whenever the observer moves, that puts "the
observer" in the driver's seat. Reality becomes observer-dependent.
Again, then, we find that the "I" is the ultimate measure. Pondering
this in Prague in the 1950s, Beckmann could not accept it. The
observer's function is to observe, he said, not to affect what's out
there. Relativity meant that two and two didn't quite add up any more
and elevated science into a priesthood of obscurity. Common sense
could no longer be trusted."

ftp://ftp.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/SISTA/markovsky/reports/06-46.pdf
"From the pedagogical point of view, thermodynamics is a disaster. As
the authors rightly state in the introduction, many aspects are
"riddled with inconsistencies". They quote V.I. Arnold, who concedes
that "every mathematician knows it is impossible to understand an
elementary course in thermodynamics". Nobody has eulogized this
confusion more colorfully than the late Clifford Truesdell. On page 6
of his book "The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics" 1822-1854
(Springer Verlag, 1980), he calls thermodynamics "a dismal swamp of
obscurity". Elsewhere, in despair of trying to make sense of the
writings of some local heros as De Groot, Mazur, Casimir, and
Prigogine, Truesdell suspects that there is "something rotten in the
(thermodynamic) state of the Low Countries" (see page 134 of Rational
Thermodynamics, McGraw-Hill, 1969)."

http://www.rsc.org/pdf/uchemed/papers/2002/p2_carson.pdf
"For many students, the study of thermodynamics presents problems; it
is seen as consisting almost entirely of equations which are not
understood and which have to be learned by rote in order to do
calculations and to pass examinations."

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23682
"In 1929, when spectral analysis revealed a 'red shift' in distant
galaxies, astronomer Edwin Hubble speculated that this might be due to
acceleration away from Earth and a possible expanding universe. Before
he could reflect on other possible explanations, a radio interview
stumbled onto the phrase "Big Bang" and a run-away train left the
station. Dr Hubble was uncomfortable with both the concept and the
catchy nick-name, but he had a 'conflict of interest' on this issue.
In a Times magazine interview, on Dec 14, 1936, titled "Science: Shift
on Shift", Dr. Hubble made his opposition clear. One reason that he
was not more forceful was because he was begging the government for
funding of the Mount Palomar telescope."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757145,00.html
Monday, Dec. 14, 1936: "Other causes for the redshift were suggested,
such as cosmic dust or a change in the nature of light over great
stretches of space. Two years ago Dr. Hubble admitted that the
expanding universe might be an illusion, but implied that this was a
cautious and colorless view. Last week it was apparent that he had
shifted his position even further away from a literal interpretation
of the redshift, that he now regards the expanding universe as more
improbable than a non-expanding one."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev(a)yahoo.com
From: Brad Guth on 30 Jul 2010 18:23
On Jul 29, 12:40 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> The problem is getting more and more pressing:
>
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/07/the_adults_arent_al...
> "Everybody is worked up about the state of education in the United
> States. The KIDS are FALLING BEHIND. No, it's not the KIDS, it's the
> SCHOOLS. No, it's not the SCHOOLS it's the TEACHERS. No, it's not the
> TEACHERS, it's the PARENTS. Okay, so if we fix the schools and the
> teachers and the parents, will our kids stop falling behind? I'm
> inclined to extend the ring of panic out one ring further. If it's
> true that the supporting envelope of the home is crucial to education,
> might it not also be true that the supporting envelope of society is
> important, too? It's not just the kids or the schools or the teachers
> or the parents, it's the CULTURE. Look around. Where is the support
> for careful reasoning?"
>
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoday/2010/0729/1224275683...
> "...Isaac Newton would be astounded that his theories of motion and
> gravitation had been usurped by Einstein's theory of relativity.
> Christopher Wren would be amazed that modern astronomical measurements
> had led to the discovery that we live in an expanding universe that
> was once smaller than an atom. But what would surprise the founding
> members most is that these, and other discoveries, remain the preserve
> of a few. Far from being an indispensable part of the human
> experience, science has remained a specialised subject understood by
> only a fraction of society. Does it matter? (...) A second, and often
> overlooked, reason for a public understanding of science is that
> science is part of the human experience, just as history and music
> are. Not everyone may want to partake in the actual discovery of the
> workings of the natural world, but they deserve to know what has been
> discovered! This science-as-culture argument was first articulated by
> the physicist C P Snow when he realised that he could engage in
> literary discussion with friends in the humanities, while they knew
> nothing of his subject. Indeed, he felt that the general public was
> being cheated out of a scientific education. This coincides with my
> own belief, and that of many scientists, that society has a right to
> know the discoveries of modern science. Indeed, I believe society also
> has a right to know how those discoveries were made, as the story of
> unfolding scientific discovery is an important part of human history."
>
> Clues:
>
> http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
> Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its
> own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be
> valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know
> the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes
> oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every
> physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for
> cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim
> that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a
> cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear
> what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The
> Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half
> century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the
> British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint
> a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the
> meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not
> settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher
> Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations
> of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941,
> p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it
> continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is
> the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and
> mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical
> development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He
> characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal
> swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that
> physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p.
> 8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no
> sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of
> philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a
> century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from
> the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to
> follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked
> and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot
> understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is
> fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of
> the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the
> unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the
> strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that
> Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion
> about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the
> thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."
>
> http://plus.maths.org/issue37/features/Einstein/index.html
> John Barrow: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of
> science. Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in
> 1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what
> it was. When Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921,
> he attributed his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the
> ordinary person: Does it make a silly impression on me, here and
> yonder, about my theories of which they cannot understand a word? I
> think it is funny and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it
> is the mystery of non-understanding that appeals to them...it
> impresses them, it has the colour and the appeal of the mysterious."
>
> http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
> Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock
> Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages
> 57-78
> "The prediction that clocks will move at different rates is
> particularly well known, and the problem of explaining how this can be
> so without violating the principle of relativity is particularly
> obvious. The clock paradox, however, is only one of a number of simple
> objections that have been raised to different aspects of Einstein's
> theory of relativity. (Much of this criticism is quite apart from and
> often predates the apparent contradiction between relativity theory
> and quantum mechanics.) It is rare to find any attempt at a detailed
> rebuttal of these criticisms by professional physicists. However,
> physicists do sometimes give a general response to criticisms that
> relativity theory is syncretic by asserting that Einstein is logically
> consistent, but that to explain why is so difficult that critics lack
> the capacity to understand the argument. In this way, the handy claim
> that there are unspecified, highly complex resolutions of simple
> apparent inconsistencies in the theory can be linked to the charge
> that antirelativists have only a shallow understanding of the matter,
> probably gleaned from misleading popular accounts of the theory. (...)
> The argument for complexity reverses the scientific preference for
> simplicity. Faced with obvious inconsistencies, the simple response is
> to conclude that Einstein's claims for the explanatory scope of the
> special and general theory are overstated. To conclude instead that
> that relativity theory is right for reasons that are highly complex is
> to replace Occam's razor with a potato masher. (...) The defence of
> complexity implies that the novice wishing to enter the profession of
> theoretical physics must accept relativity on faith. It implicitly
> concedes that, without an understanding of relativity theory's higher
> complexities, it appears illogical, which means that popular
> "explanations" of relativity are necessarily misleading. But given
> Einstein's fame, physicists do not approach the theory for the first
> time once they have developed their expertise. Rather, they are
> exposed to and probably examined on popular explanations of relativity
> in their early training. How are youngsters new to the discipline
> meant to respond to these accounts? Are they misled by false
> explanations and only later inculcated with true ones? What happens to
> those who are not misled? Are they supposed to accept relativity
> merely on the grounds of authority? The argument of complexity
> suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join the physics
> profession, students must either be willing to suspend disbelief and
> go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail to notice the
> apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the inconsistencies
> and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this merely shows
> that they are unable to understand the theory. The gatekeepers of
> professional physics in the universities and research institutes are
> disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the
> elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has
> made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain
> professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of
> authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that
> Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they
> would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been
> noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of
> antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently
> justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory
> have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting
> their opponents out of professional discourse."
>
> Pentcho Valev
> pva...(a)yahoo.com

Check out the July/August Discover published topic of "The Streetlight
Effect" by David H. Freedman. It points out how dead wrong mainstream
can actually be most of the time, and why it's just as likely to stay
that way, especially forever status quo with the likes of Mook in
charge.
http://www.freedman.com/
http://www.freedman.com/articles/DiscStreetlight.pdf

~ BG
From: Unified_Perspective on 31 Jul 2010 11:47
On Jul 29, 3:40 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> The problem is getting more and more pressing:
>

Science is a relatively small part of our culture, it is true, but -
this has always been true. In fact I believe that science probably is
held in higher regard now than at any prior time in human history,
with the possible exceptions of the dawning of the age of
enlightenment, circa 1700's and the dawn of the industrial revolution
circa 1880.

The challenge for those of use who love science is to make it more
respectable, through the use of good humor and good manners, and to
make it more comprehensible through the use of analogies and plain
writing or speech.

Einstein is not at fault here. The material he presents and the
mathematics he CREATED are quite difficult topics. Those who are at
fault are those of lesser talent who try to hide this fact from others
through the use of techno-babble - my term for the arcane highly
specialized terminology that every scientific specialty seems to
employ these days.

It seems to me that these individuals are fulfilling the great maxim -
"If you can, dazzle them with brilliance. If you can't, then baffle
them with bullshit.."

Sincerely,

Mr. Gee
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