Re: Relevant for anti-relativists

Dr. Henri Wilson wrote:
On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:37:56 -0800 (PST), PD <TheDraperFamily@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Dec 15, 5:01 pm, hw@..(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 06:55:36 -0800 (PST), PD <TheDraperFam...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Steven Pinker made this observation in his book, The Blank Slate:
"Some debates are so entwined with people's...identity that one might
despair that they can ever by resolved by reason and evidence....All
combatants are intuitively certain that they are correct and that
their opponents have ugly ulterior motives. They argue out of respect
for the social convention that one should always provide reasons for
one's opinion, but when an argument is refuted, they don't change
their minds but work harder to find a replacement argument. [Such]
debates, far from resolving hostilities, can escalate them, because
when people on the other side don't immediately capitulate, it only
proves they are impervious to reason.
"Conscientious people may ... find themselves unwittingly staked to
positions on empirical questions in [science]. When scientific facts
come in they rarely conform exactly to our expectations; if they did,
we would not have to do science in the first place. So when facts tip
over a sacred cow, people are tempted to suppress the facts and to
clamp down on debate because the facts threaten everything they hold
sacred."
Real scientists don't think like that.
They are always aware that they could be wrong.

I gather you are refering to religious fanatics like relativists.


Well, you could take the trouble to find out what kind of scientist
Steven Pinker is, if you like. That way, you could be telling
scientists of another ilk that they too don't know what they're
talking about (whereas you do). I'm sure that will go over just as
convincingly.

And yes, scientists are always aware that they could be wrong, and in
fact this is what makes science interesting. However, they look for
better indicators that they are wrong than what you provide.

You provide:
"Your theories could be wrong."
"Your experiments could be wrong."
"Your theories are wrong because I say they are."
"Your measurements could all be tainted by Willusions."
"If I am not forced to believe it, then there's no reason you should
believe it either."
"Something completely weird could be going on, and I'll call those
weird things Wilson density bubbles."
"You could all be hypnotized, brainwashed, victims of massive fraud,
and inbred, and so everything that comes out of your mouth is
suspect."

I know you are committed to just saying scientists, wherever they are,
are wrong. Just wrong. Just for the principle of saying they're wrong,
so that at least there's one person who's not saying they're right. It
doesn't really matter what you say, as long as it's to the point of
saying that scientists are wrong. Because that's your last remaining
job in the world, and you think it's an important one.

I have never said all scientists are wrong, Diaper. Quite the contrary. I only
include Einsteinian relativists and the poor astronomers who tie themselves in
knots trying to explain Willusions with Einstein's crap.

What matters in physics is hard, experimental evidence.

These are facts of the real world:

GR is never falsified by any experiment.

The emission theory is falsified by:
- Gravitational bending of light
- Stellar aberration
- Sagnac
- GPS
- Lunar Laser Ranging
- Gravity probe A
- Alley
- H&K
- a number of other experiments with macroscopic clocks
- muon lifetime experiments
- any particle accelerator
+ the list could be much longer.

The predictions of GR (SR where applicable) are for every
experiment in the list above, and all other experiments ever performed,
consistent with the results of the experiments.

You have indeed to be a religious fanatic to _believe_ in the BaTh.

--
Paul

http://home.c2i.net/pb_andersen/
.

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