Re: Orthodoxy's Opposition to Theories of Superluminality

From: greywolf42 (mingstb_at_marssim-ss.com)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: 28 Jul 2004 14:02:37 -0400

Mark Palenik <markpalenik@wideopenwest.com> wrote in message
news:RPmdndm8wcvinJrcRVn-tw@wideopenwest.com...
>
> "greywolf42" <mingstb@marssim-ss.com> wrote in message
> news:10gb3icit9n487e@corp.supernews.com...
> > <snip>
> >
> > You may note that your item number 1 is purely theoretical (even if it
> > *is* "mainstream"). Item number 2 is experimental. According to the
> > scientific method, experiment trumps theory.
>
> I take it you haven't read any of the messages here explaining that that
> information is out of dat, inaccurate, and was speculative at best, at the
> time.

Sure I'd read the other posts. However, they are irrelevant to the claims
and reasoning provided (which was snipped) by the prior poster (Norm
Dresner). Norm posted a claim that Ockham's Razor would have us discard
experimental results if it contradicted accepted theory. And solely because
it was 'simpler' to accept conventional theory. Norm did not provide any
other reasoning. My post responded solely to the reasoning provided by
Norm -- which was clearly unscientific.

Quite simply, the fact that one points out an error of logic in an argument
placed against a given theory or experiment does not translate into a claim
of validity of the theory or experiment.

As to your current claims:

1) Experimental data is never 'out of date.' It does not have a shelf-life.
This is merely a fallacy that 'new' interpretations or experiments must
always be better than old ones.

2) The data may be imprecise (not inaccurate), in light of newer and more
precise experiments. Inaccuracy can arise only from systematic experimental
errors or flaws in the theoretical reduction. The posts that I saw falsely
concluded that because 'newer' experiments gave different answers, that the
'older' data had to be inaccurate. This is also a fallacy. (One must
identify the specific systematic or calculational errors of one or the other
experiment to determine which is 'inaccurate.')

3) Experimental data is never speculative.

> Am I the only one who thinks that whatever "orthodoxy's opposition to
> theories of superluminality" is, somebody would have realized the sheer
> usefullness of particles that can travel faster than the speed of light
> and which carry measureable properties like spin? I think the thought
> of getting rich would probably outweigh any "dogmatic opposition".

Theoreticians don't get rich. Except by rising in the power structure.
Just like Cardinal Bellarmine refused to look through Galileo's telescope --
because he 'knew' that Galileo's observations must be wrong.

> Besides, weren't physicists, at least at some point, actually looking for
> tachyons? Why would they even have a word for particles with a complex
> mass if physicists hadn't thought of it and wanted to find it?

That is a sociological question. And irrelevant to the experimental support
of a concept.

> Physicists don't
> usually make up words for things they are dogmatically opposed to.

Physicists make up words that they are opposed to all the time. Here are a
few that were made up by the opposition:
   Tired Light
   Big Bang
   Dark Matter
   Aether Drag

> I mean,
> for example, there's no word for particles that transmit magical power.

Sure there is. They're called "virtual" particles. ;)

Seriously, modern physicists always come up with names for particles to
transmit forces. A 'magical' force would required a name for the particles.
Just like we require names for the particles transmitting each of the four
(or five) forces of nature -- even though some of these particles are not
observable.

> The
> idea that there's some kind of coverup going on seems rather ridiculous,
> since accepted theories are refuted all the time, with no cover up (like
> the recent thing with Stephen Hawking and information in black holes).

Ah, but it is only those theories that are not mainstream that are
considered refuted. Dr. Hawking's views -- though commonly embraced --
never reached the point of paradigm. And only Dr. Hawking was allowed to
question Dr. Hawking's views. They have been questioned many times before
by others -- and the others have been ignored. 

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for return e-mail}