Correct, Honest Roberts. Einsteiniana's teaching can indeed be
characterized as "giving the students a succession of ever more
sophisticated lies". Peter Hayes explains in more detail:
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: "In the interwar period there was a significant school of
thought that repudiated Einstein's theory of relativity on the grounds
that it contained elementary inconsistencies. Some of these critics
held extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic views, and this has tended to
discredit their technical objections to relativity as being
scientifically shallow. This paper investigates an alternative
possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of
Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an
ideology rather than as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how
relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it
scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make
the theory ideologically powerful. (...) 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...@yahoo.com