I May Seem Somewhat Critical of Libertarians These Days...

By -
but, let me say, I don't ever recall meeting a libertarian as idiotic as Andy Schlafly. He's decided that the theory of relativity somehow is connected with moral relativity -- a stupid idea, since Einstein's theory of relativity is a theory that purports to be absolutely true for everyone everywhere -- and so has decided it must be wrong. Check out this thread, where Schlafly answers someone who says, "What about the use of the theory of relativity in particle accelerators?" by denying that accelerators are useful! (He tacks the same tack with the atomic bomb, which he mistakenly thinks is based on relativity, by denying that killing people is useful.)

In any case, no libertarian that I am aware of has ever produced a site as putrid as Conservapedia.

Comments

  1. PH11:33 AM

    Many criticisms of special relativity are indeed idiotic. But as a number of philosophers have pointed out, there are defensible grounds for abandoning Einsteinian special relativity in favor of a neo-Lorentzian theory that is consistent with absolute simultaneity. Otherwise, we have a mess on our hands, as quantum mechanics appears to require absolute simultaneity.

    On this point, interested readers may find ch. 11 of Michael Tooley's Time, Tense, and Causation (1997) helpful. See also John A. Winnie's two papers, "Special Relativity without One-Way Velocity Assumptions," pt. 1 and pt. 2.

    ReplyDelete
  2. gcallah12:00 PM

    PSH, I certainly don't have the knowledge of physics necessary to comment on the complex issues surrounding relativity. But I do know enough to know that Schlafly knows far less than me, and yet still feels qualified to pontificate on the matter!

    ReplyDelete
  3. PH12:40 PM

    Just to be clear, I did not mean to defend—in any way—the "arguments" put forward by Mr. Schlafly. I was just cautioning that there are serious philosophical arguments against Einsteinian special relativity.

    It is important to stress that the neo-Lorentzian theories replicate all of the confirmed predictions of special relativity. Hence, while salvaging absolute simultaneity, they do predict, e.g., that physical processes will take place at different rates in different inertial frames.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thomas L. Knapp7:06 PM

    If everything is relative, then all sex is incestuous.

    Also, pi r not square, pi r round. Cornbread r square.

    ReplyDelete
  5. gcallah7:24 PM

    Yeah, Tom, if you're in a mood to be amused by pathos, read that thread I linked to -- Schlafly whole style of argumentation is just mind-bogglingly horrendous.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thomas L. Knapp7:59 PM

    Gene,

    While I don't always just take your word on such things as gospel, I'm probably going to this time ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Libertarians, My Libertarians!

By -
Cruel to be kind means that I love you . Because, while I think you are mistaken, your hearts are in the right place -- yes, even you, Silas --  unlike some people . This Breitbart fellow (discussed in the link above), by all appearances, deliberately doctored a video of Shirley Sherrod to make her remarks appear virulently racist, when they had, in fact, the opposite import. I heard that at a recent Austrian conference, some folks were talking about "Callahan's conservative turn." While that description is not entirely inaccurate, I must say that a lot of these people who today call themselves conservative give me the heebie-jeebies.
Read more

"Pre-Galilean" Foolishness

By -
 I am currently reading The Master and His Emissary , which appears to be an excellent book. ("Appears" because I don't know the neuroscience literature well enough to say for sure, yet.) But then on page 186 I find: "Asking cognition, however, to give a perspective on the relationship between cognition and affect is like asking astronomer in the pre-Galilean geocentric world, whether, in his opinion, the sun moves round the earth of the earth around the sun. To ask a question alone would be enough to label one as mad." OK, this is garbage. First of all, it should be pre-Copernican, not pre-Galilean. But much worse is that people have seriously been considering heliocentrism for many centuries before Copernicus. Aristarchus had proposed a heliocentric model in the 4th-century BC. It had generally been considered wrong, but not "mad." (And wrong for scientific reasons: Why, for instance, did we not observe stellar parallax?) And when Copernicus propose...
Read more