Conservapedia:Conservapedian relativity

Simply put, E=mc2 is liberal claptrap.

Black holes are a sacred cow of atheistic science.

Andrew Schlafly of Conservapedia believes there is a link between scientific relativity (that is, special and general relativity) and moral relativism, even though the concepts are utterly unrelated and have nothing in common other than using a form of the word "relative".

Based on this comically misguided premise (which even Answers in Genesis disavows) and perhaps a mistrust of science in general (which appears to be derived from CP's constant opposition to the scientific theories of evolution and global warming), Schlafly attempts to denigrate the science of relativity as being part of an agenda against moral absolutism. As a result, the relativity-related articles at Conservapedia are riddled with incorrect interpretations, distortions of fact, out-of-context quotes from scientists and scientific journals, and elementary errors. Some of these mistakes may be due to a basic misunderstanding of the physics involved, but attempts to correct them have always been met with admonishments, reversions, and blockings from the administrators, in a brilliant display of willful ignorance. It is important to note that Schlafly has a degree in electrical engineering and would have studied relativity himself in the first-year physics courses required for the degree.

Quotations from the Conservapedia Theory of Relativity article are from the article as it appeared on August 19, 2007, unless stated otherwise.

Logical flaws in E=mc²


The problem is that E=mc2 does not meaning [sic] anything that makes sense. Anyone is welcome to try to explain it here. Eating a pound of cake does not cause one's energy to increase by the speed of light squared.

Attempts to prove E=mc² are futile because there is no mass-energy equivalence. But that has not stopped people, including liberals who avoid the Bible, from insisting that they have cleverly developed a "proof" of E=mc², and thereby established a mass-energy equivalence which, in fact, does not exist.

E=mc² is an eye-catching formula that has been heavily promoted in popular culture, such as by the classic television series the Twilight Zone. The primary effect of the formula appears to be to lead students away from the Bible, which implicitly rejects a unified theory for mass and light. Indeed, despite a century of searching, physicists themselves have completely failed at developing a coherent unified theory for both mass and light as implied by the formula.

Conservapedia's article on "Logical Flaws in E=mc²" lists truly laughable assertions.



Special Relativity and General Relativity
Special relativity describes the geometry of space and time, absent the effects of gravitation and acceleration. In essence, it asserts that space and time can be modeled as a simple 4-dimensional manifold and that frame of reference shifts are Lorentz transformations rather than Galilean transformations.

This roughly means that the Universe does not have notions of "absolute time" and "absolute space". It seems intuitive (and, indeed, it is one of the postulates of classical mechanics) that spacetime has a universal time coordinate that is the same for all observers: one could talk about two events in different points of space being "simultaneous", and all observers of these events would see them as such. In special relativity, this is no longer true: whether or not two separate events are simultaneous depends on the observer's speed and direction of motion. One of the consequences is that if observer A sees an object moving at the speed of light, any other observer will also see it moving at the speed of light.

Special relativity is essential in making sense of electromagnetism. Without it, you get different results for the magnetic field of a moving charge depending on your own motion. With it, observers moving relative to one another will agree on the electromagnetic field of a moving charge, although they each understand that they see this 4-dimensional field from their own point of view. Magnetism is electrical attraction and repulsion under a Lorentz transformation (more or less).

General relativity (GR) is our best current descriptor of gravitation, but it is known to be incompatible with quantum mechanics under extreme conditions. Quantum mechanics has been successfully incorporated into all of the fundamental forces of nature except for gravity, so most physicists expect that an improvement to GR involving quantum mechanics exists. One of contemporary physics' major efforts is searching a theory of everything to unite the two. Part of that search involves testing GR to its limits. Such testing does not mean that experts on gravitation consider GR a failure; finding out where things break is a fundamental part of the scientific endeavor. As descriptors of nature, quantum mechanics and relativity have surpassed Newtonian mechanics, yet Newtonian mechanics is still used every day: formally, Newtonian mechanics is an approximation to special relativity for speeds much slower than light. The same relationship will likely be true of GR and whatever eventually replaces it as the dominant theory of gravitation.

Relativity as a social phenomenon
Relativity has been disparaged since its formulation. It introduced a drastic shift from the established Newtonian paradigm of absolute space and time; not everyone was ready to accept such a change.

Newtonian and Copernican mechanics were greeted in some circles with similar disquiet for much the same reasons: denying that there is a privileged point of view from which to view the Universe &mdash; any direction is (physically) the same as any other direction. Newtonian mechanics denied God His position in the sky by doing away with the notion of an absolute "up" and "down" (the Flat Earth Society has a similar problem considering Earth as a spheroid).

Relativity, and Einstein himself, occupy a unique place in the popular imagination. Einstein is the stereotype of a genius, and relativity is a stereotypical genius's pursuit. This can lead someone with ambition and a little knowledge (always dangerous) to embark on a "debunk relativity" quest. Anyone who takes on Einstein and wins becomes the next Einstein, right? Popular press sensationalism can also contribute to the frenzy; every few years, there's a newspaper story about the latest "proof" against relativity. The headlines sell papers, but the substance usually amounts to a misinterpretation of a scientist or scientific paper by a reporter who doesn't grasp the science in enough detail.

Relativity and relativism
Special Relativity and General Relativity, the two scientific theories generally referred to simply as "relativity" for short, have nothing to say about moral relativism.

Moral relativism is a philosophical position that did not become popular until well after scientific relativity was established. Even if moral relativists pointed to scientific relativity as a justification for their philosophical ideas, as alleged by an editorial cited by Conservapedia's article, there is no basis for rejecting or accepting scientific relativity based upon one's feelings about moral relativism. The Conservapedia administrators seem to use the following conditional fallacy:


 * 1) Moral relativists accept relativity.
 * 2) Moral relativism is wrong.
 * 3) Therefore, relativity is wrong.

Most Satanists probably accept cell theory. If I reject Satanism, must I also reject cell theory? Of course not. The word's root is the only similarity between moral relativism and scientific relativity. This is known as the because the second, or middle, premise is not distributed properly to either premise.

Arthur Eddington
In 1919 during a total solar eclipse, Sir Arthur Eddington observed a star close to the Sun in the sky. Under Newtonian gravitation, the light from the star would not have been bent by the Sun's gravity to be visible to an observer on Earth, but according to Eddington's calculations, General Relativity predicted that it would appear in precisely the spot where it actually showed up.

Those at Conservapedia emphasize the controversy about Eddington's 1919 observations as "proof" that relativity is a myth. This particular excerpt appears in the introduction, but other references to Eddington appear in Conservapedia's article.

Evidence for Relativity
Perhaps this section should be titled "Attempts to Spin Evidence against Relativity" since this part of the Conservapedia article appears to be designed that way. Edit warring and disagreement over this section has resulted in a nearly incomprehensible soup of statements and counter-statements. The following excerpts are the basics of the Conservapedia position.

Global Positioning System
Schlafly insists that the Global Positioning System (GPS) has nothing to do with relativity.

Newtonian mechanics and time dilation
Conservapedia's article implies that Newtonian mechanics can predict time dilation or otherwise affect the operation of clocks in different frames, a view expressed on the article's talk page as well.

Newtonian mechanics and the bending of starlight
Conservapedia's article notes that Newtonian mechanics can also predict the deflection of light, as though gravitational lensing can be explained without GR. There are many problems with relying on classical mechanics to predict such deflection.

Ostensible Paradoxes
This section appears in the Conservapedia article to cast doubt on the postulates of relativity; in fact, the material included here, which includes interesting physics, has no conflicts with relativity whatsoever and probably would not even be addressed in most encyclopedic articles on relativity.

The "Counterexamples" Page
In addition to the pervasive denigration throughout the main relativity article, there is another complete article, "Counterexamples to Relativity". This is part of their series of pages of counterexamples to modern thinking, which also includes Counterexamples to Evolution, Counterexamples to an Old Earth, and Counterexamples to the Bible.

The article, as of 2 August 2010, listed 22 such counterexamples, along with prefatory material stating that:


 * "[Relativity] allows no exceptions" (as though it is more rigid in its claims than any other theory and hence more vulnerable to the slightest attack.)
 * That relativity is "heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism." (There is a lack of citations for this assertion.)
 * Since Barack Obama once wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review making a non-serious reference to relativity, relativity has a "tendency to mislead people in how they view the world."
 * "Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible." (This statement also lacks citations.)

The article claims that any one of these counterexamples disproves relativity. But, just for good measure, it lists all 22. Here they are:

Additions and amendments
On 8 August 2010, one day after this section was written, Schlafly made several edits to the article.

Chief among these are an expansion to #7:

And the addition of two new ones:

Additional examples as of August 22, 2011:

Pending research
The Conservapedia editors include this conspiratorial section to portray ongoing relativity research as somehow detrimental to the theory.

Government Support for Relativistic research
Conservapedia's next section tries to extend the perceived relativity conspiracy outside the scientific domain and into the political arena.

Philosophical Impact of Relativity
Another section designed to tie relativity to politics and cast relativity denialists as victims of a pro-relativity censorship drive. In addition to the example below, the section hints that Robert Dicke has not won a Nobel prize because he supported an alternative to GR, even though Conservapedia's own article cites a TIME piece illustrating how Dicke's theory is not a significant improvement on GR. To imply that the Nobel Prize Committee is part of an anti-Dicke conspiracy is absurd: only one Nobel Prize in physics is given yearly; many respectable scientists do not win.

For an amusing sample of delusion, read this from an older revision:


 * Just as "social Darwinism" arose from Darwinism, many seized upon the theory of relativity to apply it in a vague way to morality and social issues. "All things are relative" became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values.

Are black holes a liberal conspiracy?
On the talk page of the Conservapedia article on black holes, Schlafly asked someone defending the concept:

Why the big push for black holes by liberals, and big protests against any objection to them? If it turned out empirically that promoting black holes tends to cause people to read the Bible less, would you still push this so much?

PZ Myers rightly mocked him over this.

The healing power of Jesus disproves relativity

 * ''See also: Conservapedia:Andrew Schlafly's greatest insights

Schlafly brought up the following as a counterexample to relativity:

The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in.

(KJV) reads:


 * So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.

Schlafly claims that the passage in question has Jesus healing someone instantaneously, thus violating relativity. Even by Conservapedia standards, this is ridiculous. The obvious objections were brought up: (1) The healing could have occurred very quickly, but still slower than the speed of light (2) A miracle such as this can be considered a violation of natural laws. He responded: When the woman cured herself of bleeding and Jesus felt power leaving him, that sounds more like heat than light. And for heat to travel virtually instantaneously (or at the speed of light) WOULD violate the theory of relativity. Frank, perhaps what you mean is that you don't want the logic of the Bible to be used to evaluate claims by scientists. If so, I completely disagree. And so would Isaac Newton and most great scientists. As our Conservative Bible Translation project is revealing, Jesus said his works were not miracles, but signs. So any definition of miracle by Hume (who, by the way, leaned toward atheism rather than Christianity) is not terribly helpful. In reality, heat is transferred by three different methods
 * 1) Conduction, where a hot area of an object transfers some of its heat to the neighboring area by direct contact.
 * 2) Convection, where heat transfer occurs between an object and a surrounding, circulating fluid.
 * 3) Radiation, where a hot object emits infrared radiation (slightly less energetic than visible light).

Furthermore, at no point does Schlafly account for how coming back from the dead is compatible with modern science.

Response to Conservapedia's "Counterexamples"
In August 2010, many blogs and media outlets reported on Conservapedia's 'Counterexamples to Relativity' page. Some scientists even weighed in.


 * Brian Cox posted on his Twitter account on the 9th of Aug.: "It takes comic genius to compile a list of shit as long as this one &mdash; very amusing indeed !"
 * Talking Points Memo, 9th Aug. Headline: "Conservapedia: E=mc2 Is A Liberal Conspiracy".
 * Reddit, 9th Aug.
 * Skulls in the Stars, 9th Aug. An associate professor of physics thoroughly debunks the alleged counterexamples: "everything we’ve seen has been deceptive, incorrect — or just plain crazy."
 * Pharyngula, 10th Aug. Biologist and prominent "New Atheist" PZ Myers: "Andy Schlafly is a real boon to us Gnu Atheists who argue that religion rots your brain."
 * New York Times, on Paul Krugman's blog. 10th Aug.
 * The Rachel Maddow Show, 10th Aug. Was featured in a segment about 'The War on Brains'.
 * New Scientist, 11th Aug.
 * Swans on Tea, 12th Aug. A physicist working at the US Naval Observatory debunks Conservapedia's claims that GPS doesn't use relativity: "This intellectual dishonesty is, unfortunately, par for the course for this strain of crackpot."
 * The Young Turks, 13th Aug.
 * Discover Magazine, 18th Aug.
 * "Get Cynical", 9th Aug.
 * Climate Progress, 10th Aug.
 * DC Skeptics, 12th Aug.

Andy mentioned on Conservapedia that the site was the "Number 1 Most Popular, On Talking Points Memo Tonight", citing a link to a TPM article mocking Conservapedia for its idiocy about relativity. The statement was later removed, and its edit history was erased from Conservapedia.