Conservapedia talk:Conservapedian relativity/Archive1

Nice work
Nice work Bayes. Doggedpersistance  15:20, 20 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Seconded! human be in 15:36, 20 August 2007 (CDT)

Moral Relativism on CP
They deleted their sentence on GR's "encouragement" of relativism. Should we update the page accordingly or...?

(Why is some of my disappointed about this? ;;) Andy Frankinson (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Nevermind, they re-added it... Andy Frankinson (talk) 00:10, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

?
In fact, there are numerous sources on the internet that address, and agree, that there is "conflict" between "quantum mechanics" and relativity. For example, relativity denies any action-at-a-distance, while quantum mechanics depends on it.--Aschlafly 21:41, 29 January 2008 (EST) Susan Purrrrrrr  22:17, 29 January 2008 (EST)
 * Does assfly have any idea what either term means? Oh, sorry, forget it.--PalMD-Did that sound a little harsh? 22:22, 29 January 2008 (EST)
 * He knows how to google and either ignore or quote mine, thassall. human  23:32, 29 January 2008 (EST)
 * Andy's right when he says gravity and QM haven't been reconciled, but he's wrong about why. The action-at-a-distance "conflict" between special relativity and QM is resolved by general relativity.  See here.  Andy seems to have trouble differentiating between SR and GR.  He just mines what he thinks are the flaws in each and then tries to (incorrectly) use them to refute some nebulous monster called RELATIVITIVITSM!!  It's like watching Sysiphus at work.--Bayesyikes 19:11, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Why won't Conservapedia accept my truthful, unbiased edits? Who cares what their opinions are? People just want FACTS. Dark Zorro 18:36, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

Spacetime doesn't exist
Because the Lorentz's invariance equation is equal to a constant, not a variable. So we can't give independent values to space and time. x and t are wavelength and period of a electromagnetic wave.

c^2t^2 - x^2 = 2x10^-34

Light speed squared times time squared minus space squared is equal to a constant. Relativity only cares with two reference frames, but if we consider n reference frames we see that all invariance equati- ons are equal to the same value.

The above was donated by 85.241.174.102 - whether it is correct or not, it's fairly badly written and doesn't say why it has anything to do with the article.  ħ uman  20:14, 9 September 2008 (EDT)

Schlafstein
What's this bizarre vendetta of R. Schlafly against A. Einstein all about? He removed a couple of false attributions from the Einstein's page: (→E=mc2: remove false attribution) (→False attributions: Einstein only published faulty and incomplete proofs) (→False attributions: Einstein did not prove that matter was made of atoms.) ...  --LArron 04:25, 16 September 2008 (EDT)
 * Eh, Rudolf Schlafly needs to prove he is teh smart once in a while - how better than to argue with Einstein? Eat another hot dog, Roodger!!!  The blog mommy paid for to keep your brother out of her hair is not your playground.  Get a life (we know, you're trying to.  Maybe you should improov your pitch?)  ħ uman  04:40, 16 September 2008 (EDT)


 * And he is still hackling about the contributions of Einstein, this time the topic is the photoelectric effect... --LArron 10:30, 26 October 2008 (EDT)

Motivation
So does anyone actually know why they have such a problem with relativity? The only reason I can think of is one of the concepts you raised, about relativity being perceived as a "Jewish science". Is teh andi a wee bit antisemetic? Crundy 13:25, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

May I...
I've noticed that the response section in this article isn't altogether correct. Am I allowed to change it? (ordinarily I wouldn't ask, but calling it a "response" suggests that it represent the position of the community as a whole) Cheers.--Star trooper man 06:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Go for it. 09:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Update is now sorely, SORELY needed
Now that KSorenson has sorely vandalized the cp:relativity pages and other things such as the page on black holes as well, shouldn't we update or at least add a disclaimer to this page reflecting the unusual factuality of cp's relativity pages as of right now? I don't doubt that CP's going to edit over Kate's contributions in relatively short order, but certainly the whole fiasco deserves mention here at some point. Possibly add a new section to the page? Frummidge 19:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * At the very least the article should (does it?) link to the version (permalink) we are critiquing. Also, following up with the story of the last week (and Andy's lunacies on his "essay"s talkpage...) would be a good idea.  19:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, it still does link to that version (and the permalink does still work, sometimes CP doesn't burn its history!). We will need to follow up to the story and probably link to Conservapedia:The_Great_Disenchantment more than likely. Frummidge 20:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Best of Pseudoscience
Should this be in best of pseudoscience seeing as it is also in best of Conservapedia? 06:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

What if there *is* a connection?
Richard Tarnas, in The Passion of the Western Mind (an excellent and fair-minded book, despite becoming abruptly very strange in the final few chapters), posits that there is in fact a connection with the superseding of Newtonian physics and relativism (or rather, with postmodernism). Before we knew about relativity, it was in principle more justifiable to believe that there could be a neutral observer of spacetime. Einsteinian physics introduces problems for the idea of omniscience - it's not clear how one could be an impartial observer of a relativistic universe. In the same way many theists confidently assert that evolution does not represent a challenge to a theistic concept of the universe, and many rationalists take them at their word that it doesn't, even though the atelic nature of evolution does provide substantial evidence against the argument from design.

Prior to relativity, Copernican/Newtonian cosmology and atomism were associated with the growth of Deism among the elite and the beginnings of the anti-religious sentiment of the Enlightenment. There was a gap in time between the two, as the ideas and their implications took time to percolate through society. Similarly, postmodernism didn't spring up right away after relativity was publicised, but nonetheless it did use it as something of an intellectual basis.

It's not all that surprising that Schlafly desperately tries to denigrate the science because it represents a challenge to his worldview, in the same way that he and his ilk have done with evolution. Deliberately clouding and abusing science to support one's worldview is contemptible; but the hostility towards relativity (like the hostility towards evolution) becomes less bizarre when you think that they really do support a secular worldview.

Of course, as pointed out in the article, if moral relativism is not valid that in no way affects the validity of relativity as a scientific concept. Lacrimosus (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Postulates of Special Relativity
Once again, I stumbled upon cp:Talk:World_History_Lecture_Eleven. Here, Andy formulates hiw own versions of the postulates, and takes offense when he is criticized. This is a fountain of wisdom, including gems like: I'm not even sure you do disagree with it, except that you say it is not how Pauli (who had nothing to do with relativity) described it. I have explained why Pauli's description is inadequate: his description ("the speed of light is independent of the motion of the light source") does not expressly preclude somehow increasing the speed of light. Yet the formulas for relativity do assume that is impossible.--Andy Schlafly Surely you don't think Pauli's formulation is perfect, and incapable of improvement. No, your real position seems to be that a conservative cannot possibly improve on it!--Andy Schlafly 19:23, 28 April 2009 (EDT)

Great insights - at least in Andy's way of thinking...

19:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Recent events
Should there be something about all the recent hullabulloo in the blogosphere (If there is, I apologise: I couldn't see it). Incidentaly found this on Scientopia - a point by point refutation. 19:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There are several lists of reactions, including that link, on the WIGO Conservapedia talk page and elsewhere. Someone can compile a master list, perhaps? --ZooGuard (talk) 19:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Call for clarity
"Both sides in debates over relativism tend to oversimplify the views of the other side." Let's not do that here, or at CP, okay? --Uncle Ed bug me 18:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Did somebody speak? 18:37, 13 August 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * What are you trying to get at here, Mr. Poor? This page (Conservapedia:Conservapedian relativity) is more or less completely about physics.  I don't think there's any oversimplification going on here, the entire thing is in response to direct quotes of things that Mr. Schlafly and others have said about the theory of relativity.  It doesn't say much about the non-physics meaning of the term, and your article doesn't say anything about the physics one.  Is there some content here you'd characterize as an oversimplification? --MarkGall (talk) 18:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It's unclear what you mean here. Relativism and relativity are unrelated concepts, as far as I understand it - entirely separate from consideration of the merits of either - and that's the point of this article. Are you claiming some link between them? - David Gerard (talk) 18:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * DG, I wouldn't say that's quite the point of the article. They are unrelated, and that's just a fact, stated in the first sentence.  The point of this article is mostly that ASchlafly has said some very stupid things about the theory of relativity (maybe because he doesn't believe this fact), and RW rebuts the physics.  Nobody's oversimplifying here and putting words in his mouth -- he's quite explicit about these things.  There's not much room for oversimplification when we're talking physics. --MarkGall (talk) 19:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Relativity in engineering curriculum
In the article, it states that "It is important to note here that Andrew Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia and author of most of these articles, has a degree in electrical engineering and worked as an engineer for several years before becoming a lawyer. He would have learnt relativity in first-year physics and used concepts from the theory in his professional work". From my experience, undergraduate engineering programs do not always require study of modern physics, and at my school (University of Colorado), most engineering students never have to take relativity or quantum mechanics. First-year physics here involves mechanics and E&M, with modern physics (Introductory quantum and SR) only showing up in the third semester, which is not required for most engineering degrees. This doesn't excuse Schlafly's behavior of course, but it does make the article's statement possibly incorrect.
 * When I studied electrical engineering 1988-1990, we got relativity in first-year physics and quantum in second-year. (And, of course, complex numbers with everything.) I'd have presumed something like that was standard. We should look up the Princeton EE curriculum of the time, really - David Gerard (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Irony
Schlafly seems to think the Einstein's physics provides us with a rigidly causal universe, but this is even more true of his beloved Newton, isnt' it?--WickerGuy (talk) 21:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Claim that Andrew Schlafly used the theory of relativity while practicing as an EE
I'm a fourth year EE student and I've never been taught, or had to use, the theory of relativity. I'm not sure how it applies to electrical engineering work. The claim that Schlafly has learned and used the theory should be removed.
 * Done. took out "learnt", too.  he clearly never learned it, for all he might have studied it.[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot Tut tut, looks like rain  17:14, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I earned my EE degree within a few years of Andy. Assuming our courses of study were similar (and since we both went to accredited schools, that's a reasonable assumption), he would have taken a modern physics course (meaning "roughly up to Einstein") that covered relativity. However, the average EE has little practical use for relativity.
 * Quantum physics is a different story. Even then, that's only if you're getting into really low-level semiconductor work. MDB (talk) 17:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I did EE up to second year 1988-1990. (Second year twice before I gave up.) We got relativity in first year and quantum in second year, which is what I based that on - David Gerard (talk) 19:52, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "Studying it" and "using it professionally" are two entirely different things. MDB (talk) 20:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I actually saw a book in Stanford U's bookstore recently called "Quantum Mechanics for Electrical Engineers" but I understand it mainly applies to micro-electronics. QM was fairly pivotal for the development of the laser.

I am however a mere software engineer with a Bachelors in History (U of Penn) and Masters in Religious Studies, who has read a lot of popular science and gone on several backpacking trips with Silicon Valley folks who discuss engineering and physics around the campfire a lot.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm at a loss as to how he avoided it - we covered the basics of SR in senior year of high school (this was in 1985) and although I didn't go on to do engineering, basic college level physics was a 1st year requirement for all engineering undergrads. VOX  HUMANA  05:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Should this be on the front page?
It's about some obscure website with less than a half-dozen regular editors--not really worth featuring, I think. Theory of Practice Peer-reviewed articles for everybody! 22:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree. Тy talk 23:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * As RW started as a rebuttal to CP in part, it's monitored for historic reasons. Given that RW is the only set of folk monitoring the history of CP which is frequently burned by the sysops over there to hide incriminating evidence, RW is doing something relatively valuable that no one else is burning.--WickerGuy (talk) 02:29, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't ask if we should have the article. I asked if it should be on the front page. Theory of Practice Peer-reviewed articles for everybody! 02:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)t
 * If it has the quality for being a front page, sure. Just because it's about CP doesn't mean it should be automatically disqualified. But, eh, i understand why it wouldn't either. -- il'  Dictator   Mikal  03:59, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Remembering also that Schlafly's denials about relativity spread further than RW/CP. AceModerator 04:01, 23 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's a cover-quality article, and it's the go-to article for this craziness, which has achieved note out in the wider world with actual famous scientists going "wtf" at Schlafly's lunacy. I realise Conservapedia is inherently embarrassing, but there's no reason to disqualify this article over it - David Gerard (talk) 07:16, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Special vs. general relativity
The description of special relativity in this article (Conservapedia:Conservapedian relativity) is misleading. It is general relativity that focusses on the geometry of space-time modeled as a 4-dimensional manifold. Special relativity, as formulated by Minkowski, models space-time as an ordinary 4-dimensional Euclidean space, with a modified distance measure (the "Minkowskian metric"). That was not Einstein's original formulation of special relativity. Einstein did not at first discuss the global geometry of space-time. He learned from Minkowski how that could be done, and (as I remember it from reading) that helped him in formulating special relativity. See Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord .... Zaslav (talk) 04:30, 13 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It is extremely compressed. The inaccuracies in this version are probably mine. If you can summarise it concisely in a few paras as background for someone who knows nothing about it and not get it wrong (a remarkably difficult task in popular science writing), go for it - David Gerard (talk) 08:11, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

moral relativism link
I'm working on the RW article on moral relativism, and wanted to add in a link showing where CP claimed it was tied in to SR/GR (for no reason other than snark). But to my dismay the reference has gone from the CP article(s). Can anyone find a ref where the link to SR/GR and moral relativity is preserved? VOX HUMANA  05:32, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Edit - never mind, found it myself. The link was wiped out in a bit of vandalism which has survived since 25 Feb 2013. I hope they fix it - the current version diminishes the outright wackiness for which CP is so prized. VOX  HUMANA  05:38, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

'Bending' terms
(ie relativity)


 * There is the wonderful family Stein
 * There's Gert, there's Ep and there's Ein
 * Gert's poems are bunk
 * Ep's statues are junk
 * And nobody can understand Ein.

Any other topics limerick-able? 171.33.222.26 (talk) 14:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I love it how Andy champions Fred Hoyle
One of the reasons Sir Fred rejected The Big Bang model is because it suggested a creator which he was dead against.--Mercian (talk) 12:19, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Relativity is scientific. Darwinian evolution is scientific. "Global warming" on the other hand...
The main article is fairly well written.

I'm not from Conservapedia, but my objection, and a great many people's objections, to the "global warming" meme is that it is pseudoscience.

To quote Schwarz, science is mathematical modeling of reality, empirically constrained. Science strives for maximum generality and spareness of form. Science discards models which make predictions not borne out by reality. Science rejects non-testable claims as meaningless noise. Science remembers the null hypothesis and holds it above all others.

If you don't have testable predictions, what you have is called "opinion," and like assholes, everyone's got one but they don't produce anything very useful. The null hypothesis holds that an opinion is just that until someone formulates a testable prediction with it and subjects it to an experiment.

Scientists publish their data. Scientists don't have secret computer models nor secret data. Scientists don't say "We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind," "I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act," "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal." "I've found a neat trick to hide the decline." "I can't see either of these [critical] papers being in the next report. [We] will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

They promise to be able to predict decades into the future. Let them start with 1990 and predict 2010. That's just twenty years, and that shouldn't be too hard, right? When they have a model that can do that, then we can take them seriously and give them a voice in public policy. Not until then.

There are, after all, vast technical problems. For example, I don't know how I'd begin modeling average global temperature down to one tenth of a degree Celsius, because I don't know where I'd begin measuring average global temperature down to one tenth of a degree Celsius. Do you take temperatures at sea level? Do you measure temperatures higher up also? Do you rely on satellite measurements only, going back a few decades only? Do you need, perhaps, a very sensitive thermometer in every cubic kilometer of air in the Earth's atmosphere? More? If you do that, do you average them? Or use a table of weighted averages? Who creates the table and decides on the weighting? Do you measure temperatures only in urban areas ("climate scientists" love this one, see also "urban heat island effect"), or in rural areas also (you know, the other 99.9% of the Earth's land area)? Never mind the Earth. What's the average temperature of the county you live in, down to one tenth of a degree Celsius? How would you measure it? These are not trivial questions. And don't bother asking Mann and Jones, their data and models are secret. "Trust us. We know what we're doing.  We're smarter than you, and your children and grandchildren will hunt rats by candlelight because we say so, peasant."

We have no more than derived guesswork about the Earth's "average global temperature" fifty or a hundred years ago. And on the timescale of just the existence of our species, much less the existence of complex vertebrate life or the existence of the planet, a single century is not even one flap of a gnat's wings. We have the tiniest thimbleful of data, with which "climate scientists" wish to fill the Grand Canyon with DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM. And I'm not buying it. It dovetails far, far too neatly with generations of Leftist dogma. "American consumerism will DESTROY THE WORLLLLLLLLLLLLD!" "Back to the land! Back to nature!" "Man is a plague upon the Earth!" "Ragnarok is upon us unless we all go back to the caves, right now!" It's as if they weren't aware of the null hypothesis. It's as if they weren't aware that without a testable model--a hypothesis, if we want to break out the big words--it's not science, just opinion.

When you look at the history of these people, one comes away with the distinct impression that these were angry spoiled children, furious with Daddy, who have been obsessed with the idea of proving that Daddy/America/Nixon/capitalism/Whitey have SINNED AGAINST GAWD AND NATURE and THE END IS NIGH. Psychiatrists call this "l'idee fixe," the fixed idea. "Pollution is causing a new ice age and you're all DOOMED!" "Acid rain will KILL US ALL within TEN YEARS and WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" "Refrigeration will DESTROY THE OZONE LAYER and WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE within TEN YEARS! WE'RE DOOMED!" "No, wait, white people's sinful insistence on not living in mud huts is causing 'global warming' and you're all DOOMED!" "No, wait..." A hundred and thirty years ago, these people would have been the man in the Thurber stories who stood on the streetcorner ringing a bell and wearing a sandwich board upon which were sloppily painted the words, "REPENT! THE END IS NIGH!" with the E's and S's backwards.

Stephen Schneider, late creator of the "global warming" meme, admitted in multiple interviews that it was all lies:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." Interview in Discover Magazine, October 1989, pp. 45–48, Oct. 1989

"I readily confess a lingering frustration: uncertainties so infuse the issue of climate change that it is still impossible to rule out either mild or catastrophic outcomes, let alone provide confident probabilities for all the claims and counterclaims made about environmental problems. Even the most credible international assessment body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has refused to attempt subjective probabilistic estimates of future temperatures. This has forced politicians to make their own guesses about the likelihood of various degrees of global warming." From his article "Misleading Math about the Earth: Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist," Scientific American, January 2002.

It's pseudoscience, nothing but appeal to self-proclaimed "authorities" who are themselves obvious loud cranks with daddy issues.

"If you want to find out who rules you, find out who you are not allowed to criticise." Jean-Jacques Rousseau 04:01, 1 May 2014‎ (UTC)

This section is pretty clearly unscientific. Can it be deleted on that basis? Theist (talk) 01:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

De-gold?
Π just removed the cover note from the article and talk page. I suspect we should probably at least discuss it a bit first. So ... - David Gerard (talk) 11:19, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Does anyone care about the rantings of a wikiblog 5 years ago? 06:36, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a piece of lunacy that actually achieved outside note - David Gerard (talk) 07:47, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Even though we are trying to focus less on Conservapedia, their mischaracterization and total misunderstanding of what scientific relativity is symptomatic of the general attitude towards science from the conservative perspective: that being a bastardization of things like evolution so that Kirk Cameron can ask, "Have you ever seen a crocoduck?" As such, I think leaving this as a "gold" level article is warranted if we draw lines linking "Conservapedian relativity" to the larger mischaracterizations of science that conservatives love to pull out to avoid reality. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:05, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The article is still a pretty darn good article (more so than many legacy cover articles, which could really do with an update and polish). Is there anything lacking in the actual quality? - David Gerard (talk) 11:02, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The first sentence about CP sysops could possibly be moved to the past tense or re-crafted to put Andy at the center of the "debate" -- I don't think the current sysops, such as they are, are really too interested in physics. User: Conservative has his obsessions, Terry doesn't care about CP, and JPatt and Karajou are as dumb as posts and can't think about science in any way. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's all Andy. Tweaked - David Gerard (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Question
Are 'them at CP' being relatively stupid (compared to those researching the subject, or even the Brian Cox following public) or absolutely not even wrong stupid? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Somewhere between "not even wrong" and "wronger than wrong" - David Gerard (talk) 16:55, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * To clarify - this Brian Cox - and 'the public' being those willing to learn science to the level of programs and books on popular science and mathematics (and who prefer narrative explanations to 'multilayer mathematical equations, matrices and suchlike').  Their understanding of a topic may be 'reasonable as far as it goes' and occasionally confused/based on outdated information/whichever 'amusing theory they read about sometime, and they may argue back on 'counterintuitive theories' but they are willing to learn.

82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2015 (UTC)