…and this is a 
Einstein to join Darwin in the pantheon of despised scientists
Category: Kooks
Posted on: October 18, 2007 2:28 PM, by PZ Myers
Physicists, do you feel left out? Some nobody biologist from the Middle-of-Nowhere, Minnesota gets featured in a crackpot movie, but all you get is incoherent dumpster-diving schizophrenics making tirades about your work, and never anybody who has heard of venture capital? Rejoice! Your loons are getting more professional, too!
Feature Length Doc "Einstein Wrong" Looking for Executive Producer
Two Oscar Winning Distributors Wanting a Rough Cut
LONG BEACH, Calif, October 16, 2007 - Bootstrap Productions is currently looking for an executive producer for it's feature-length documentary "Einstein Wrong - The Miracle Year" due out in 2008. The documentary is about a suburban house wife who takes on the icon of 20th century physics to see if in fact relativity is wrong. Shot over the past 3 years, the film has two Oscar-winning distributors interested in the project. The film is directed by David de Hilster who has invested 13 years studying scientists and their efforts to show Einstein wrong. It is co-produced and edited by Andrea Tucker, and Nick Tamburri and is due out in 2008. For more info, go to http://investing.einsteinwrong.com.
Contact:
David de Hilster
Long Beach, California
http://www.einsteinwrong.com
I hope they get that financial backing soon, because I think it would be perfect if this movie came out in February 2008, and went head-to-head with Expelled.
This could be almost as bad as that dreadful What the bleep do we know? movie. By the way, you can search all over their website, and you won't find anything that explains what Einstein got wrong, how they figured it out, or what alternative they propose. The similarity to Intelligent Design creationism is perfect.
Comments
I've seen quite a few fundies "debunking" relativity before (by, for instance, pretending the twin paradox is unresolvable). I assume they hate it because it sounds like "relativism". (Speaking of which.)
Posted by: Nick Tarleton | October 18, 2007 2:38 PM
How can they hope to compete with the film "Insignificance", in which, with the help of a flashlight and a model train, Marilyn Monroe explains relativity to Albert Einstein?
Posted by: Ned in Zurich | October 18, 2007 2:40 PM
And you see people studying Physics for years and years, or studying Molecular Biology... Why? Thanks to the truthiness concept, you can refute Dalton, Darwin, Einstein or Planck very easily. You don't need boring formulas, annoying lab work, hardous reading of previous literature. The only thing you need is a "coherent" discurse based in some "sacred text" or "common sense" conceptions. The way to crankiness is very wide in those days.
Posted by: Dídac | October 18, 2007 2:40 PM
Well, in all honesty he was wrong in his comment about "God does not play dice" when confronted with quantum physics, and his version of "universal constant".
Posted by: daenku32 | October 18, 2007 2:46 PM
I particularly like the "suburban housewife" angle.
Surely it's feasible that an unlettered individual, noodling about in the scant amount of free time she has, to deconstruct a theoretical framework that's been successfully supported with countless independent observations of predicted results.
Right? Right?
Posted by: Warren | October 18, 2007 2:49 PM
How incoherent is this.
From the FAQs section on the website:
"There is much more than math that makes a theory correct. The idea is for the main character to decide on her own whether she thinks Einstein may be right or wrong. The filmmaker has the point of view that if the general public can't understand a theory, engineers don't use it, and there is a growing number of physicists and scientists finding fundemental problems with relativity, then the public (represented by the main character) should be able to judge this for themselves."
Posted by: caynazzo | October 18, 2007 2:49 PM
I assume everybody here has browsed the "Einstein Was Wrong" section of Crank.net — very amusing stuff.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | October 18, 2007 2:50 PM
Speaking as a physicist and physics teacher, all I can say is this is old news. Einstein debunkers have been around for a long time. Heck, I've even seen Kepler debunkers (best evidence -- "I just can't believe that Pluto moves slower than a bicycle" -- I kid you not).
In that sense, we physicists are equal to you biologists. But in the larger sense, we'll never get anywhere close, thanks to the sheer vehemence of the Darwin debunkers. I've never seen any effort to get "equal time" in physics textbooks, or any laws passed banning the teaching of relativity (Nazi Germany excluded), or any stickers in physics textbooks calling relativity "just a theory". And for that, I'm grateful.
Yes, I'm too chicken -- I deliberately did not get a general science teaching license, just because I didn't want to teach evolution and respond to creationist garbage.
Posted by: spudbeach | October 18, 2007 2:51 PM
Seems like standard anti-semitism. They're linking to a site called 'jewishracism.com'.
Posted by: Christian Burnham | October 18, 2007 2:51 PM
CB #9: Seems like standard anti-semitism. They're linking to a site called 'jewishracism.com'.
Maybe they should hit up Mel Gibson and Ann C**ter for cash?
Posted by: AlanWCan | October 18, 2007 2:58 PM
"Oscar-winning distributors"? There is no Oscar category for distribution.
Posted by: Martin | October 18, 2007 2:59 PM
"engineers don't use it"
*cough* GPS *cough*
http://www.phys.lsu.edu/mog/mog9/node9.html
Posted by: KeithB | October 18, 2007 3:00 PM
Christian: Is that it? Anti-Semitic anti-relativity is old, old, old.
People should know You are not entitled to your own opinion.
Posted by: Nick Tarleton | October 18, 2007 3:01 PM
s/You/you/
(yes, I'm that self-pedantic)
Posted by: Nick Tarleton | October 18, 2007 3:02 PM
The general public could understand relativity a whole lot better if they actually got a science education. Uninformed comments from a large number of uneducated people are worthless against the informed statements of educated people.
Does that sound horribly elitist? Well, so be it. Let it be proclaimed from the mountaintops that I support elitism: in fact, I love my own elite so much that I think everyone should belong to it.
Bzzzt. GPS. Thanks for playing.
No, there isn't. (String theory starts with special relativity as a basic assumption; it's the study of the relativistic dynamics of quantum strings, with supersymmetry added if you want to have super-strings. Loop Quantum Gravity, the only other idea which is anything close to a respectable plan for quantizing gravity, includes the idea of "Lorentz violation": look very carefully in the right places, and — maybe — you'll spot a circumstance in which relativity isn't working quite as expected. That's not a definitive prediction, however, and LQG theorists only expect departures from Einsteinian predictions in extreme circumstances. It'll be harder to check for those divergences than it was to check Einstein's divergence from Newton; that's progress for you!)
Simple, ain't it?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | October 18, 2007 3:04 PM
Before trashing the film, I'd want to know: is this a film that actually aims to debunk Einstein and special relativity? Because that would be laughable. Or is this doc a character-study a la Errol Morris, about people who want to debunk Einstein? Because that might actually be quite watchable. I think I'd even want to see that film.
Posted by: Sister Novena | October 18, 2007 3:13 PM
I think I heard about this documentary, the point wasn't to promote the views of cranks as if they might really be right, the point was to explore what would possibly motivate a housewife or whatever to attempt to refute Einstein. So they know that the chances of a nonexpert refuting Einstein are miniscule. In concept it's a lot like a documentary about a guy who decides he is going to bicycle backwards across the U.S. or something. Typical weird American story.
So it might be better than you think.
Unless I am misremembering, in which case never mind.
Posted by: Nick (Matzke) | October 18, 2007 3:17 PM
On second thought, having looked over the website, this thing looks painfully stupid. When the filmmaker puts themselves on the poster, you know you're dealing with a jackass.
Posted by: Sister Novena | October 18, 2007 3:18 PM
Christian Burnham: The link to jewishracism is in a comment. The official position of the site might be antisemitic elsewhere though, but I haven't read much of it. There's only so much crazy I can take in a day.
Posted by: Hank | October 18, 2007 3:23 PM
So they are pimping "Autodynamics", what ever the heck that is. By the Wilki entry on Autodynamics it sounds like a discredited theory. How quantity familiar, recycling a discarded theory as a suppressed TRUTH™, why it almost reminds me of ID.
I wonder what they are really pushing? Somebody's magic story can't happen with Relativity?
Posted by: Bob L | October 18, 2007 3:26 PM
Plot Synopsis:
Albert Einstein (that poseur) was wrong;
The housewife, of course, has it right.
The film clearly shows that stupidity flows
Just a little bit faster than light.
With the "dark side of physics" exposed
And the world once again seen as flat
The film next unlocks Dr. Schroedinger's box
And discovers what's up with his cat.
Joseph Priestly was also a fraud--
There's no "oxygen"--perish the thought!
And with oxygen pissed on, it's time that phlogiston
Is once again what kids are taught.
The de Hilsters' new paradigm shift--
"The new physics", we call it at work--
Shows a housewife can still, through the sheer force of will,
Kick the ass of a dumb patent clerk.
You may all disagree if you wish;
You may find it a little bit funny
But the most crucial part--from the depths of my heart...
Won't you please send us lots of your money?
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2007/10/albert-einstein-that-poseur-was-wrong.html
Posted by: Cuttlefish | October 18, 2007 3:27 PM
If Einstein is true, how do you explain pygmies vs. dwarves?
Someone had to say it! :)
#8: "Speaking as a physicist and physics teacher, all I can say is this is old news. Einstein debunkers have been around for a long time."
Yep, and they often quote old, flawed, now hopelessly out of date experiments to justify their views. This also sounds a lot like creationists, no? For instance, Dayton Miller is a rallying point for relativity denialists.
Posted by: gg | October 18, 2007 3:30 PM
daenku32:
I don't think these folks care that Darwin or Einstein were wrong on various issues where science has shown them wrong. They want to prove both wrong where later science most relies upon and has most corroborated their work. That's the point, right?
Posted by: Russell | October 18, 2007 3:38 PM
Cuttlefish nails it in verse, again. Kudos
Posted by: Jsn | October 18, 2007 3:43 PM
Are we sure this is't a spoof?
Posted by: Skeptico | October 18, 2007 3:44 PM
I'm quite impressed that someone would be described as "suburban housewife" who has the mathematical skills to even begin considering the validity of relativity.
Posted by: Jimi | October 18, 2007 3:44 PM
Warren wrote (#5):
Apparently that's what a lot of people think -- this movie is only feeding a preexisting appetite. A repetition of the popular "judge for yourself" mantra on the website's FAQ signals that the producers are tapping into the romantic ideal of the American maverick -- the "little guy" outsmarts the big guy, because what really counts isn't smarts, it's hearts.
Month ago or so I got into a debate with the woman manning a Young Earth Creationism booth at my county fair, and she seriously told me that she was capable of analyzing and judging abstracts in biology journals because she was "a mom who homeschools." When I told her that didn't give her expertise, she rolled her eyes in derision. Of course it did. She was a concerned mother. And a Christian.
I think two things are going on here in our culture: the aforementioned American myth that anyone can do anything if they only have sincerity and spunk; and the religious myth that the universe has been set up for us to provide important answers to anyone who has sincere faith and spunky humility. If the entire substructure of the cosmos is a Higher Consciousness with values akin to our own, then the universe is friendly. If you want to figure things out it's more important to do your spiritual work than rely on intelligence, effort, and book learning. Wisdom comes from above, to those who are attuned to it. Ask and ye shall receive.
That combination is deadly.
Posted by: Sastra | October 18, 2007 3:46 PM
Jebus. That What the BLEEP Do We Know? movie was pretty freakin' awful.
My dear mother loved it and encouraged (bugged) me to see it. I saw it, hated it, and told her as much. We haven't broached the subject since.
PS: Sorry, I have nothing to contribute to the Einstein discussion. Relativity makes my head hurt.
Posted by: Paul D | October 18, 2007 3:50 PM
I think this is far worse than the Bleep movie. I mean, quantum mechanics is hard to understand, and confuses many. Relativity is relatively easy--even I could probably debunk this junk. I took a look at their FAQ, and here are some ridiculous crackpot quotes:
All I heard was, "They only hate us because they know we're right!" and "No, we have no proof." The latter might explain why they don't actually say on their website what the problem with Einstein is. Did I mention that they completely mangled the "not even wrong" concept?
Oh, and look, they're part of a group called Science Watchdogs. There's a pile of woo if I ever saw one.
Posted by: miller | October 18, 2007 3:56 PM
It's annoying how things like this get more press than Gravity Probe B results. This prompted me to ask "whatever happened with that, anyway?" It sounds like it showed that Einstein was (gasp) right, although it also sounds like they're going to announce more detailed results on Nov 2nd. Where's the story in that? The public wouldn't be interested in a documentary about the engineering challenges of launching huge gyroscopes into orbit and attempting measurements with the highest precision our technology enables, I guess.
Posted by: Mark (Monty) Montague | October 18, 2007 4:03 PM
I can't believe the thread has gotten this far without a reference to the This American Life episode on a similar theme, of an average joe who's convinced he has discovered that Einstein was wrong (actual quote: 'It's something that every Nobel prize winner in physics missed'). The story starts at about 30:42 if you use the pop-up flash player at the link.
P.S. Comment #11 preempted my other comment.
Posted by: Warren Terra | October 18, 2007 4:09 PM
Man, what are the chances that old reliables like Tom Bethell and Tom van Flandern show up in this movie?
:)
Posted by: John Farrell | October 18, 2007 4:15 PM
The site itself is a demonstration of relativity.
I tried to watch the trailer and actually observed time slowing to a crawl.
Posted by: Brownian | October 18, 2007 4:19 PM
Sastra (Comment #27)
Was this in Kansas?
Could you have coome face to face with FTK?
Posted by: KeithB | October 18, 2007 4:20 PM
Here's a little limerick inspired by general relativity:
There once was a lady named Bright
Who traveled much faster than light.
She departed one day
In a relative way
And returned the previous night.
Posted by: NeoGothic | October 18, 2007 4:25 PM
Coming up next, another shot across the bow of the intelligentsia when a working-class man swings a broken beer bottle in the incendiary docu-drama: "You Ain't Better'n Me!"
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 18, 2007 4:30 PM
"Speaking as a physicist and physics teacher, all I can say is this is old news."
True; pretty much every Physics dept. gets letters/emails/mailings roughly once a year with 'proofs' that Relativity is wrong.
It is also true that, fortunately for Physics, the situation is not as bad as those claiming to debunk good ol' Darwin. But with apparently silly movies like this, the situation could change. Like someone posted earlier, I can just imagine some lunatic school boards in the US forcing stickers on Physics books saying that this is only a 'theory'...
Posted by: CHANGCHO | October 18, 2007 4:30 PM
To play the devil's advocate, why should scientists be the only ones to debunk Einstein, when (cf. the Courtier's reply) anyone can question theology?
Posted by: Matthew | October 18, 2007 4:36 PM
Matthew, you are correct. Anyone can "debunk" Einstein.
However, they must provide data.
Posted by: KeithB | October 18, 2007 4:39 PM
Sure you are. You are just not entitled to your own facts. "Engineers don't use it", for example.
ROTFL!!! :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
This has to be sung!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 4:40 PM
Does Scienceblogs delete paragraph breaks when they aren't followed by an empty line?
Test
Test
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 4:45 PM
These are the people from the Science Watchdogs site (do not follow this link if stupid makes you angry) They have severe allergy to anything to do with reason, and science.
Posted by: Ryan S. | October 18, 2007 4:45 PM
Then maybe it only does that to paragraph breaks in blockquotes?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 4:47 PM
It does. Maybe the <p> tag helps?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 4:48 PM
Looks like the movie is associated with http://www.sciencewatchdogs.org and http://www.newiki.org
Posted by: Ron Zeno | October 18, 2007 4:51 PM
Yes, except it introduces way too much space between the lines. Maybe <br>?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 4:53 PM
Guess who is becoming a teacher in Toronto University? For teaching Intelligent Design controversy? Yep, that's right, it's Denyse O'Leary And she's pretty proud of it.
Oh, and by the way (see first link), we now know who "Red" of Uncommon Descent is (at least I'm pretty confident)
Posted by: Timothée | October 18, 2007 4:53 PM
David, does the Preview function not work for you, or something?
Posted by: Warren Terra | October 18, 2007 4:54 PM
Yeehaw! Was easier to figure out than relativity. =8-)
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 4:55 PM
Since theology need not be predicated on anything resembling reality, no previous knowledge of the field is required, and therefore anyone attempting a theological statement becomes, de facto, a theologist.
For a demonstration of this, I ask you to make up any untestable claim and determine whether it's less or more true than anything any 'real' theologist's theological claims.
Posted by: Brownian | October 18, 2007 5:01 PM
I didn't even get the idea, because the preview function very often messes up HTML, special characters, and other stuff in ways that don't happen when I just click "Post" immediately.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 18, 2007 5:01 PM
Evolution 1 Creationism 0
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071016205858.htm
Posted by: Skeptic4u | October 18, 2007 5:02 PM
Oops, I meant to write 'than any 'real' theologist's theological claims' but my goldfish Fishyssoise--the God of Typos--changed it.
Prove me wrong. If you can't, then I'm a theologist on par with CS Lewis.
Posted by: Brownian | October 18, 2007 5:07 PM
The day this piece of trash is released will also be the very first day that Andrew Schlafly has an erection for something other than his reptilian mother.
Posted by: Dustin | October 18, 2007 5:08 PM
KeithB asked:
No, it was in Wisconsin. And it's unlikely it was FTK -- there are plenty of Christian YEG homeschool mom to go around.
What drove her nuts was that I wouldn't get into the science arguments. She and the guy with her kept asking "Ok, you tell me what you consider to be the best evidence for evolution and I'll try to answer it." I told them no. Although I'd done some evolution debates in the past I decided to take a different tack. None of us was a biologist or had a background in evolutionary theory, and she wanted me to ignore the consensus of expert opinion on the matter and play into a role. Let's all talk over our heads about things we don't understand fully and look for holes in each other's arguments. And let's assume that a Major Conspiracy on behalf of virtually all scientists across virtually all disciplines is a legitimate possibility, okay? That assumption isn't a big deal.
That's what's called a game. It's dishonest, and I told them they were exploiting people and fooling themselves. Science isn't done by inexperienced laymen who've looked at some books and websites and think they've now got enough knowledge to overturn established theories and argue on common ground with actual experts. Bottom line, they're not just peddling creationism: they're peddling arrogance. That mom was tricking people by pretending that's how science is done -- someone at a booth in the county fair can and should be taken seriously and her arguments weighed carefully. She was trying to find those more ignorant than herself.
No. Science is not religion. You can't just feel your way to truth. If you want to go against a mainstream view -- or any view -- you actually have to know what you're talking about, not just look and sound and talk like you do good enough to pass at the county fair.
Posted by: Sastra | October 18, 2007 5:21 PM
That "Science Watchdogs" site it quite the collection of weapons-grade stupid. Stuff like this (commenting on an article about atomic clocks on the ISS):
leaves me at a loss... that's their argument? Seriously?
Posted by: Brain Hertz | October 18, 2007 5:33 PM
The idea is for the main character to decide on her own whether she thinks Einstein may be right or wrong.
Is this before or after she draws the magic sword and slays the evil wizard?
Posted by: JT | October 18, 2007 5:36 PM
All I got from the trailer was that debunking Einstein apparently involves hack cinematography, terrible narration, wearing a mock-Einstein fright wig, and pregnant women.
Posted by: Tom | October 18, 2007 5:41 PM
It has occurred to me that I should put all of my books in a watertight underground bunker so that they'll be safe from the impending dark age and can help rebuild human scholarship when they're found by future post-renaissance archaeologists.
Besides, I have quite a collection. I don't think I'd like the Christians of 2015 to take them outside in an attempt to verify the phlogiston theory (which they'll certainly be championing soon, if trends continue).
Posted by: Dustin | October 18, 2007 6:03 PM
Why on the movie poster does she have her hand stuck in a cloud labeled E-mc2? At first I thought she was flipping us off! And what about the tiny very pregnant woman next to her.
Posted by: jeh | October 18, 2007 6:13 PM
Who else is alarmed that our engineers are not using relativity in their work because they don't understand it? How on earth are we expected to create a better world for ourselves if we cannot account for the effects of light speed or neutron stars or black holes on our technology and infrastructure?
Oh, woe is me!
Posted by: tacitus | October 18, 2007 6:17 PM
The 'suburban housewife' appears to be the director's mother. The DeHilster family name is also prominent throughout the credits.
Actually I thought the creationists, especially the Young-Earthers, have as much loathing for physics and cosmology as they do for biology, but they must reckon Einstein is too hard to touch. Especially since he made all those baby videos.
Posted by: andy | October 18, 2007 6:18 PM
Oy, gevalt.
All clocks run slow. It doesn't matter whether they're based on cesium atoms, a swinging pendulum, the growth of cancer cells or your cousin Earl counting "One Mississippi, two Mississippi. . ."
Posted by: Blake Stacey | October 18, 2007 7:32 PM
They can't even write a press release properly. They misspelled "its" in the first sentence!
Posted by: Timothy | October 18, 2007 7:32 PM
Cuttlefish, that's your best yet, and that's saying something. Mind if I email that to everyone I know, with proper credit, of course? Awesome work.
(Particularly liked the "phlogiston" reference and the "dumb patent clerk.")
Posted by: cureholder | October 18, 2007 8:33 PM
I think I was thinking of the "This American Life" episode...
Posted by: Nick (Matzke) | October 18, 2007 9:36 PM
At NASA we get piles of these; I particularly liked one that crossed my desk about twenty years ago. The author was certain he had "debunked" quantum mechanics, but wanted to collaborate because he needed somebody to "fill in the math."
Even better are some of the unsolicted proposals. I'm told that one of them read, in its entirety:
"I've heard of warp drive. I like strawberries."
Posted by: Epikt | October 18, 2007 10:45 PM
Why are fundamentalists always so interested in getting people to decide things for themselves when discussing scientific theories, but not when figuring out how people should live their lives?
Posted by: Caledonian | October 18, 2007 10:53 PM
I think you're all missing that there's something larger going on here. Look closely: the motivation is not for a housewife to disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but to disprove Einstein.
These are exactly the same sort of people who fling about the term "Darwinists" as an epithet, no matter how often they are corrected.
These people live in a world of personality cults, and slavish deference to authority figures. They simply can't comprehend that not everyone does so. By "disproving Einstein" (even by showing that as a child, he once made a foolish breakfast choice) they are convinced that they are striking a blow against Science and scientists by removing the mantle of God from one of science's greatest prophets. If she wins, then absolutely nothing the man says can be trusted from that point on. Suck it, Einsteinists!
It's really the way they think. It's a common routine on comedy shows like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Really as well.
Posted by: melior | October 18, 2007 11:27 PM
That ranks right up there with the quote by Emperor
Ferdinand I of the Austirio-Hungarian Empire: "I am the emperor, and I want dumplings."
Posted by: Janine | October 18, 2007 11:46 PM
Heh! David de Hilster. Look, y'all, Nostradamus only missed his name by two letters!
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | October 18, 2007 11:56 PM
Dolphin Lambert claims the speed of light is decreasing.
He is a complete nutcase. I don't want to imply for a second I endorse his comments.
Enter at your own risk:
http://www.ldolphin.org/
He's two -- two! -- TWO quacks in one.
Posted by: MikeM | October 19, 2007 12:11 AM
Blake Stacy #15 wrote:
I officially love you now!
That's awesome. I could have used that earlier today with a coworker that I just discovered was a closet retard GW/Evolution/HIV denialist.
When he said he thought scientists were elitist the best I could come up with was "Yeah? Well maybe that's because they really are better than you!"
Common sense! Take that!
There may have been ninja moves. I don't remember, it was a heated debate.
Posted by: Leni | October 19, 2007 12:41 AM
In fairness, there are some actual physicists who have forwarded similar hypotheses.
Doesn't make this guy less of a quack, but doesn't make him more of one either.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 19, 2007 12:47 AM
From the Science Watchdog site:
"Question
· Who is qualified at the Physics Police to make critiques?
Answer
· Who is qualified at the Physics Police to make critiques?
If there were physicists critiquing the science being published and broadcast throughout the world, there would be no need for this site.
Many scientists and physicists believe that all science should be easily understood by the public and that theorical physics has become more of a fantasy world than science. That is the philosophy held by those who run this site and who are members."
There you have it. Science that's hard can't be true.
Posted by: bjn | October 19, 2007 12:52 AM
A trifecta!
I've come across a couple of relativity crank/HIV denialists before.
There definitely is a crank law of attraction. The ability to overestimate your ability and understanding in one field predicts with extremely high precision the probability that you are a crank in a completely different field.
Lynn Margulis is a 911 troofer and a HIV denialist. I wonder what she thinks about relativity and global warming.
Posted by: Chris Noble | October 19, 2007 1:04 AM
I don't think we are left out, especially not by creationists that would love to support their YEC tent occupants by removing the relativity obstruction to a 6000 year old universe. But biology is chosen as the presumed "soft" target in the Wedge. (Hah! First lesson in strategy: never reveal a strategy. Second lesson in strategy: make sure of your intelligence..., um, now I see why they have problems.)
More fundamentally than GPS, what will we do without magnetism?
Maybe they don't appreciate that when we derive the Lorentz force directly from EM theory we use the covariant formulation that fundamentally unite E and M forces. Magnetism is such a cool low-velocity relativity effect, we just aren't used to think of it as such.
Then we will have to disuse X-ray tubes, whose photons are generated by Bremsstrahlung with relativistic corrections at higher energies.
We would have to close down our nuclear reactors. Which btw waters tantalizingly glow with Bremsstrahlung as well.
I guess we should leave interplanetary missions and accelerator technology alone. We wouldn't want to confuse such esoteric activities with, you know, what engineers do.
And you can make a very simple gedanken experiment clock by bouncing a photon between two parallel perfect mirrors. How can they when get a difference between time slowing down (the photon bouncing less frequently) and the clock slowing down (less frequent bounces recorded)?Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | October 19, 2007 1:10 AM
Sorry, Skeptico, it's not a spoof. David de Hilster has been pushing Autodynamics since ... well, I argued extensively with him on Usenet sci.physics in the late 80's or early 90's. One of the "features" of this so-called theory is the nonexistence of the neutrino. Given that, at the time (and again today), I was working on a particle physics experiment measuring the interaction properties of the neutrino, I was pretty sure they existed. I explained, patiently at first, less so later, how they were produced and how they were measured and how we were sure that what we saw wasn't something else. In the end he demanded that I give him copies of our data; seeing as it was just a bunch of bits unless you understood how to interpret the data-aquisition readout, etc (in 60-bit Cyber format!) he wasn't going to get far with that. In the end he never did tell me where to ship him the 8mm tapes.
Yes, Sastra, de Hilster is the king of the "little guy outsmarts those silly PhD's" 'cause they're just in it for the money not the knowledge and are suppressing the real thinkers.
Wrote his own imdb entry. Correlating this with his movie web page he has the following cast:
Patricia de Hilster [ mother ]
Robert de Hilster [ father ],
Doris de Hilster [ wife ]
Geoff Hunter,
Michael de Hilster,
Addie de Hilster,
Luanda de Hilster,
David de Hilster [ himself ]
Wow, what modesty to list himself last.
He quote mines like a fundie, completely misinterpreting what is said. For instance, off a "science watchdogs" webpage he has:
[bolding his]. Now a simpleton with basic understanding of English grammar would know that "believe" modifies the "hold the key" and says nothing about the existence (or not) of the objects themselves.
I never quite understood about his insane need to not believe in neutrinos. I think it follows from neutrinos are needed to balance energy and momentum in radioactive decay under special relativity (SR). Thus if they exist that serves as evidence that SR is right, and if SR is right then Autodyanmics, his hobby horse, must be wrong (being that it is completely incompatible with SR ... or even Galilean, i.e. everyday slow moving, low energy physics).
So not only is he smarter than Einstein (who couldn't be all that smart since he got the "I after E" rule wrong twice in his name), he's also smarter than Newton and Galileo. I suspect that he was a contributing factor to the creation of the crackpot index developed by John Baez in the early 90's. Check it out, it's physics oriented only because the famous scientists mentioned are all physicists, but if you dropped Darwin in there you'd probably find it quite suitable for classifying Creationists/IDers.
Wrong thread but here's my favorite equation: Life, the Universe and Everything = 42.
Posted by: Don't Panic | October 19, 2007 1:22 AM
Relativistically speaking, of course. :-)
David Marjanović, OM:
You might want to use <br /> on The Panda's Thumb for the same function. (I guess we are all slowly drifting towards XHTML specs.)
The spec standard space between b and / is needed here. But not on PT. So much for standards.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | October 19, 2007 1:28 AM
Also, it's official: I also love Sastra!
Chris Noble wrote:
Ha!
Crap... That is such a good word. I really dropped the ball on this one. I just told him he sounded like an "ignorant, uneducated, top of the bottom of the barrel creationist". I admit... trifecta really has a lot more flare ;)
Or... "Stupid is as stupid does", lol.
No seriously. I think Sastra had a good take on take on it. Except when I'm feeling dark I think it's a "war" on science.
Posted by: Leni | October 19, 2007 1:41 AM
Long time reader, first poster. And also a crusader against intelligent designists since 2002.
Thank goodness! I never thought other people hated "what the bleep do we know". All my non science friends either a) took it the wrong way, as in "wow, my thoughts can alter matter?" b) thought they understood everything about physics or c) STILL had no interest when I tried to tell them some cool science fact.
I did get a laugh out of how blown their minds were.
Sorry for the rant, I was just so excited.
Posted by: Red | October 19, 2007 1:48 AM
Posted by: Don't Panic | October 19, 2007 2:05 AM
It's amazing how many brainless lemmings there are here.
No one has seen the film and people are pre-judging the content. No one investigates the literature or is even curious about the real premise of this film. The director is not aligned with any "creationist" theories, is not a UFO person, or believes in conspiracies (from the FAQs).
Also, almost EVERY documentary is done by people who are not experts in the field. This director doesn't have his own theory. This is a documentary. He is trying to show another side of a story where Einstein and relativity are not what they seem and the proof is not there.
And being the smart people you are in this blog, none of you are smart enough to understand that the "Einstein is wrong" part is in the film and is not being revealed by the director. I hate it when director's reveal everything in the trailer. Can you grasp that?
Wait until the film comes out. The emotional bashing here is because people think they are smart and understand science but are a bunch of lemmings who defend Einstein first, and leap off the cliff without even considering the possibility that he could be wrong.
Get a life and do something smart