CeilingCat
Posts: 2363
Joined: Dec. 2007
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Boy, this sure sounds familiar! NewScientist magazine has an article in the Nov 13, 2010 issue titled, The Relativity Deniers by Milena Wazeck. It's about the fight against Einstein's theories circa 1920. Here are a few excerpts:
"Ernst Gehrcke, one of the most outspoken critics of Einstein in Germany."
"I discovered that the group opposing relativity ...their tactics had much in common with those used by creationists and climate-change deniers today."
"Like many experimentalists of that era, he [Gehrcke] felt uncomfortable with the rise of a theory that demanded a reformulation of the fundamental concepts of space and time."
"In 1921 he argued that giving up the idea of absolute time threatened to confuse the basis of cause and effect in natural phenomena."
"The Academy of Nations title and letterheaded paper contrived to give it the aura of a scholarly academy. ... Its founder was Arvid Reuterdahl, then dean of the faculty of engineering and architecture at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was also a devoted theist who attempted to reconcile religion and science in what he termed "new science". ... The Academy of Nations aimed to reconnect different branches of knowledge by integrating scientific findings into a unified, religious account of nature. ... Almost half the Academy of Nations' founding declaration consisted of polemics against Einstein's theory. "We are emerging from a period of material and intellectual chaos."
"Einstein's opponents found themselves in the unenviable position of outsider, their arguments dismissed as "old crop" by most physicists. Scholarly journals and scientific associations closed their doors to them. The establishment of a self-governing academy and journal must have come as a welcome opportunity to break out of this marginalised position."
"This is not science. On the contrary, it is a new brand of metaphysics."
"The Academy of Nations therefore saw itself as directed not only against the theory of relativity, but also towards the salvation of what it considered to be real science."
"Nevertheless, those who opposed the theory were not above attacking Einstein the person - the democrat, the pacifist, the Jew."
"Our trouble in America is that all scientific journals are closed to anti-relativists through Jewish influence. The daily press is almost entirely under the control of the Jews," Reuterdahl wrote in 1923. From this position, it was easy for Einstein's opponents to see themselves as victims rather than aggressors. In their interpretation of reality, the mere existence of relativity theory and the non-acceptance of arguments against it qualified as an attack on them."
"The debate about relativity lingers on today. Though the new generation of Einstein's opponents have mostly moved their protests online, they share some fundamental characteristics with their predecessors. These perhaps show up best on the consrvative website Conservapedia, which uses wiki technology to allow people to document counterexamples to relativity. Conservapedia claims that relativity is "heavily promoted by liberals" and lists 32 reasons why the theory is wrong. Einstein's critics continue to perceive relativity as a threat to their world view, and often invoke conspiracy theories to explain their marginalised position."
"Einstein's opponents back in the 1920s were impervious to reasoned criticism, just as his critics today are. Physicists do sometimes try to discuss relativity theory with their opponents and point out their misunderstandings, just as physicists did 90 years go. But this will not resolve the controversy. The opponents understanding of the very nature of science differs so fundamentally from the academic consensus that it may be impossible to find common ground."
With the exception of the overt anti-Semitism, I can't help thinking of the Discovery Institute and UD as I read this article. Substitute "Darwin" for "Einstein" and "Evolution" for "Relativity" and it's almost a perfect description of today's anti-evolution movement.
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