Well, that reduces my teaching load
By Thoreau
Looks like I won’t have to do any of the lectures on relativity that I was planning for next quarter. Conservapedia has debunked it!
While all of them are a laugh, I especially love the credulity required to conclude that items 3, 4, 5, and 15 debunk Einstein. The Conservapedia editors would fit in well with the staff of New Scientist…until climate change comes up. Also 19, regarding the uniformity of temperature in the universe, completely ignores the CMB finding that the universe ISN’T quite uniform. If they’d just spend a bit more time reading New Scientist, they’d know this.
For the record, New Scientist is a fine publication overall, but they swoon over anomalous results in particle physics and cosmology.
Comment by Eli Rabett —
December 6, 2011 @ 2:19 am
Ms. Rabett only reads Nude Scientist for the centerfold. They have always been weird science fans since the get go.
Comment by Evan Harper —
December 6, 2011 @ 5:28 am
How do you know that New Scientist is a fine publication overall? For argument’s sake, what if they swoon over every anomalous result in every field, but you just don’t have the expertise to notice?
(Carl Sagan once described running the crank tome Chariots of the Gods past astronomers, who all said, “The astronomy is rubbish but the archaeology is impressive,” and across archaeologists who all said the reverse.)
Comment by Glen Raphael —
December 6, 2011 @ 10:34 am
Conservapedia has the same problem as wikipedia that just a few persistent cranks who *really care* about a topic can outlast all the people who randomly happen across a page and want to help but don’t care quite so much. Usually you can figure out what’s being excluded by looking at the “talk” page and/or the article history. In this case, there seems to be just one guy (”Andy Schlafly”) who honestly believes all this stuff and will defend it against any and all corrections from people like this guy:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Counterexamples_to_Relativity#At_first_glance
It reminds me a bit of the wikipedia pages on climate
Comment by Thoreau —
December 6, 2011 @ 12:27 pm
Evan-
Fair point. Particle physics, cosmology, and gravitation actually aren’t my areas of expertise. In areas that I do have some expertise in, they are no worse on hype than any other science journalism outlet. In particle physics, OTOH, they are noticeably worse on the hype.
Comment by Gene Callahan —
December 6, 2011 @ 1:57 pm
“Conservapedia has the same problem as wikipedia that just a few persistent cranks who *really care* about a topic can outlast all the people who randomly happen across a page and want to help but don’t care quite so much.”
No, no, no. Wikipedia is far, far better than Conservepedia. Conservepedia *starts out* trying to give a biased slant on things, and goes downhill from there.
Comment by Edward —
December 8, 2011 @ 6:59 am
The theory of relativity is a liberal conspiracy??? I think our current theories have limited validity and will eventually be replaced, but cherry-picking “facts” to support a flawed argument is fundamentally dishonest and the opposite of science.
Comment by the innominate one —
December 9, 2011 @ 6:56 pm
Thoreau – New Scientist was roundly derided for its “Darwin Was Wrong” cover, which would have been better titled “Darwin was merely mostly right, but not completely right”.
Comment by Eli Rabett —
December 10, 2011 @ 6:25 am
The theory of relativity has ALWAYS been a liberal conspiracy, which is why Albert didn’t win the Nobel Prize for it although everyone who had tenth grade physics knew that was the real reason. (See Science, Aryan)