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Old April 15th 11, 01:30 PM posted to sci.astro,sci.math
Pentcho Valev
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Posts: 8,078
Default WHAT HAPPENS TO FALSE THEORIES?

The growing corpse of false science embarrasses even Einsteiniana's
priests:

http://www.autodidactproject.org/oth...deology_2.html
Ideology of/in Contemporary Physics, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond
"In this way, major advances in modern physics, especially in
relativity and quantum mechanics, have paradoxically fed an intensely
irrational current. One knows the popular expression for scepticism
and unconcern: 'everything is relative . . . as Einstein said' (and
this is not so harmless as one would believe). At a seemingly more
elaborate level, the mad attempts of Bergson to criticise and
reinstate the theory of relativity within his own philosophy, even if
they took place fifty years ago, still give evidence of a serious
crisis in the relations between science and philosophy. (...) As far
as the theories of relativity or quantum physics are concerned, the
last fifty years have hardly witnessed any major evolution in their
mode of presentation. Most handbooks are surprisingly similar,
repeating indefinitely the same schemes of inner organisation. As a
general rule, a historical or rather chronological introduction - of
dubious accuracy - is followed by some philosophical reflections in
which traditional dogmas are enunciated under a much more schematic
and poorer form than that of their creators. Having fulfilled this
first task, the author then approaches the 'strictly scientific'
content of the book. It consists, in general, of purely theoretical,
exaggeratedly formalistic accounts, from which references to real
experiments steadily vanish. Not a single impression is left of the
real procedures of scientific activity, of the dialectic between
theory and practice, heuristic models and formalism, axioms and
history. Modern physics appears as a collection of mathematical
formulae, whose only justification is that 'they work'. Moreover, the
'examples' used to 'concretise' the knowledge are often totally
unreal, and actually have the effect of making it even more abstract.
Such is the case when the explanation of special relativity is based
on the consideration of the entirely fictitious spatial and temporal
behaviour of clocks and trains (today sometimes one speaks of
rockets . . . it sounds better . . . but it is as stupid!). This kind
of science fiction (which is not even funny) is the more dangerous as
erases the existence of a large experimental practice, where the
theory of relativity is embodied in the study of high-energy
particles, involving hundreds of scientific workers, thousands of tons
of steel and millions of dollars. (...) This teaching situation, even
if it appears unhealthy and harmful with regard to the simple aims of
training and teaching (transmission of knowledge), is however in
perfect ideological harmony with the general context of modern
physics. A closed arduous, forbidding education, which stresses
technical manipulation more than conceptual understanding, in which
neither past difficulties nor future problems in the search for
knowledge appear, perfectly fulfils two essential roles: to promote
hierarchisation and the 'elite' spirit on behalf of a science shown as
being intrinsically difficult, to be within the reach of only a few
privileged individuals; and to impose a purely operational technical
concept of knowledge, far from a true conceptual understanding, which
would necessarily be critical and thus would reveal the limits of this
knowledge. This is why discussions about educational problems take on
the form of ideological struggle. It is also why, because of the
essentially political nature of the resistance to change in this
field, no reformist illusions should be entertained as to the
possibility of any major successes, as long as such a struggle only
relies on the internal critique of scientific workers and teachers,
remaining within the framework of an unchanged technical and social
division of labour. (...) The very availability of an essay as this
reflects the existence of a deep ideological crisis in the scientific
milieu. This crisis is particularly obvious in the field of physics.
It is expressed, on the one hand, by a lack of motivation on the part
of many young research workers, and, on the other hand, by the efforts
of readjustment and self-justification on the part of the
establishment. It is characterised by a serious loss of credibility in
traditional values, which before had made it possible for research
workers to create acceptable self-images. (...) Average scientists do
not even control the meaning of their own work. Very often, they are
obscure labourers in theoretical computation or experimentation; they
only have a very narrow perspective of the global process to which
their work is related. Confined to a limited subject, in a specialised
field, their competence is extremely restricted. It is only necessary
to listen to the complaints of the previous generations' scientists on
the disappearance of 'general culture' in science. In fact, the case
of physics is eloquent on the subject. One can say that, until the
beginning of this century, the knowledge of an average physicist had
progressed in a cumulative way, including progressively the whole of
previous discovery. The training of physicists demanded an almost
universal knowledge in the various spheres of physics. The arrival of
'modern' physics has brought about not only the parcelling of fields
of knowledge, but also the abandonment of whole areas. I have already
said that important sections of nineteenthcentury physics are today
excluded from the scientific knowledge of many physicists. Therefore
the fields of competence are not only getting narrower, but some of
them are practically vanishing altogether. If physicists no longer
know about physics, a fortiori they know nothing about science! The
idea of a 'scientific culture', of a 'scientific method', of a
'scientific spirit', which were common to all scientists and used to
give them a large capacity for the rational understanding of all
reality, have turned into huge practical jokes. True, some scientists
have access to a global vision of their field or even of the social
organisation of science and social ties, but that tends to depend
solely on the position of power they occupy. The others, massively,
are dispossessed of all mastery over their activity. They have no
control, no understanding of its direction."

Pentcho Valev