HOW EINSTEINIANS KILLED SCIENCE

In 1887 the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment was compatible with the variable speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light, and incompatible with the constant (independent of the speed of the light source) speed of light predicted by the ether theory. Then, in an oversimplified and somewhat caricatural scenario, FitzGerald, Lorentz and Einstein asked the following question:

What should we do in order that the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment becomes compatible with the constant (independent of the speed of the light source) speed of light and incompatible with the variable speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light?

The answer FitzGerald, Lorentz and Einstein found was:

We should introduce "contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations".

The quotation "contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations" is from Banesh Hoffmann's version of the story:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" by Banesh Hoffmann, p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also a natural one? Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether. If it was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle? Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will prove to be superfluous."

Nowadays ninety-nine percent of the Einsteinians ("later writers" in John Norton's text below) teach that the Michelson-Morley experiment gloriously confirmed the constant (independent of the speed of the light source) speed of light predicted by the ether theory and advanced by Einstein as his 1905 second postulate, and humiliatingly refuted the variable speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible with an emission theory of light that contradicts the light postulate."

Pentcho Valev