Einsteinian 'Dogma' Under Threat

Scientists Say E=MC2 Might Be Wrong, Say Neutrinos Are Faster Than Light

Scientists can be as dogmatic about some of their a priori scientific laws as they claim religious people are about their beliefs. It is often very much a ‘faith’ thing, with a fanatical assent demanded to a supposedly established law or scientific dogma that may later get brushed aside. All ‘intelligent’ people are expected to conform to that law, or suffer being labelled ‘flat earthers’, or the like. Atheistic physicist Stephen Hawking, considered to be this generation’s Albert Einstein, has lately been lamenting his greatest mistake, the “Black Hole Paradox”. But what if Black Holes don’t actually exist?

For now the dogma of all dogmas, Einstein’s equation of relativity (which pop star Mariah Carey has used as an album title), has been seriously called into question and may well end up being dumped. As Gavin Ardley wrote, in his Aquinas and Kant, in highly theoretical science, with the passing of time, “one Procrustean bed is replaced by another Procrustean bed”.

Anyway, here is the latest on Einstein:

Physicists working at CERN believe they may have discovered neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. If the discovery is validated it would mean Albert Einstein’s special theory of relatively marked as E-MC2 would be incorrect. Einstein states in his theory that nothing is able to travel faster than light.

Adrian Cho at Wired didn’t sugar coat the discovery, claiming:

”If it’s true, it will mark the biggest discovery in physics in the past half-century.”

The reason the discovery is so significant is that the modern world of physics is based around the notion that light travels at the fastest possible speed in the universe.

Tests are being duplicated to prove the assertion correct with a CERN spokesman noting: “The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real.”



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Now,
 

Self-Contradictory Philosophy

[Taken from Gavin Ardley's book, "Aquinas And Kant"]


…

Enough has been said to show the character of a well-developed ‘humanistic’ theory of morals. It is the culmination of the movement stemming from Protagoras: man is the measure of all things. We have discussed this subject of ethics at some length because of its intrinsic importance. Such humanistic doctrines are very widely held today in some form or another.

We will now go on to show that this elaborate structure is built upon sand. Its foundation is a concealed Procrustean bed, and when this is brought to light the whole structure collapses.

Critique of Logical Positivism

Let us turn back to the starting point of logical positivism, to the foundation on which all this structure rests. This is the principle that ‘a proposition has no meaning unless it can be empirically verified’. (In the light of Stevenson’s emendations this is now to be understood as ‘no factual meaning’. The proposition may yet have an emotive meaning, to use Stevenson’s own language).

Now when any general proposition is put forward, a good plan is to apply it to itself and observe the result. In so many cases when this is done the proposed principle shows itself to be self-contradictory, as for example: ‘Everything is doubtful’. On its own criterion this is doubtful, so that universal scepticism cannot be asserted without denying itself (cf. Descartes). (It should be noted that the principles of the philosophia perennis do not annihilate themselves in this way. On the contrary, the assert themselves in the very act of being denied, so that far from being inherently self-contradictory, they are inherently self-assertive).

When we introvert the basic principle of logical positivism we find it to be a proposition which is inherently self-contradictory. For such a proposition as ‘a proposition has no meaning unless it can be empirically verified’ is not itself susceptible of empirical verification, and therefore, by its own criterion, it is meaningless.

All the logical positivist is doing is to express his private determination to admit only empirically verifiable propositions. No reason is given for this. It is evidently founded on nothing more substantial than prejudice and emotion. The basic proposition in fact, Stevenson’s own phrase, has only an emotive meaning. Its purpose is to persuade subtly to pursue a certain line of thought.

….