Question:
Why does Conservapedia say the theory of relativity is unproven when scientists say it was proven long ago?
anonymous
2012-05-16 20:18:14 UTC
http://conservapedia.com/Relativity
Fourteen answers:
gintable
2012-05-16 20:41:09 UTC
The word "theory" in scientific contexts is substantially different from the common person's usage of the word "theory".



The common person's usage of the word "theory" tends to mean just a guess or a hunch, with perhaps some reason. This is really what the word HYPOTHESIS means in scientific contexts.



The word theory actually means:

A well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.





In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be. Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.
anonymous
2012-05-17 08:14:59 UTC
Science and scientists know that NOTHING is ever proven in Science. All theories are subject to disproof.



What is more, theories are our best guesses at how Nature works, and it behooves us to test how good these guesses are. For example, the Special (as in Limited) Theory of Relativity is known to make very bad predictions in lots of real life situations, but has been tested for more than 100 years:

http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~dkoks/Faq/Relativity/SR/experiments.html



What is sad, is that almost none of your responders know this. So the claim that "scientists say it was proven" is incorrect.
anonymous
2012-05-16 20:43:39 UTC
There are a lot of different aspects to relativity and scientists are still designing experiments to test its implciations. However, there is a great deal of relativity that has been tested enough to be accepted as proven. . . for example time dilation, tested by measuring the difference between a clock in a fast plane and a ground clock.



Why is Conservapedia is against relativity? Good question. Maybe you find which editors wrote the article, and then find their personal views.



My guess is that we are witnessing another episode in the age old conflict between power, religion, and science. Political leaders who have been close to religion have continually, throughout history, been in conflict with science because science presents an alternative source of power in society. The process of science promotes people to question authority, and rewards the replacement of the old with the new. This is a problem for the religious political leaders of any society, who are trying to maintain order and balance amongst competing political interests, to prevent violent rebellions, to keep the 'status quo', which their benefactors expect them to do, and which they see as some kind of moral duty.



I would suggest several sources to learn more about this history. The first and best and easiest to deal with might be the television program "Cosmos", by Carl Sagan et al, from the 1980s, available on Hulu.com for free viewing. He discusses some of these conflicts through history and tries to explain why they happened.



Another source would be to study the ancient Hindu astronomers and mathematicians - they too had problems with the religious authorities. That is why the mainstream of Hindu astronomy did not really accept a rotating Earth for a long time - because it would have contradicted statements in the ancient Vedas. To challenge the Vedas was to challenge the power of priests in Hindu society - a very dangerous thing to do.



Then you can look at the history of Galileo and how the Catholic church tortured him for his work. The conflict was not really about the relationship between the sun and the earth - the Church really did not care. The conflict was about power and the way people should view the world. Galileo, of course, represented science - the questioning of the past and the writing of a new future, and specifically the questioning of the bible and the Church authorities. If you could challenge them on the Sun and the Earth, then what about things like priests abusing their power, taking corrupt bribes from rich people, allowing 'indulgences', stealing land, and on and on and on?



Then you can come to Evolution. Darwin was quite worried about the conflict between Evolution and his dear religion, which was why he almost did not publish his theories. But eventually he did. And then we had the conflicts between the religious political leaders and evolution and science. It is not that they actually care where the Earth came from - what they care about is power and order in society. If the populous can start being educated to question authority, then there is no telling where it will end. It is hard to field a vast military or run a huge corporate work force or an imperial bureaucracy (the UK) if you have a bunch of people educated with the scientific mindset - to always question why things are done and to always try to test existing theories. For these leaders, blind obedience to the church, the state, or the organization, is vastly more important than adopting some kind of scientific world view.



Now there is relativity. Einstein, then, basically, represents the scientific world view... the questioning of authority, and the challenging of power.



Einstein himself was somewhat of a socialist, definitely a vegetarian, and also a pacifist. Einstein was not allowed to work on the Atomic bomb project because he was deemed politically unreliable. Einstein was not trusted with security clearances. Einstein with all his fame was essentially viewed by the state authorities of the United States (and Nazi Germany, where he was from) as an 'enemy' not to be trusted. He was part of the group of scientists in the 20th century, like Andrei Sakharov, Carl Sagan, and many others who began a sort of massive pacifist anti-state movement against nuclear war and against the mis-use of science in general by governments and state authorities. They formed groups like the Federation of American Scientists (fas.org) and they put out the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and created the idea of the 'doomsday clock' to alert the population of the danger of nuclear war. 'Conservatives', whether in the USSR or US, did not trust these people and did not like them. From their perspective, pacifism was a dangerous idea and probably enemy propaganda planted by the other sides intelligence organization (and sometimes this was accurate).
kolbusz
2016-10-18 04:10:33 UTC
great situation with reference to the information superhighway, you could go directly to a source and notice no remember if this is BS or no longer. The term Liberal Conspiracy looks nowhere in the Conservapedia get admission to. even although, it does say, inspite of censorship of dissent approximately relativity, evidence opposite to the thought is stated outdoors of liberal universities. This additionally has foots notes to lower back it up. Now, you could bash Conservapedia for being a conspiracy alarmist or your can do slightly discover ways to relatively see what they are concerning.
meg
2012-05-16 21:26:41 UTC
Science made a wrong turn when they abandoned the ideal that the physical universe consisted of fire, earth, air, and water which were earthly and corruptible. and a fifth aether must existed since the heavenly regions, the stars cannot be made out of any of the four elements but must be made of a different, unchangeable, heavenly substance. This lead to experiments that atheist claim to prove the aether did not exist and from that came the theory of relativity.
fuquan
2012-05-16 20:26:35 UTC
Because that's what theories are. I think they're (conservapedia) idiots because their really is nothing else to go on, but theories are essentially unproven consensus.



I don't like it when theories are a consensus and can't be debated, but I think this is the exception.
DR.R.Luxemburg
2012-05-19 13:20:46 UTC
In order to attract the votes of religious fanatics and to win support by baiting scientists and refusing to support research which might challenge their beliefs



Hope this helps
anonymous
2012-05-16 20:23:52 UTC
Wow, really Liberal. Are you really trying that hard to find or do anything you can to insult us. Now this I got to say is just lazy. I mean if you are going to come here and troll, at least put some effort into it. Like try to take something that sound at least half true then put it out there as an ambiguous question... when you do things like this is just makes you look silly.



You in a way insulted yourself with this kind of shotty question.
?
2012-05-16 20:20:32 UTC
Stupidity?
Harley Drive
2012-05-16 20:23:53 UTC
probably because it is unproven , it will never be proved or disproved because of our physical and mental limitations, today's scientists ( the inheritors of the flat earthers and earth centric universe peddlers) like to think that being unable to disprove something means it is proven which is intellectually dishonest but grants, fellowships and sponsorships are rarely given to people who admit they don't know something
anonymous
2012-05-16 20:21:50 UTC
do liberals ever tire of trying to associate themselves with scientific theory?...its like you guys think you were there taking notes for Einstein...
Edward the Less
2012-05-16 20:19:29 UTC
Wrong section.
Dawkins#1
2012-05-16 20:20:49 UTC
cons aint gots no need for edumacation and high polutin learnin
anonymous
2012-05-16 20:20:43 UTC
If it was proven it wouldn't be a theory anymore now would it.


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