X-Message-Number: 19147 From: "George Smith" <> References: <> Subject: Why physics is stalled when it comes to new breaktrhroughs. Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:03:45 -0700 In Message #19144 Joseph W. Morgan wrote some thoughts regarding my earlier posts. I have found Joseph Morgan to be intelligent, and quite often very patient and kind in regard to private and public communications. I have no doubt he is an accomplished scientist and seems to also be an otherwise fine human being. I think we would get along together in person just fine. At the same time, Joseph, this issue of ad hominem comes from the cult like aspects of "scientism" (as I call it) rather than science. The ideal of science is not intended to ignore important evidence based on who presents it. And I also agree that there is neither the time nor the resources to check the claims of every person out there. The concept of peer review and challenging evidence is a practical one. But when it becomes a means to prevent the spread of knowledge, when the scientific community becomes just another "good ole boy" system to protect the status quo rather than to pursue real science, we end up with a halt to meaningful progress. As I pointed out to Joseph in a private email, we have not had one substantial and meaningful breakthrough in results from physics in about half a century! Theories abound. Breakthroughs in reality have not. This I find both disturbing and meaningful. Everything new seemed to happen before 1960. Refinements have been all that has happened since then. I used to wonder why. Now I think I know why. For example, Joseph felt he was addressing my issues as follows, but consider whether these are replies to the issues or refusals to actually consider the evidence: "If any of you have bothered to check George Smith's references regarding the speed of light, you will have found yourself in the realm of "creation science" (an oxymoron), " This is ad hominem. Refusing to address the issues by pronouncing the source as oxymoronic. "Galilean electrodynamics (another oxymoron), " This is ad hominem. Refusing to address the issues by pronouncing the source as oxymoronic. "and Noetics (parapsychology). None of this pseudo-scientific nonsense will stand up to critical thought or experimental evidence." This is ad hominem. Refusing to address the issues by pronouncing the source as "pseudo-scientific". "Oh course as a real scientist, I am no doubt dogmatic, arguing from authority, pro-establishment, unimaginative, and conspiring to keep some deep, dark secret from the public." In this case the words "real scientist" imply that those who offer alternative evidence which does not fit the accepted "truths" of the current popular "scientific" paradigm are not "real" scientists. Ad hominem. If you are unwilling to look at the evidence, no conspiracy is unnecessary. This is also making me out to be an advocate of some "deep, dark" conspiracy. Again this is attacking the person (in this case me) instead of the issues. "I don't want to waste any more Cryonet time on this off-topic subject." For reality I reference articles by Dr. John Baez, a mathematical physicist at UC Riverside: 1. How is the speed of light measured? See http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/measure_c.html 2. Is the Speed of Light Constant? See http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light .html." Fair is fair. I still recommend the fair and reasoned criticisms of Rupert Sheldrake of Cambridge in the book I referenced already, as well as Swedish plasma physicist (and Nobel prize winner), Hannes Alfv n. A fair summary of the conclusions drawn from Alfven's work (and not ignoring evidence and being willing to challenge entrenched theory) can be found at http://www.electric-cosmos.org/index.htm and perhaps less emotionally at http://www.holoscience.com/eu/eu.htm. There you will find additional treatments of why a growing number of plasma physicists have serious concerns about much of what is accepted generally as "true" due to the reality of contrary evidence. The speed of light as an absolute constant (Plato would love this stuff!) is one of the lesser issues being challenged there as well as the entire issue of the speed of light being a barrier as per relativity theory. Many magical entities (such as black holes) in cosmology seem to vanish when the speed of light ceases to be a limit. Bell's Theorum, proved in 1982, ceases to lead us into chalk board weirdness when the fact that we are in a superluminal universe no longer is "forbidden" by the issue of light speed being a barrier. I do not consider it a waste of our time to examine what is true about "reality" and to note that there are some incredibly serious problems with ignoring aspects of it - particularly when it involves issues very directly related to the success of the cryonics effort. Just one example. If, as has been suggested by Nordenstrom there is a SECOND and "electrical" circulatory system in the human body we may NEED to understand the implications of this to finally restore those suspended to life again. Nordenstrom's work was covered years ago in a cover article in "Discover" magazine but when after some years there was no follow up, I contacted them to attempt to learn what came of this eminent Swedish scientist's research. Since he was curing some forms of cancer and I had a family member dying of cancer, this was of no small importance at the time to me. After not a few phone calls and emails I finally learned that Nordenstrom's work was simply being ignored. It was not being ignored because it wasn't important nor considered fraudulent. He had already established himself years before by inventing the liver punch biopsy among other things. He was a respected director of a hospital medical research facility. It was as I was told privately because he was "hard to get along with". In other words, he was opinionated! Let me be clear. I think cryonics will work eventually. The reasons have to do, however, with the progress of technology and the optimistic asumption that it will continue to do so. I see the refusal to look at evidence as a problem in our current situation, especially in physics where the chalk board seems to have replaced the laboratory with theory building upon theory like a stack of cards while the wind of reality tries to enter the closed room where the card games go on. To get to sit at the table you have to ante up with the right academic degrees but you also have to have the agreement of the other card players to join the game. When the sun produces less than half the neutrinos it should from the thermonuclear fusion reaction which is supposed to be what is happening in and on the sun, shouldn't we question the underlying assumption which requires 100%+ more neutrinos than we have? Instead, such ideas are brushed aside and we "invent" on the chalkboard three new "types" of neutrinos to explain the data. Anything to save the prevailing theory. Just slap on another patch. I do not know which group is correct. But real science does not just "form fit" theories until they match the data while barring the possibility that the basic theory could simply be outmoded. You CAN predict the movements of the planets by assuming a geocentric model of the solar system. It is as cumbersome as all get out but it will work. Placing the sun at the center, however, is much simpler to use. Neither one is necessarily wrong but one is easier and more productive to use than the other. But orthodoxies burned human beings at the stake who did so. Today the stake usually consists of denial of grants, publication of papers and loss of tenure. The results are the same. The heretics are removed. Over the next 200 years we will have the growing opportunity to determine which theories were cumbersome or just plain wrong. Might as well open your minds now. Evidence should not be ignored. Ad hominem is useless except as a social tactic. I thank Joseph in every other way for his otherwise openness and patience in discussing these issues with me in the past both in this forum and privately. However, this is one area he and many of his peers need to reconsider if we are ever to see some new breakthroughs in physics in the real world and not just on the chalk board. 50 years is far too long. Just my amateur and apostate opinion, George Smith CI member and Immortalist Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19147