Irresponsible Speculation and Scientism? - Brief Article

Ralph Estling's attack against the Natural Philosophy Alliance (NPA) contains nothing of substance, but only very harsh insults mixed with strained literary references (SI, March/April 2000, p. 57). His belief that no one disagreeing with special relativity (SR) can possibly be right rests on nothing more than what logicians often call "the fallacy of argument from authority."

Countless others, including many censorial editors and meeting organizers, have also dismissed critics of SR with contempt, without any attempt to grapple with the arguments they make. But rarely have any of them indulged in as much irresponsible speculation about such critics, as Estling presents here.

Offering no supporting evidence at all, he calls us "pitiable," and accuses us of lacking perspective, a sense of humor, and even any willingness to learn. To the contrary, during his brief period as a member of the NPA, Estling revealed himself to be unwilling to learn anything new. Once he cited a few experiments he thought confirm SR, and after I replied that all of them--as well as every other claim of experimental or technological confirmation of SR--have been reinterpreted by NPA scholars in terms of more logical and rational theories, I never heard from him again.

By the way, there are several new electrodynamic experiments, some carried out by NPA members, whose results do not fit with SR by any interpretation of the data.

In working towards the reestablishment of realism and objectivity in physics, we understand well that valid science cannot result from logical contradictions, such as abound in the literature on SR. Physicists in general ignore logic, because their scientistic bias convinces them that nothing from philosophy can matter in judging what experimental data means. But logic is necessary and crucial in all types of thinking, including scientific--so much so that no data can have any meaning until it is logically interpreted, and no experiment can possibly confirm an illogical theory.

If you at SI should wish to expand your general focus on opposing any sort of nonsensical substitutes for real science, I invite you to turn your critical attention toward modern physics. I strongly suspect it has provided inspiration for many kinds of pseudoscience, whose proponents probably tend to think, "Well, what I recommend is no more irrational than relativity and quantum physics, and they're accepted."

Serious suspicions have now and then been expressed even from within the physics establishment, such as in Joseph Schwartz's book The Creative Moment (1992), where he suggests--as others have also--that no significant progress in theoretical physics has been made since 1931. (And what happened then, the hypothesizing of the neutrino, has come under frequent suspicion in recent years.)

Schwartz offers some very heavy criticism of quantum physics. Oddly enough, in his very next column, so does Estling, in effect approving of what many NPA members believe (SI, July/Aug., 2000, pp. 59-60)! Not exactly logically consistent, is he?

In this latest column, Estling's primary object of attack is religion. Practicing a very dangerous version of scientism, he attacks his own caricature of religious belief, implying that no such belief is tenable, because it is not scientifically proven. Estling fails to grasp that religion deals with vital matters well outside the scope of science, such as the difference between moral right and wrong.

Religious principles might suggest, e.g., that it is unethical to attack scholars whose ideas the attacker has made no serious effort to understand.

John E. Chappell, Jr.

Director, Natural Philosophy Alliance

San Luis Obispo, California

Irresponsible Speculation and Scientism? A Reply

It is entirely possible that Mr. Chappell and his associates are right and that most of nineteenth and twentieth century physics--thermodynamics, Special Relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, the Standard model of particle physics, and the various cosmological hypotheses about the origin, nature, and evolution of the universe--are wrong. So if Mr. Chappell wishes, he may write a paper (perhaps he already has, in which case he has saved himself much time), pointing out why modern, i.e. post-Newtonian, physicists have picked up the wrong end of the stick over and over again. I suggest he deal with one aspect of modern physics at a time, beginning perhaps with Special Relativity, which appears to interest him the most, and when he's ready, let me know (my address is available at SKEPTICAL INQUIRER if Mr. Chappell no longer has the letters I sent to him). I'll then contact a professional physicist I know and, if he has no objection and has the time, he will contact Mr. Chappell and Mr. Chappell can t hen send him the paper he's written for the physicist to comment on.

If Mr. Chappell says, Ah, but I've done this sort of thing before and the physicists only tell me I'm wrong, or don't write back at all, I can only assure him as best I can that my physicist is a very nice physicist and will reply, offering full explanation for his comments.