Why Einstein was "right" (and why the anti-science crowd is attacking him).

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There have been several threads attacking Einstein from people who don't know enough about Physics to pass a basic high school exam. Rather than continuing on their threads, I figure that I should start a thread explaining why Einstein continues to be so important to Modern scientists.

Physics is based on experiment, measurement and observation. Theories that don't successful predict or match experimental data are tossed out or modified. Two theories that make the exact same predictions are considered equivalent (since it is only the experimental results that matter).

There are plenty of philosophical issues with modern science (but this was true of Galileo) and Darwin. Science isn't about philosophy. Richard Feynman (one of the most revered Physicists in history) quipped Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to bird." Physics cares about the ability to predict and match experimental data.

Einstein explains experimental data Anyone who understands enough math to check it themselves realizes that value of Einstein's theories. They have made predictions that can't be explained by earlier theories. Of course, Physics has advanced since Einstein, but modern ideas of Relativity based on Einstein;s work experimental data better than any other theory.

Is Einstein Truth?. This is a silly question. Of course Physics will continue to advance. It is certainly possible that someone will revolutionize Physics again in a way that does to Einstein's theories what Einstein did to Newton's theories. Maybe it is inevitable.

The brilliant NASA engineers who sent men to the moon had PhDs in science. They all understood Einstein, they all had done experimental work in Einstein and could do the calculations. However they mainly used Newton's laws. The reason is that Newton's laws give the same answer as Einstein's General relativity at speeds that are low compared to the speed of light. In the conditions under which they were working, they new the laws were equivalent.

Einstein's theory of General Relativity is at the core modern Physics. You can not understand modern Physics without it, and there is no way to explain the experimental data at the extremes of velocity without it.

And that is why these attacks on Einstein by people who don't understand basic mathematics are really nonsense.

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@maxdancona,

Why is the the anti-science crowd attacking Einstein?

Einstein is a celebrity... he is the most famous Physicist, and his image is synonymous with "genius" for the past 100 years. His public image was deserved;
He started two revolutions of modern science. But his public fame is separate from the importance of his work. If you ask Physicists to name the most important person in the history of Physics. Einstein would be near the top of the list along with Feynman, Bohr, Newton and Hawking.

The anti-science posters aren't really talking about the work of Einstein. If you look at the text of the pages and pages of bad science, most of the content is a problem with frames of reference. Scientists have understood frames of reference frames since Isaac Newton (hundreds of years before Einstein). High school students learn focus on Isaac Newton... and it is true that you need to understand Newton before you can move on to Einstein.

Yes, I have tried patiently to write responses to help these posters understand Newton's laws. My attempts to do this have failed.

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The attacks on Einstein have come in a few different areas.

1. The role of Mathematics in Physics. Physicists since Isaac Newton have use Mathematics because it works. The goal of Physics is to be able to model and predict how the Universe acts. Mathematics is at the core of Physics (if you step into a basic Physics class or read papers at a Physics convention for PhDs you will be dealing with mathematics.

The is some philosophical musing over why mathematics is so successful at describing how the Universe works. But it doesn't matter... we use it because it works. Again, this has nothing specific to do with Einstein.

2. Einstein was Jewish This is unfortunate, but it is there. We had one anti-science poster declare in a thread here attacking Einstein that "Jews are liars". Some of the other posters are not saying anything explicitly antisemitic, but they are suggesting that the Physics community is part of a conspiracy to control how people think.

3. Physics and social status. Physics is done by highly educated people (in modern times this means PhDs). This is by necessity, Physics is a difficult subject that is built upon hundreds of years of experiment an mathematics.

But it does mean that not everyone has access to Physics. Again this is not specific to Einstein, every major contributor to modern science has had a PhD (with the exception of Marie Curie who an equivalent amount of knowledge, she had the mathematical ability and amount of knowledge of her peers).

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@maxdancona,

I always got a kick out of gungasnake when he first denied GR and i
was explaining to him about relativistic corrections (in nano seconds) that are made on all gps signals

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On one of the "Einstein is wrong" threads, we are having a discussion about the difference between Physics and Philosophy.

In Physics, all we are about is whether a theory can make precise predictions that can be tested by experiment or careful measurement (observation). That being said, two theories that make the exact same predictions are equivalent.

Layman is arguing that there is some philosophical truth that must be considered, meaning a theory can be experimentally correct (i.e. predict the result of every measurement) and still be philosophically wrong.

Physics doesn't care about any philosophical truth, even if some absolute truth exists. If we can't show it by experiment, it doesn't matter to science.

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@maxdancona,

Ive been battling the "Its only a theory" BS for decades (As if facts or Theory are a hierarchy )

My working model for a theory is as follows.

"A theory (in all science) is a coherent mass of general propositions that satisfactorily explain a class of phenomena, in which ALL evidence and facts support the theory and NO evidence and facts refute it."

That goes back to the time just after WWII when ATomic theory was being crtiqued as "Only a theory".

As far as science needing "philosophical validation" implies that research needs a moral compass . Some theories within Surface chemistry , as an example, have led to both amazing pharmaceuticals and terrible weapons.

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@farmerman,

I do believe that science is perfectly incapable of having a moral compass.

Of course scientists can have a sense of morality, but it won't be based on science. I get upset with scientists, Richard Dawkins comes to mind, that claim that science is a route to all truth including moral truth.

All science can do is answer a certain class of questions with experiment and observation.

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@maxdancona,

I think you are giving Dawkins creditfoor something he does NOT preach. He has consistently stated that morality is attainable without absolutes like religion (or) science.

I dislike his preaching because it is just him opening hiyap and opining about things of which we have no knowledge.

He is sort of an asshole but not for the reasons you present. IMHO

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