Science After Sunclipse

To put the “moral” at the beginning, let’s summarize. If you want to raise my blood pressure, one good way to do it is to write a completely wrong, back-to-front absurd tirade against all of twentieth-century physics. Anyone can slip a few errors into an essay, or even a few “fundamental” errors, but if you want the brass ring, you need at the very least to misrepresent the special theory of relativity, the general theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, the use of mathematics in physics and the scientific method. Bonus points if you confuse general relativity with quantum physics; a woop-woop-woop special prize for taking a non-true assertion and calling it a “fundamental premise” of quantum mechanics; and an extra cherry on top if you take three famous observations which support general relativity, lie about two of them and forget the third.

The story so far:

• 14:06: PZ Myers finds a kook with some dumb things to say about Einstein.
• 14:09: I make a snappy remark,
• and then (14:33) I get kind of angry.
• No, wait, 14:49 is when I got really angry.
• 14:54 — have I calmed down?
• 15:56: maybe. . . .
• 16:06: Nope.
• 17:41: Dave Bacon reminds me to have a little fun in life.
• 18:10 An assistant professor by the ‘nym of “gg” writes a nice post on the matter, and promises more to come.

I might write an actual, non-linkfesty post about this. . . but then again, other corners of the Network are calling to me and reminding me of overdue obligations, so I might leave it to my colleagues.

UPDATE (6 December): gg now has Part 2 out on the blogonets.

UPDATE (16:47 o’clock): Tyler DiPietro dons the asbestos and joins the fun, followed quickly by Mark Chu-Carroll.

UPDATE (9 December): Flavin of the St. Louis Skeptical Society offers an essay.