Idiot land:

TPM has a story about how Conservapedia has an entry for Counterexamples to Relativity [Einstein's Theory].

The second sentence reads:

It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1]

What is footnote 1?

See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold.

About that

See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century

I've read that book, and read it many times. It's well written and lots of fun if you keep in mind some of Johnson's biases. But that aside, what Johnston writes about Einstein is nothing but praise. Praise for Einstein not being satisfied that his theory is correct until serious testing of it was performed (in this case, the light shift from stars seen near the sun during an eclipse). Praise for Einstein doing his damnedest not to mislead.

At no point does Johnson have anything negative to say about Einstein, or his (General) Theory of Relativity. Johnston praises Einstein for, basically, following Popper's notion of falsifiability (which Johnson says Freudian theory doesn't use as an arbiter, and hence, is squishy or worse). Johnson did use Einstein's theory as a dramatic spring-board, by saying that shortly after the start of the 20th century the world was changing a lot and basic certainties were being challenged, most notably following the disaster of World War One.

Johnson did not link Einstein's theory to social or political developments, nor did liberals in Johnson's book use Einstein's theory in any way to further their own "moral relativism" - whatever that's supposed to mean.

Conservapedia could just as well have cited the Doppler effect as something liberals love because, hey, the pitch of sound is not absolute. So there are no absolutes and the next thing you know all crime is situational and nobody is guilty. Or something like that.

As to the other part of the footnote:

Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold.

There's really nothing to say.

Andy Schlafly, the dominant editor for that page, is a complete fool.

BTW, the rest of the Conservapedia page is junk, but this citing of Johnson in the TPM story demands a post on this blog.


posted by Quiddity at 8/09/2010 11:10:00 PM