I don’t smoke, but I did not expect a cigar anyway.
I believe Chapter I is a fair assessment of current scientific thinking. (If I honestly believe something but am not certain of, I believe use of the phrase “I believe “ is appropriate.) Many scientist are skeptical of many features of the standard model and relativity, including one of your heroes, Richard Feynman. Chapter II is just a summary of my thinking. Details will come. Thanks for giving it your attention. I really appreciate it. John R From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 3:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: TRONNIES John R, I looked briefly at chapter 2 last night and it appears to merely restate your ideas, rather than giving any background reasoning. If so - I haven't finished it yet - that leaves us in the position that you have given a word-based description of a theory which is vastly at odds with existing ideas, and at first sight appears to fall down in a number of areas, with no indication of the thinking that led you to it, the problems it addresses, etc. However, I have read chapter 1, so I do know that in that chapter you use the old rhetorical trick of saying that "establishment thought doesn't explain X, Y and Z". This is a trick because although it's generally true, at some very, very fundamental level, that scientists don't know what (say) and electron is, that doesn't invalidate all the things they DO know about electrons, which is what the bald statement "scientists don't understand the electron" is trying to imply. Any book which gives an overview of existing thought in order to state (without evidence, references etc) that scientists are "unable to explain" lots of things - many of then things they do, in fact, have reasonably well-supported theories for - looks to me as though it's in a similar position to a preacher saying "can evolution explain how an eye comes into being, with all its parts in perfect balance?" * and expecting the audience to think "no, how could it?" - when evolution makes no such claim (and does in fact explain rather well how our imperfect eyeballs evolved over many generations). So far it's coming across more like a religious or political tract than a science book. I would expect a science text to give a fair assessment of existing thought, not to do its best to give the impression that for the last century scientists have been trying to bamboozle everyone with half-baked ideas that no one really believes or understands. Also, you use the term "belief" in quite a few places, which also put me off, because it is another rhetorical trick. Religious people will often contrast their beliefs with scientific beliefs as though they are in the same category, the implication being that everyone should be free to choose one or the other. But in fact the two are completely different (no religious person subjects his beliefs to experiment or independent verification). So .... so far, no cigar. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
