Re: [Marxism] Cockburn deals with the Larouche problem

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ugh...

deals?? by telling stupid Einstein stories??? pathetic. absolutely
pathetic.

i know we have a few here who think that quoting the "Ballad of
Einstein" resolves all scientific disputes in favor of the "out crowd". 
i think we should demolish this Ballad.

I notice too the AC crowd is now breathing fire over the notion of
peer-review, as if the process by which a paper is reviewed for
publication in a journal is the only social aspect of science. but there
is much more to the society of science than peer-review. there is also:

1. Informal meetings between scientists discussing papers, on walks, at
dinner, over campfires, before and after classes. There are several in
depth histories of the acceptance of new theories by a larger scientific
community on the basis of these informal meetings. the spread of the new
quantum theory, first by Bohr, and then by Heisenberg, shows this
clearly. See Abraham Pais' biographies of Einstein (who he knew
personally), of Bohr, and also his scientific history "Inward Bound: Of
matter and forces in the physical world".
2. Public talks, for example at Society XXX meetings, where work is
presented, often prior to journal publication, and where live critique
can be much more potent that a few anonymous reviewers.
3. Science departments' weekly meetings along with discussions before
and afterwards.
4. comments on papers both before and after they have been published.
papers are often (but not always) shown around before they go out for
review.
5. and last but not least: the influence of the totality of what one has
read and studied and heard and discussed of ones own and others' work.

i know of several people offhand on the outside edges of the science
establishment (for example, Julian Barbour) who nevertheless interact
within this "society", and their views are heard and dealt with in
mainstream writings. For his time, Einstein was more a part of the
science establishment than denialists [my spell checker wants
"denialists" be imperialists or colonialists ;-) ] want to admit. His
work on the special theory of relativity was incredibly novel on the one
hand, and yet deeply embedded within the framework of classical
electromagnetism on the other. i saw a great quote from Einstein the
other day, lets see, where is it?????, well, cant find it quickly, will
find later, but it went something like this: {my work on the special
theory of relativity, far from being revolutionary, was merely putting
the finishing touches on classical physics.}

Les


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