Hi, Bruce...Here's the response
The gist of the article IS about cranks.
Does this have something to say about Dr. Stafford's work ? Yes...and No.
Paul said Dick's rhetoric may have prejudiced a few academics. Well, I hope you'd agree he can just cross out the damned rhetoric anyway, since those are not the paper's main points, right?
Crossing out rhetoric is not all that hard.
He can put the rhetoric in a special rhetoric chapter. I would read it there.
By the way, in that anti-crank paper, this seemed feeble:
"Information is transmitted down to the receivers from each satellite, which enables receivers to make a relativistic correction which accounts for these effects."
I think what that meant is they could simply record the time received on the ground. It seemed an incomplete comment on the topic it had broached.
If Dr. Dick were just down on "Al" for being a flawed human being or Jew or whatever, I would agree that is a waste of my time.
But I do look for more valid grooming of all the assumptions that make current conventional thinking such a tenuous basis for living, including basic ideas in Evolution and Relativity. There won't be that many new things to me, but maybe now and then, one. And HOW things are being explained can use a lot of our critical scrutiny.
Can you..would you...recommend any articles which show how Relativity and Evolution are WELL explained as guides to conduct of society? Because I think they have a lot to say, and because a few great scientists have tried to explain their importance, it is of great interest.
The Absolutist Norm is fairly far off the mark on some things...ie. they often endorse the 10 Commandments:
"Don't steal or kill" ...but then act as if it's okay to fight wars to keep oil prices lower, or cheat in the political process because the other side is just...you know...the other side!
3) Relativity and Mechanisms of Evolution:
Two Monumentally Important, Useful, Value-Neutral
and Permanent Concepts. Their deniers use them ALL THE TIME! However, they both are misunderstood fairly often and there is more work to do on properly applying them OUTSIDE the most
"instrument and credential-laden" atmospheres.
Okay...!
Mike
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