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1) Please Provide A Link To That Crackpot List

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Posted by Mike Pearson on November 5, 2002 19:22:54 UTC

If there is one.
2) Maybe this topic would be better on another forum at on this website.

Bruce writes:
"I've read several lenghthy discussions Van Flandern has had with the likes of Steve Carlip, Tom Roberts, and John Baez"

This does not explain your claim to have authority to call folks crackpots.
*IF* you don't let folks argue for (what one thinks are) wrong ideas in good faith (and you have not really shown bad faith)
*THEN* tyou get only memorization of the conventional view.

Should persons only converse with those who already agree with themselves?
Arguing is how some folks learn...and if their arguments show dishonesty, that is a different complaint than if their arguments show they are gaining understanding during the discourse.
You even said he moved toward agreement
with Baez et al. on one question.
If you won't take time to patiently explain this, I see no reason to be any courteous with you than you are.
Since we know nothing of your own background, why should we let you "take down" and tackle
numerous persons who are not present?

Bruce writes:
"His assertion that clocks don't measure time and his assertion that 'clocks don't measure time' has some bearing on general relativity is further proof that he doesn't understand."

So what if he doesn't understand relativity in a way which you approve? What are discussions for? Have you lost a grant money contest with him or what? Why the bitterness? And whether "clocks measure time" is surely a meditation worth thinking about far into the future. It's partly a matter of internal definitions. Of course they do measure time if the definitions we select fit together as such. Of course clocks don't measure time if you are defining the theoretical paradigm so that they don't.
We have no need of a priestly dogma insisting clocks measure time and castigating anyone who questions that. Let them question it.

Cordially,
Mike

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