GROWN-UPS AT WORK – AT 8:36 A.M. ET:  Bill Clinton, who's been making a fool of himself on several fronts recently, has expressed the prayer that someday it will be politically impossible in America for anyone to doubt the climate-change religion. 

How brilliant.  How intellectual.  Maybe Bill should give back his Rhodes scholarship.  At a time when more and more first-class scientists are raising doubts about the holy texts taught in the Church of the Global Warming, Clinton wants to shut down discussion.  I'd love to know where his investments are.

Now comes along an utterly fascinating development – a serious scientific challenge to Einstein's general theory of relativity.  And what do we see at work?  Real science.  Not political science.  Not trendy science.  But a true scientific discussion, not led by Al Gore.

The Harvard Crimson has run a fine piece that shows us how scientific claims are handled by the adults:

The results of a recent physics experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research may pose the most direct challenge to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity since its inception, holding the fate of modern physics in the balance.

Last Thursday, the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment revealed the discovery of neutrinos, neutral subatomic particles, measured at speeds faster than the speed of light...

...The discovery conflicts with the premises of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which suggests that no object can move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

And...

Irwin I. Shapiro, a Harvard physics professor, points out the careful scrutiny needed when reviewing these results.

“I would have to know a lot more about how the team measured the distance between its two sites, especially the geodetic connections between the surface and the underground sites, before I would even begin to take this claim seriously,” he said.

Indeed, the results have been met with great skepticism in the scientific community, with many physicists pointing out the myriad potential sources of error.

WHAT?  You mean we can question scientists?  You mean we don't have to accept everything they say?  Yeah, we can do that.

Harvard Professor of Physics Emeritus Gerald Holton also suggests that the reason for the small difference might lie with the original accepted value of the speed of light.

“The new experiments compare themselves with the old, internationally accepted value of the speed of light ‘c,’” Holton said. “But it is little known outside the profession that the international agreement of the speed of light was not the result of a specific experiment [but] rather a decision of an international body.”

Yikes!  An international body?  Did you know that?  I didn't.  Does it sound familiar to you, as in "the international consensus on climate change."  We've learned that much of the "settled" science on climate change is actually coming from "international bodies."  Hmm.  Why do I think we're getting somewhere?

In any case, the physics community seems to have reached a consensus that much further testing and experimentation lies ahead before Einstein’s theories will be debunked.

COMMENT:  Yup.  Look at the contrast between this cautious approach, with demands for real confirmation, and the farcical nature of the global warming discussion, with Al Gore suggesting that skeptics are the equivalent of racists, and others comparing skepticism to Holocaust denial.

Maybe even the trendy media will learn something from the Einstein discussion, but I'm not holding my breath.

September 30, 2011