"This paper investigates an alternative possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an ideology rather than as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make the theory ideologically powerful...The gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of professional discourse...The triumph of relativity theory represents the triumph of ideology not only in the profession of physics bur also in the philosophy of science." Peter Hayes, The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock Paradox https://tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02691720902741399

Here is the crucial point:

"Relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make the theory ideologically powerful."

Consider an excerpt from Einstein's 1905 paper:

Albert Einstein, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, 1905: "From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on its arrival at B the two clocks no longer synchronize, but the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B by tv^2/2c^2 (up to magnitudes of fourth and higher order), t being the time occupied in the journey from A to B." http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/

Is there an inconsistency in Einstein's text? At first sight, no. Einstein has advanced two postulates at the beginning of the paper and now he is drawing a "peculiar consequence" from them. Logic, that's all.

The problem is that Einstein is blatantly lying here. No such "peculiar consequence" follows from his 1905 postulates (the principle of relativity and the principle of constancy of the speed of light). Valid deduction from the postulates would have produced the following idiotic per se but correctly deduced "peculiar consequence":

From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on its arrival at B the two clocks no longer synchronize, but the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B, as judged from the stationary system, and the clock which has remained at B lags behind the other moved from A to B, as judged from the moving system.

So if logic is obeyed, there IS an inconsistency (more precisely, idiocy) in special relativity. How does the inconsistency "make the theory ideologically powerful"? The validly deducible "peculiar consequence" is idiotic and sterile, but, without it, Einstein's 1905 "peculiar consequence", which is breathtakingly potent, would not be possible. Eventually "the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B" became TIME TRAVEL INTO THE FUTURE - the miracle that converted Einstein into a deity:

"The paradigm of the special relativistic upheaval of the usual concept of time is the twin paradox. Let us emphasize that this striking example of time dilation proves that time travel (towards the future) is possible. As a gedanken experiment (if we neglect practicalities such as the technology needed for reaching velocities comparable to the velocity of light, the cost of the fuel and the capacity of the traveller to sustain high accelerations), it shows that a sentient being can jump, "within a minute" (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead, and see, and be part of, what (will) happen then on Earth. This is a clear way of realizing that the future "already exists" (as we can experience it "in a minute")." http://www.bourbaphy.fr/damourtemps.pdf

Pentcho Valev https://twitter.com/pentcho_valev

"The Overton window is a political concept that describes how the public's opinion on a subject can be changed. It states that ideas that were previously considered preposterous can become accepted in the long run...In the first stage, cannibalism is in the lowest acceptance level in the Overton window. Society considers it immoral. It's considered disgusting and preposterous. At this point, the window is closed and unmoving. To begin changing public opinion, scientists start studying it. For scientists, there shouldn't be any taboo subjects...After stage 1, the idea has gone from being unthinkable to being discussed. In the second stage, people begin to accept the idea. With scientists' conclusions, society views those who refuse to acquire knowledge about the subject intransigent. People who resist will start to be seen as fanatics who oppose science." https://exploringyourmind.com/overton-window/

"Speed of light relative to the observer and independent of the speed of the observer" was preposterous nonsense initially. Einstein wrestled with his conscience "over a lengthy period of time, to the point of despair" before positing it:

"But this seems to be nonsense. How can it happen that the speed of light relative to an observer cannot be increased or decreased if that observer moves towards or away from a light beam? Einstein states that he wrestled with this problem over a lengthy period of time, to the point of despair." https://history.aip.org/exhibits/einstein/essay-einstein-relativity.htm

Poincaré also suffered, went through much confusion, but in the end succumbed to his conscience and did not accept the nonsense:

"From his [Poincaré's] point of view, the true velocity of light in a moving frame was not a constant but was given by the Galilean law of addition of velocities." https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/430652

Nowadays "speed of light relative to the observer and independent of the speed of the observer" is a universally accepted truth. Anyone who opposes it automatically becomes crackpot, crank, troll etc.

The paradigm of the Einsteinian upheaval of human rationality is the twin paradox idiocy. Any pre-Einstein scientist would find the claims in the following text preposterous, idiotic, etc:

Thibault Damour, Einstein's apostle in France: "The paradigm of the special relativistic upheaval of the usual concept of time is the twin paradox. Let us emphasize that this striking example of time dilation proves that time travel (towards the future) is possible. As a gedanken experiment (if we neglect practicalities such as the technology needed for reaching velocities comparable to the velocity of light, the cost of the fuel and the capacity of the traveller to sustain high accelerations), it shows that a sentient being can jump, "within a minute" (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead, and see, and be part of, what (will) happen then on Earth. This is a clear way of realizing that the future "already exists" (as we can experience it "in a minute")." http://www.bourbaphy.fr/damourtemps.pdf

Nowadays the claim that "a sentient being can jump, within a minute (of his experienced time) arbitrarily far in the future, say sixty million years ahead" is universally acceptable.

Pentcho Valev https://twitter.com/pentcho_valev

"The Michelson-Morley experiment used an ingenious apparatus to resolve this difficulty. Instead of placing two clocks apart, it used a mirror to reflect light back to the emitter. In this way they could measure the speed of light by placing only one clock at the position of the emitter. This apparatus was used to see if the speed v of the apparatus will affect the measured speed of light. The original intent was to measure the absolute speed of our planet in the universe. By aligning the apparatus in the direction of the motion of our planet, the absolute speed of our planet was expected to be measured. The outcome of this experiment was shocking: it was negative. From this result, the theoretical physics community concluded that THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS NOT AFFECTED BY THE SPEED OF THE EMITTER OF LIGHT. Applying this conclusion in the setting of the special theory of relativity, Einstein adopted the constancy of the speed of light, which states that in all inertial reference frames, the speed of light is constant c. This assumption lead to the idea of time dilation and length contraction as discussed above." https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2197/1/012032/pdf

Actually, the theoretical physics community believes in two truths:

Truth 1: The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the speed of light is not affected by the speed of the emitter of light.

Truth 2: The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the speed of light is affected by the speed of the emitter of light.

Truth 1 is universally taught.

Truth 2 is never mentioned. There are only a few exceptions:

"Emission theory, also called emitter theory or ballistic theory of light, was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887...The name most often associated with emission theory is Isaac Newton. In his corpuscular theory Newton visualized light "corpuscles" being thrown off from hot bodies at a nominal speed of c with respect to the emitting object, and obeying the usual laws of Newtonian mechanics, and we then expect light to be moving towards us with a speed that is offset by the speed of the distant emitter (c ± v)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory

John Norton: "The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible with an emission theory of light that contradicts the light postulate." http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf

"Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether." Banesh Hoffmann, Relativity and Its Roots, p.92 https://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768

Pentcho Valev https://twitter.com/pentcho_valev

On Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 4:15:18 PM UTC-7, Pentcho Valev wrote:
> "The Michelson-Morley experiment used an ingenious apparatus to resolve this difficulty. Instead of placing two clocks apart, it used a mirror to reflect light back to the emitter. In this way they could measure the speed of light by placing only one clock at the position of the emitter. This apparatus was used to see if the speed v of the apparatus will affect the measured speed of light. The original intent was to measure the absolute speed of our planet in the universe. By aligning the apparatus in the direction of the motion of our planet, the absolute speed of our planet was expected to be measured. The outcome of this experiment was shocking: it was negative. From this result, the theoretical physics community concluded that THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS NOT AFFECTED BY THE SPEED OF THE EMITTER OF LIGHT. Applying this conclusion in the setting of the special theory of relativity, Einstein adopted the constancy of the speed of light, which states that in all inertial reference frames, the speed of light is constant c. This assumption lead to the idea of time dilation and length contraction as discussed above." https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2197/1/012032/pdf
>
> Actually, the theoretical physics community believes in two truths:
>
> Truth 1: The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the speed of light is not affected by the speed of the emitter of light.
>
> Truth 2: The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the speed of light is affected by the speed of the emitter of light.
>
> Truth 1 is universally taught.
>
> Truth 2 is never mentioned. There are only a few exceptions:
>
> "Emission theory, also called emitter theory or ballistic theory of light, was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887...The name most often associated with emission theory is Isaac Newton. In his corpuscular theory Newton visualized light "corpuscles" being thrown off from hot bodies at a nominal speed of c with respect to the emitting object, and obeying the usual laws of Newtonian mechanics, and we then expect light to be moving towards us with a speed that is offset by the speed of the distant emitter (c ± v)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory
>
> John Norton: "The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible with an emission theory of light that contradicts the light postulate." http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
>
> "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether." Banesh Hoffmann, Relativity and Its Roots, p.92 https://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
>
> Pentcho
"'Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of professional discourse'" It is very much the same on this forum. If the velocity of light is independent of the speed of the source, then it is dependent on the spot in the universe from which it emanated. This requires that it have additive velocity relative to everything else moving around it. Relativity irrationally denies this. It is pure madness/ideology. "'"From his [Poincaré's] point of view, the true velocity of light in a moving frame was not a constant but was given by the Galilean law of addition of velocities.' https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/430652" Valev https://twitter.com/pentcho_valev