sounds like heresy!
> sounds like heresy!
As a child, I was drawn to the scientific fields, not only because of aptitude, but because I perceived that the yardstick was objective, unlike liberal art fields. It wasn’t until I reached the Ph.D. program that I came to realize that science is just as political as the social fields of study.
There are scientific “mafias” called “schools”, not universities, mind you, but groups named after a leading practitioner, who inculcate their students and attempts to co-opt their colleagues into their scientific approach.
I’ve actually had papers rejected for publication with the explanation “this isn’t the accepted way to solve this problem.” Well, duh, isn’t that what research is all about? I am not bitter, mind you. I have a nice publication trail, in spite of it.
The whole AGW scandal of last year highlights, to a tee, what I am talking about. The practitioners blackballed opponents in the field, pushed forward like-thinking colleagues, and tried to take control of key institutions.
Now I think AGW is an exceptionally blatant case, though the rest of science is eerily similar, but to a lesser degree. I’ve noted a trend against funding individual researchers, but instead of funding “consortia” (i.e., mafias).
So, the bottom line is that Beckmann was an independent thinker who, indeed, was considered heretical. He even had to start his own journal (Galilean Electrodynamics) in order to get some of his views into print.
Maybe he is right, maybe he is wrong (I’m no expert in his field), but he clearly was a scientifically-thinking man and looked at the world differently than the entrenched establishment.
BTW, here is a link to his book:
http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Plus-Two-Petr-Beckmann/dp/0911762396