Logical Principles and Kuhnian Analysis Applied to the Crisis in Modern Physics
John E. Chappell
Keywords: Logic, Thomas Kuhn
Why do academic physicists fail to discover the flaws in special relativity (SR)? In distinct contrast to. e.g. the earth sciences, physics protects its most revered dogmas by excluding their critics from its ranks. Also, in choosing its paradigms. physics tends to be motivated by non-scientific criteria, as Tom Kuhn showed to be common in science. Constructivism, derived largely from his thought, would interpret the concepts of modem physics not as reflections of reality. so much as cultural constructs, stemming from a paradigm involving disdain for logic and common sense. and favoritism for the illogical and the bizarre. Yet it is not so easy to dispense with logic: if a theory is illogical - say if it violates the law of non-contradiction - it can never be confirmed by experiment. What are now considered confirmations of SR can. like most other empirical data. be interpreted in more than one way: as well as involving illogic, there are also logical ways, most of them consistent with a Newtonian approach.
