The Theory of Relativity is a Liberal Conspiracy!

So say the geniuses at Conservapedia, including Andy Schlafly -- Phyllis Schlafly's son:

Here's some of the "reasoning":

1) The theory of relativity is heavily promoted by liberals to encourage relativism and it's tendency to corrupt people's worldview.
2) Most people who believe in the theory of relativity don't continue to read the Bible.
3) The Bible outsells the New York Times' bestsellers by a hundred-fold
4) The Bible describes Jesus healing at a distance--a violation of relativity

Link: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/conservapedia_founder_takes_on_the_notorious_liber.php

Popularity = legitimacy is the inane Fox News meme. According to this logic, when most people thought the world was flat, it was.

And there is nothing in the story of healing in the cited text to imply violation of relativity. But even if there were, the thing that makes the supernatural supernatural is that it transcends nature. Otherwise, to accept that Jesus walked on water is to deny gravity--in general! Schlafly's theology is as brilliant as his physics.

How do you satirize these guys?

We have our conspiracies about science too.

I was not aware of it. Who knew?

dontchaknow.

After the TPM article, a Conservapedia sysop who's also a Wikipedia editor went to the Wikipedia article on GPS and removed the statement about the applicability of relativistic effects to GPS -- a statement that was supported by actual scientific literature. He substituted a misleadingly excerpted quotation from a different paper, attempting to give the false impression that there was a scientific basis for Schlafly's right-wing anti-intellectualism.

Fortunately, other Wikipedians, though apparently unaware of the TPM article and hence unaware of the political subtext, jumped in to point out the error, and provided more sources. The for the Wikipedia article is an example of Wikipedians resisting the agenda-driven distortions. (I know a lot of people dump on Wikipedia so I'm glad to show an example where the much-derided "crowd-sourcing" actually works, and works well.)