Logic: Prof. Simanek and John Keely

Is Logic Dead or have the physics community finally lost the plot?
Donald Simanek retired Emeritus Professor of Physics at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania says: “Science does not use logic”, it’s now official. Some will find this surprising but it can be found on his page ‘Uses and Misuses of Logic’ see the link: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/logic.htm
I’m sure Donald is a nice guy, he’s just illiterate when it comes to the use of logic. You see, logic is derived from ‘common sense’ and he is saying that science doesn’t use common sense. Most people think science is all about logic, but professor Simanek blows the gaff by naively telling the truth without a thought for the ramifications. There is a very good reason for this seemingly out-of-scientific-character omission; it’s almost certainly as a result of the theories of Albert Einstein, because no one (and this includes physicists) understands them. And so the physicists, in their somewhat less than infinite wisdom decided that Einstein’s theories are not understood because they are “conterintuitive” (illogical). It’s a modern version of the Emperors New Clothes. (Covered in depth in other blogs on this site)

Revision: merriam-webster.com tells us: Logic (is) a proper or reasonable way of thinking about or understanding something http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic

Thefreedictionary.com says: Counterintuitive 1. (of an idea, proposal, etc) seemingly contrary to common sense  (illogical).
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/counterintuitive

Wiki and science in general have serious problems when giving clear examples of the counterintuitive in order to justify Einstein and themselves. Wiki uses the tired old flat earth example, dispelled in a minute by simply looking out to sea watching a ship disappear over the horizon. Wiki then uses “the belief that the Earth goes around the Sun, rather than vice versa, was considered to be contrary to common sense”. Well no, the idea that the earth was the centre of the universe was imposed by religious dogma for hundreds of years, much like the theories of Newton and Einstein are imposed by science and education today.

Professor Simanek says “Science proceeds from facts to laws to theories by a difficult-to-define process called induction. Induction includes pattern-recognition, brainstorming, tinkering, creative guessing and that elusive “insight”. It is not a process of deductive logic… Scientists do not arrive at models and theories by application of logic. They arrive at them by many processes lumped under the name ‘induction’.”
The professor’s implication seems to be that logic is most useful when used in computer mathematics.
He fails to mention Wiki and ‘Scientific Consensus’ is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus
In other words the science is agreed by a committee.
Wiki: “‘Design by committee’is a disparaging term for a project that has many designers involved but no unifying plan or vision.”

It’s intriguing to think of induction as being undefined, but I would go further in saying it is indefinable and that science has no formal thinking system, which makes science itself counterintuitive, or should that be illogical? But, you see, this puts science in the fortunate position of carte blanche enabling it to do and say anything about anything it chooses – heads I win, tails you lose. And whilst having no imposed constraints of its own, none of the usual checks and balances, scientists claims the right to declare that the ideas of non academics are wrong and attempt to give the overbearing impression that science is always right without actually admitting as much. Science is powered by appeal to authority hubris, and becoming a scientist involves passing exam’s designed for average intelligence just like all other exam’s, scientists are no better at thinking than anyone else.

Logic/common sense is innate – we are all born with it in varying degrees and we are able to develop and improve it. Logic enables us to decide for ourselves if what we are being told is true or false, if what we are told is a circular argument or a straw-man. This is exactly what I am doing here, but authoritarians like scientists and educators dislike this ability as it allows us to ask awkward questions about what they tell us is true. Education would therefore prefer that we abandon logic in favour of learning by rote (education including science education is about remembering and not questioning what we have been taught).
Therefore: those who acquire the most learning use the least logic. A scientific education requires you to totally abandon your birthright, logic.

Critical thinking is logic in action
Wiki: The ability to reason logically is a fundamental skill of rational agents, hence the study of the form of correct argumentation is relevant to the study of critical thinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

What to think and not how to think
academia.edu: Thinking critically, clearly, and effectively is not an easy process. Critical thinking is not a natural way to reason about the world. (Oh yes it is!) These skills, like any other, require considerable thought, effort and practice. It is both surprising and unfortunate that few academic Universities actually provide students with explicit courses directed at developing critical thinking skills and the tools of logic and  reason. Contemporary university courses tend to concentrate on teaching students “ what” to think and not “how” to think. Despite their intelligence, many students and researchers often fail dramatically at knowing how to construct a well reasoned and logical argument. http://www.academia.edu/316239/Critical_Thinking_Logic_and_Reason_A_Practical_Guide_for_Students_and_Academics

Scientists tend to answer questions by quoting the words of earlier famous scientists just like the religious fundamentalists quote the bible rather than give a straight answer.

Professor Simanek is an extreme sceptic (Skeptic US), ‘The Museum of Unworkable Devices’ is his piece de resistance, but he and other scientists who use such trivia in support of academic science seem to use perpetual motion for all manner of devices that are usually called ‘free energy’ or ‘alternate energy’ sources as we will see. I would suggest that perpetual motion is getting something from nothing which is obviously impossible – effect without cause. The Museum Unworkable is an eclectic collection of devices that are obviously not going to work, presented as if everyone but a scientists is trying to build one. But the most interesting part of his collection, unreferenced on the main page, is the page on John Worrell Keely.

In the professors own words, italics in parenthesis are mine:
“John Worrell Keely (1837-1898) of Philadelphia was a carpenter and mechanic (he was a highly skilled engineer as will be seen) who announced in 1872 that he had discovered a new principle for power production. The vibrations of a simple tuning fork had given him the idea, and the means to tap etheric energy…. Keely explained that he was tapping a “latent force” of nature—the vibratory energy of the ether. [We can blame that idea on the physicists.] he says…
(The truth of the matter is that someone, be he/she a scientist or a layman/laywoman (I’m thinking of Deborah Chung as I write but there are others) discovers this same energy source about every two or three decades and they are always suppressed by the science community. http://www.cheniere.org/misc/chung.htm)

Back to the professors own words:
Mrs. Moore (Keely’s benefactor) was concerned by Alexander Scott’s negative report, and by dismissive and unkind articles in newspapers and magazines (Scientific American). So she sought a second opinion from physicist Prof. W. Lascelles-Scott, from England. He spent a month in Philadelphia carrying out his investigation, finally reporting to the Franklin Institute that “Keely has demonstrated to me, in a way which is absolutely unquestionable, the existence of a force hitherto unknown.” https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/keely/keely.htm

A debunking drawing from a contemporary magazine of the day that actually shows a “fraudulent” Keely motor driving the supposed fraud above. How ironical is that?

After Keely died the sceptics literally ripped apart his workshop finding only a large pressure vessel buried beneath the floor a short length of some kind of pipe in a wall, covered drive belts and an unusual machine in the cellar. They had always claimed that the Keely motors were a fraud and worked by compressed air. The pressure vessel was the only real evidence of fraud, the problem being that the world and his wife knew that Keely had buried it because he no longer needed it and it was too big to go through the door. This was all duly reported in the press of the day and is preserved for all to read. What the sceptics would have found had they done some real research, and this includes skeptics of today, is that a pressure vessel requires an air compressor, a very noisy, impossible to ignore, machine that no one in the history of Keely debunking has ever mentioned and no one at the time had ever seen (or heard). The second so called evidence was of drive belts hidden behind walls. But this was common practice at the time as belt drives were highly dangerous in a workshop often used to give demonstrations. It was a machine shop, and machines of the day required belt drives – this is not evidence of fraud.

The answer to Keely’s motor is obvious, again, to anyone who does a little research without the preconceived ideas and unbounded pseudo certainties of your average sceptic. But then sceptics don’t do research because they know it all. At least one newspaper of the time reports “A water motor of unusual design in the cellar” used to drive the hidden belts of “Keely’s fraud”. A water motor in the context of Keely contemporary newspapers was a small turbine driven from a water supply – usually a domestic supply, not capable of driving a machine from belts. But what I have discovered is the very same motor or one very much like it, obtained by Dale Pond and demonstrated on the Youtube video entitled ‘Pond Explains Keely’s Water Implosion Device’.

The Keely motor that can be seen on YouTube. Keely built literally dozens of these expensive machines. Why spend so much money on a scam, it makes no sense?

Dale Pond claims he found Keely’s motor at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, something that can be verified. Having studied it he claims it works by water cavitation, something well known to physicists and having nothing to do with perpetual motion.

What we have here (if we give any credence to Professor Simanek and other sceptics), is the “fraudulent motors” of Keely being surreptitiously driven by a “fraudulent Keely Motor”.

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It needs to be emphasised at this point just how easy it is to debunk the debunking sceptics. The reason is quite simple: they only trust information given to them by other sceptics and this, more often than not, is unreliable because it needs to fully support the sceptical paradigm. But the pardigm is flexible, depending on which sceptic happens to be using it at the time – it’s personal. It’s difficult to support the unsupportable and so these people are incapable of giving a true and unbiased opinion on any subject. The logical, or critical thinking ability or even a knowledge of how strange and wonderful is the world we live in, has become totally alien and replaced with the materialistic mundane. (See my page ‘Phsychology in Denial’)

A typical water motor of Keely’s day, driven by a domestic water supply, 1/4 hp and incapable of driving Keely’s belts and machinery. This would not be referred to by a reporter as being of unusual design.

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svpvril.com says of Dale Pond: He is a renaissance man with a diversified yet general background in chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, machinist, metal working and tool making, computers, mathematics, acoustics, hydrodynamics, geometry, music, and common law (and some other stuff too!).
His experience includes technical writing, farming, lecturing, corporate training, business, metal and wood working, manufacturing, publishing and authoring scientific and philosophical journals and books. Maker of Musical Dynaspheres. Atlin, Symael, Altea, Alcea and Alya. (According to Keely’s methods) http://www.svpvril.com/dalebio.html

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Cavitation and the Ram Pump
Cavitation merriam-webster.com:  a :  the formation of partial vacuums in a liquid by a swiftly moving solid body (as a propeller) or by high-intensity sound waves; also :  the pitting and wearing away of solid surfaces (as of metal or concrete) as a result of the collapse of these vacuums in surrounding liquid  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cavitation

Cavitation: waiting for science since 1796

Ram Pump

The Ram Pump, a real and working perpetual motion device that all but the skeptics can see.

I find it interesting if not sad that science rejects a potential power source. Particularly when one considers that all existing power sources are more than a hundred years old. We are fobbed off with a hand wave and told that physics understands all about energy and that any energy source not acknowledged by science is a perpetual motion device. Also interesting is that in this “age of scientific progress” we have resorted to what must be our oldest energy source, the windmill, at a time when we have more scientists than ever before in the history of the world – some contradiction here surely?. At the behest of scientists, governments are quite content to pour billions into hot fusion and collider projects that either don’t work or do nothing of use to anyone but physicists, while already working cold fusion projects go unfunded. It’s just like a conspiracy and I would be interested to read what the sceptics have to say about the issue. But so far as I know, sadly they have said nothing. Sceptics are not sceptical about science as they are somehow able ignore the collapse of the scientific fiasco and are able to see a bright future scientific utopia. I can’t dismiss the feeling that there is some illogical madness in here somewhere.

Also at the same website we have a copy of a further attempt to discredit Keely by a 1924 sceptic: Foibles and Fallacies of Science, An account of Celebrated Scientific Vagaries by Daniel W. Herring, C.E., PhD., LL.D. published by D. Van Nostrand in 1924. An exerpt appears on the same website @ https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/keely/keely-h.htm

http://pondscienceinstitute.on-rev.com/svpwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Hydro+Vacuo+Engine+Patent

http://www.svpvril.com/Keely_Motor.html

More as it becomes available