It appears that there will be no valid rebuttal of the logical
refutation that I offered a few days ago.

So far as I can tell, every response to what I called "the logical
refutation" of SR on the thread of that title committed the same
error, which was described in advance in the initial post in the
paragraph at the end introduced by the word "COMMENT." Given that the
refutation is of the form "If P, Q; not Q; therefore not P," with Q
standing for the bipartite proposition extracted from the Wikipedia
article regarding two crashes, one in Australia, the other in America,
which one party considers simultaneous, and the other not, so far
every rebuttal has attacked the second premise, "not Q," by attempting
to attach distinguishing prepositional phrases to the two parts of Q,
the contradictory statements about the simultaneity of the car
crashes, hoping thereby saving the two statements from contradiction.

Note, however, that *Q (or other examples like it) is what is given*
by Einstein and his defenders as the paradox entailed by relativity,
and *in that form,* not Q' (that is, Q modified). Q is what is given
by the Wikipedia article on SR. When we change Q by interjecting
prepositional phrases to distinguish its otherwise contradictory
parts, the two incompatible statements about the simultaneity of the
car crashes, we do indeed save them from contradiction, but then we
are not defending SR, the theory which entails Q; to the contrary, we
are showing its falsehood, since Q cannot be saved without
emendation.

What is required, then, for a defense of SR is a rebuttal showing that
Q, the proposition that the two car crashes are on the one hand
simultaneous and on the other hand not simultaneous, is not
contradictory *as is.* Any statement may be saved from contradiction
if we are permitted to alter it, but then what is saved is not the
statement in question, but the altered statement.

If Einstein's defenders can save only Q', and not Q, it would seem the
entire edifice of modern physics is built on sand. On the other hand,
a universe of possibilities open up, inviting us to the extraordinary
task of fathoming gravity and the peculiar behavior of light without
the crutch of logical absurdity -- a crutch never knowingly employed
by our predecessors, and which we, too, must learn to do without.

G Harnett