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Line 504: − − == Political aspects of relativity == − − Some [[liberal]] politicians have extrapolated the theory of relativity to metaphorically justify their own political agendas. For example, [[Democratic]] [[President of the United States of America|President]] [[Barack Obama]] helped publish an article by liberal law professor [[Laurence Tribe]] to apply the relativistic concept of "curvature of space" to promote a broad legal right to [[abortion]].<ref>Tribe, acknowledging help by Obama, argued that the [[Constitution]] should be interpreted to establish a right to federally funded [[abortion]] and that, more generally, ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' does not go far enough. They insisted that a relativistic "curvature of space" could achieve this result by expanding application of the [[Constitution]] based on its impact on personal choice. "The ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' opinion ignored the way in which laws regulating pregnant women may shape the entire pattern of relationships among men, women, and children. It conceptualized abortion not in terms of the intensely public question of the subordination of women to men through the exploitation of pregnancy, but in terms of the purportedly private question of how women might make intimately personal decisions about their bodies and their lives. That vision described a part of the truth, but only what might be called the Newtonian part. ... [A] change in the surrounding legal setting can constitute state action that most threatens the sphere of personal choice. And it is a 'curved space' perspective on how law operates that leads one to focus less on the visible lines of legal force and more on how those lines are bent and directed by the law's geometry." Laurence H. Tribe, The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn from Modern Physics, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 16-17 (1989).</ref> As of June 2008, over 170 law review articles have cited this [[liberal]] application of the theory of relativity to legal arguments.<ref>Search conducted by [[User:Aschlafly]] in the LEXIS database "US Law Reviews and Journals, Combined," conducted June 1, 2008.</ref> Applications of the theory of relativity to change morality have also been common.<ref>"Mistakenly, in the minds of many, the theory of relativity became relativism."[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38081]</ref> Moreover, there is an unmistakable effort to censor or ostracize criticism of relativity.<ref>Although the [[Examples of Bias in Wikipedia|liberally biased Wikipedia]] contains lengthy criticisms of the subjects of many entries, and even though publications like ''The Economist'' recognize the lack of scientific satisfaction in the theory (see, e.g., "Weighing the Universe," The Economist (Jan. 25, 2007)), Wikipedia's entry on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Relativity Theory of Relativity] omits one word of criticism.</ref> − − Physicist [[Robert Dicke]] of Princeton University was a prominent critic<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943324,00.html</ref> of general relativity, and Dicke's alternative "has enjoyed a renaissance in connection with theories of higher dimensional space-time."<ref>"Initially a popular alternative to General Relativity, the Brans-Dicke theory lost favor as it became clear that omega must be very large-an artificial requirement in some views. Nevertheless, the theory has remained a paradigm for the introduction of scalar fields into gravitational theory, and as such has enjoyed a renaissance in connection with theories of higher dimensional space-time."[http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Glossary/Essay_bekenstein.html]</ref> Despite being one of the most accomplished physicists in the 20th century, Dicke was repeatedly passed over for a Nobel Prize, and in at least one case Dicke was insulted by the award being granted to others for contributions more properly credited to Dicke. − − There has been little recognition by the Nobel Prize committee of either theory of relativity, and particularly scant recognition of the Theory of General Relativity. A dubious 1993 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded Hulse and Taylor for supposedly finding the first evidence of gravitational waves in the orbital decay of the binary pulsar PSR1913+16.<ref>Weisberg, Joel M.; Taylor, Joseph H. (2003), "The Relativistic Binary Pulsar B1913+16"", in Bailes, M.; Nice, D. J.; Thorsett, S. E., Proceedings of "Radio Pulsars," Chania, Crete, August, 2002, ASP Conference Series</ref> A close reading of the paper reveals that that is based heavily on assumptions in trying to retrofit the data to the theory.
nothing to do with moral relativism
Relativity continues to be tested and some physics professors remain skeptical of the theory, such as University of Maryland physics professor Carroll Alley, who served as the principle physicist on the Apollo lunar project.<ref>https://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/21jul_llr.htm</ref>
Relativity continues to be tested and some physics professors remain skeptical of the theory, such as University of Maryland physics professor Carroll Alley, who served as the principle physicist on the Apollo lunar project.<ref>https://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/21jul_llr.htm</ref>
===Government Support for Relativistic research===
===Government Support for Relativistic research===