No it was not flawed for points you explicitly ignored. Slavery and chauvinistic politics was not against public opinion at the time. During the early 1800's, slavery and women being oppressed were ethically fine. What makes the Constitution so strong is its malleability (and simultaneously its rigid structure) to reform itself according to new discoveries in rights and freedoms. Not according to monarchy but according to the will of the people. It was the first of its kind, outlining such clear importance to freedom of speech, defense and life. Even today you will not find such freedoms in any other country.
Republican defends unammended US constitution, slavery too?
- Thread starter Tonington
- Start date
No it was not flawed for points you explicitly ignored. Slavery and chauvinistic politics was not against public opinion at the time. During the early 1800's, slavery and women being oppressed were ethically fine. What makes the Constitution so strong is its malleability (and simultaneously its rigid structure) to reform itself according to new discoveries in rights and freedoms. Not according to monarchy but according to the will of the people. It was the first of its kind, outlining such clear importance to freedom of speech, defense and life. Even today you will not find such freedoms in any other country.
That is pretty much what I said in one of my previous posts, A4N. I said that the US constitution and the Bill of Rights was the best that could be done in those days. The people who formulated them were visionary; it granted more freedoms than anything until that time.
So no doubt US Constitution and Bill of Rights are great documents. The reason they are flawed is not that the people who formulated them had narrow visions, but because of the fact that they were written so long ago. Attitudes have changed considerably since then. What appeared to be visionary document in those days appears hopelessly outdated today, and needed significant alterations and amendments.
Let me give you an analogous example. Newton is considered a scientific genius and his theory of gravitation is respected and admired universally. Does that mean that the theory is right? It doesn’t. Newton’s’ Theory of gravitation was simply the best that could be done in those days. Now we know better, and his theory is superseded by Einstein’s Theory. But that does not take anything away from Newton’s scientific genius and his achievements.
It is the same here. While the framers of constitution deserve our respect and our praise, the document they came up with is deeply flawed by today’s standards.
It was the intention of these visionaries to have the Constitution amended. The constitution was never meant to be a stagnant document, it was supposed to take the form of the will of the people. So, if you want to put it accurately, it was the will of the people whose ethics were flawed.
SirJosephPorter said:
SirJoseph, I appreciate the analogy but you clearly don't know what you're talking about. No theory of Einstein "superseded" the theory of gravity. Einstein dealt with relativity and quantum mechanics, which are completely alien to Newtonian physics. Also, the "theory of gravity" is not a theory but a law. Perhaps you should find another analogy, since discussing blatant falsities is damaging to this discussion.
Amendments can have a time limit or not - depends upon both houses coming to an agreement - Oter amendments were well past the 7 years limit which is not mandatory.
Newton’s Laws of Motion break down near the speed of light, they don’t work. Newton’s Theory is a special case of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. In Einstein’s formulas, put the speed of the moving object much smaller than, negligible, compared to the speed of light and you get Newton’s formulas.
And theory of gravity is a law? Where did you hear that? In the scientific realm, a theory always remains a theory; it never becomes a ‘law’, in the sense that law is true. A theory can never be proved to be true, but it can be proved to be false.
So you perhaps may have heard the term ‘Newton’s Laws of Motion’, or three laws of thermodynamics etc. But they are still very much theories, while probably true and universally accepted, still not 100 % proven.
Possibly. It is just that I was in USA during the Equal Rights Amendment, and that died out after a certain time period (I think it was seven years).
As such, no physicist will claim Einstein's theory of relativity has superseded Newton's equations. They will explain to you that at high speeds, you are no longer in the Newtonian world. It does not mean Newton was wrong, it just means his equations no longer apply. But it never really registered to me, you actually are a disbeliever of gravity! :lol:
SirJosephPorter said:
Newton's law of universal gravitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SirJosephPorter said:
SirJoseph you continue to show how little you know about science. Laws are observations. Theories describe the causality of these observations. As such laws are much more powerful than theories since they are a fact of reality. Theories explain why our observations come into effect, but they are limited within their own scope.
Newton’s laws are not observation; they are arrived at using his theory of gravitation. As such, they can never be proved, only disproved.
And when Newton proposed his theory, he did not say anything about it being applicable only at relatively low speeds. When his theory of gravitation was accepted, it was generally considered that it would be applicable at all speeds. In those days, the relativistic universe was unknown.
Later it turned out that Newton’s laws are a special case of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Newton’s universe is three dimensional, not four dimensional. Here is what I am talking about (taken from the website given by you).
Problems with Newton's theory
Newton's description of gravity is sufficiently accurate for many practical purposes and is therefore widely used. Deviations from it are small when the dimensionless quantities φ/c2 and (v/c)2 are both much less than one, where φ is the gravitational potential, v is the velocity of the objects being studied, and c is the speed of light.[30] For example, Newtonian gravity provides an accurate description of the Earth/Sun system, since
In situations where either dimensionless parameter is large, then general relativity must be used to describe the system. General relativity reduces to Newtonian gravity in the limit of small potential and low velocities, so Newton's law of gravitation is often said to be the low-gravity limit of general relativity.
Newton's theory is very much a special case of Einstein's Theory.
Observations are not theories. Newton's law of gravity as such explicitly states that an object exerts a gravitational force on another object. Newton observed gravity and stated his theory revolved around it. It came to be that his theory was stronger than a theory but an observation. You cannot disprove observations.
Newton said:
SirJoseph, the speed of light at the time was not even a recognized concept. Newton's laws applied to the context from which he experimented. His experiments belonged to the Newtonian world, so they are accurate according to the Newtonian world. Ask any physicists, they will absolutely disagree with your assertions that Newton was wrong.
It is the other way around SirJoseph, Einsteins Theory is a very special case of Newton's law of gravity. Also, what exactly do you mean when you say Newton's Laws of Motion did not include the 4th dimension? Motion BY DEFINITION includes units from the 4th dimension. Newton's universe applies to any object with velocities significantly low (ie, anything below 99% of the speed of light).SirJosephPorter said:
Quite so, he built a theory around it. He built a theory; he did not build an observation. His theory is just like any other theory; it can be disproved (but never proved). And it was disproved (and very high speeds), it turned out to be a special case of Einstein’s theory.
You are right; speed of light was not a recognized concept. That is why Newton’s laws were considered to be applicable at all the speeds, from zero up to very high speeds, without limit. Later it turned out that he was wrong, the theory has only a limited applicability.
So you are disagreeing the very website you quoted (whch clearly says that Newton's theory is a special case, the low gravity limit of Einstein's theory)? Do you have any evidence for your assertion? Let us see you put up some websites. The one you put up served very well in supporting what I am saying.
Newton’s laws did not include fourth dimension in that it did not take into account the time effects of the space time continuum. Those effects in part account for the inapplicability of Newton’s laws at very high speeds.
