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Re:Attributes and predictors of long Covid by sdenton4 on Monday March 22, 2021 @09:52AM (#26540772)
Acceptance of some of those strange observations relied on the older generation - with strong emotional attachment to the old way of looking at things - dying off.
Re:Attributes and predictors of long Covid by Retric on Monday March 22, 2021 @10:50AM (#26541623)
That’s extremely overstated.

Einstein for example complained about spooky action at a distance, but didn’t disagree with the results. “Quantum mechanics is very worthy of respect. But an inner voice tells me this is not the genuine article after all. The theory delivers much but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One's secret. In any event, I am convinced that He is not playing dice.”

So, he was completely on board with the results of the single photon double slit experiment and other observable results which are very odd. But, he may have favored non local hidden variable theories which are indispensable from QM and all it’s observable oddities.

Re:Attributes and predictors of long Covid by sdenton4 on Monday March 22, 2021 @11:31AM (#26542243)
It's a dynamic not entirely confined to quantum physics in the 1930s, and there's a range of graciousness involved. It's a side effect of the paradigm shifts described by Kuhn: What happens to the old guard? Some will adapt to the new paradigm, some will enjoy tenure and let their students carry the new torch, and some will join the church in denouncing these heretics who deny the primacy of the earth. (And will happily say as much in their grant reviews!)

Also keep in mind that the stakes are higher when it's the academic's core area of contribution which is under attack. Einstein's contributions to large scale physics were secure. If instead good we're playing dice at the scale of solar systems, threatening to obviate his primary contributions and consign his name to the dustbin of history, the reaction may have been a bit different.

Re:Attributes and predictors of long Covid by Retric on Monday March 22, 2021 @12:56PM (#26543427)
Not to completely disagree, but Einstein won the 1921 Nobel prize for photoelectric effect which demonstrates the quantum nature of light. I was using him as one of those pioneers which where faced with the universe acting strangely rather than anything to do with relativity.

So, yes some people will object long term, but it’s important to keep their objections in context. Plate tectonics is a slightly more recent revolutionary idea that actually converted most skeptics, but the early objections where reasonable and the actual conversion was quick once the idea approached it’s modern form.

Re:Attributes and predictors of long Covid by sdenton4 on Monday March 22, 2021 @03:22PM (#26545472)
"I was using him as one of those pioneers which where faced with the universe acting strangely rather than anything to do with relativity."

Yeah, all I'm saying is that his total collection of contributions wasn't at stake here, so it was probably a bit easier to back down.

FWIW, my 'motivating anecdote' in this discussion is an old prof describing the earlier years of algebraic topology, which he had been very active in. There were apparently a number of older topologists who were pretty resistant to algebraization of the field. Which possibly had a lot to do with Poincare's attitudes about logic and proof.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Character