1. The Need of New Approaches - Kritische Stimmen zur ...

Chapter 9: The Thought Experiment
could open up for him, with the publications of our research project, a society-wide field of activity.”
2012
Open Letter on
the Courage for Weird Ideas and the Courage for the Freedom of Science
Sent to the Science Commission of the “Wissenschaftsrat”
[Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee]
3228 / 2007-10-10
G. O. Mueller writes, in response to an interview given by Ms. Karin Lochte, Chairman of the Scientific
Commission of the “Wissenschaftsrat”, and printed in the TAGESSPIEGEL of 12.9.07 under the title:
“Having Courage to Weird Ideas More Often”.
Enclosed is an “Open Letter on Scientific Freedom Sent to 100 Professors of the Humboldt-Universität Berlin
and to 100 Professors of the Technische Universität Dresden”; also enclosed are all of the current publications of
the
Research Project “95 years of criticism of the special theory of relativity (1908-2003)”.
The text is published in the Internet under:
http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/wissenschaftsrat_lochte_071010.pdf
Extracts:
“Dear Ms. Lochte
We refer you respectfully to the above-mentioned interview in which you support several congenial principles,
such as
- the identification of “individuals ..., who swim against the current”;
- the criticism that many scientists and assessors “follow fashions” in the competition of the elite;
- the exhortation, “to instead take up topics that at a first glance appear to be crazy”;
- the stimulus that “one should more frequently have the courage to entertain weird ideas, in the interests
of promoting innovation”.
Your comments have absolutely electrified us, since they fully comply with our own expectations of the
sciences, for which reason we have decided to write this “Open Letter”, to inform you of the problems uncovered
by our research project with the courteous request that you inform the committee in which you are the chairperson,
and to request examination of our documentation and of the demands substantiated on this basis.
What furthermore impresses us is the fact that your comments come from a committee to which we have already
sent our publications twice, and so far twice without a response:
- on 3rd June 2002 we sent the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee one of the few printouts of the
small manuscript editions of our 2001 documentation (Copy No. 63) to the address Brohler Str. 11, D-50968
KÖLN [COLOGNE];
- on 22nd Nov. 2003 we sent the printed STR Research Report of November 2003, again to the same address.”
[...]
“We would be very grateful if, following this third attempt to inform the Scientific and Technical Advisory
Committee, you could at least send a confirmation of receipt to our partners. A statement relating to the matter
naturally takes more time, but after 85 years of suppression and defamation of the critical scientists, this need not
be seen as missing.”
143
G. O. Mueller: STR