Do these photons, neutrons, neutrinos, whatever, accelerate from the point of departure; if so, could it be that the constant “C” is related to the acceleration, in other words if the acceleration is greater for a different photon, then the speed would be greater also for that photon.

The truth is that demolishing something like Relativity would be a great victory for science, and a career triumph for anyone who had a hand in it. There are enormous incentives for those who can dethrone an established theory. It is not, as science’s critics have asserted, imperative that the current paradigm be preserved at all costs in order to save careers or reputations.

This is not to say that science does not make mistakes, that data cannot be misinterpreted, that men do not fool themselves, or that there are not fads, schools of thought, controversy, institutional or political factors, clashes of personalities, emotions, prejudices, and even downright fraud.

Science is a human activity, occuring in a social environment. Whether we like it or not, it operates to a great extent on the consensus of its participants, and it is not independent of the spirit and concerns of its age. It is not a machine guaranteed to generate truth. There is no machine guaranteed to generate truth. Perhaps there never will be one. Perhaps there is no ultimate truth.

Someday, Relativity may be dethroned. Some phenomenon may be observed, or some experiment performed, which simply cannot be reconciled with Dr Einstein. Relativity may not be able to explain away the new data, no matter how much it is modified or amended, and a new way of looking at the world will have to be invented. (You will note I said “invented”, not “discovered”).

There are two things we can confidently say about this new theory, if it ever does appear. First, it will satisfactorily explain the new data.
Second, it will agree perfectly with Relativity and predict the exact same results as Relativity did in all those situations where Relativity worked perfectly. Einstein will not go away, any more than Newton did when classical physics was dethroned. If Relativity is ever superseded, as Newtonian mechanics was a century ago, we can derive some satisfaction that “we have been here before”. We did it a century ago when Special Relativity came along to rescue us from the embarassment of the Michelson-Morley experiment. We know we can deal with a whole new way of looking at the world. We’ve done it before.