Science and belief: duel or duet?

Hold on a minute...

I don't know an awful lot about Michael Reiss, but presumably he's passed his science exams, yes?

Absolute nonsense, Dawkins.

Dawkins is right; science is about the philosophy of objective reasoning, it is not the mere authority of 'scientists'.

Any idiot can pass an exam, or be awarded some title in an academic establishment; look how many feminist professors there are!

The religious have exposed their willingness to place faith as their fiducial point, and this is contrary to objectivism; so Occam's razor applies, either a scientist or a cultist, not both.

Objectivism?

Cultist?

Occam's razor? It don't think it was meant to ensure that no one can think of two things at once, was it?

JG

Do you belive in singularities?

GV

@3
You can think of as many things as you like, but what you believe will be measured against reality.

A thing is either real or not real; an idea is either true or not true; if we split our standards of reasoning so that we can make a subject both true and not true, then we lose integrity; like 'running with the hare and running with the hounds'.

Michael Reiss has split his standards between faith and science; he therefore can not be said to have credibility of either.

Occam's razor doesn't limit thinking, it limits reality.

@4
Can you give an example within this context?

Jimmy Giro
Oh, really simple. Should I believe you have intentions, or should I just act as if you had? In other words, should I believe you are a useful fiction?
As for singularities (and you were wise to duck that question) and other unobservables, should I believe in their existence? Or are they all useful fictions?
What about the world external to my mind? Should I believe in it just because it's a helpful idea, that allows me to make good predictions?

Empiricists really only want to use that razor as a magic wand; there are very few who reallt take it seriously.

Graham Veale

Jimmy;

"A thing is either real or not real; an idea is either true or not true; if we split our standards of reasoning so that we can make a subject both true and not true, then we lose integrity"

I agree with all that. If we say that a thing is both true and not true, we are talking nonsense.

However, don't you accept that different fields of inquiry deal with different questions?

As far as I know, Michael Reiss is not claiming anything to be "true scientifically" and yet "not true faithfully"

There is no conflict in standards of reasoning.

No worse than having an atheist as Chair for the Public Understanding of Science. Dawkins knows nothing about the public other than to think that most of them are delusional.

Before you can believe in something, you have first to consider it reasonable. There is nothing inconsistent in being a Christian and a scientist. These fundamentalist scientists are giving science a bad name.

Presumably Reiss, as a scientist, accepts an account of human origins based on evolutionary biology, which maintains that all the primates have a common ancestor. We humans are only one species of the primate group and we share a very high percentage of our DNA with the rest.

However, as a Christian clergyman, Reiss must believe that humans have a life after death. There are many tales in the books of Arabic folklore that Christians revere which refer to the life hereafter, the Judgment after death, rising from the dead, etc.

It is very difficult to reconcile these two accounts. Does Reiss think that humans acquired their extra ingredient, an after-life, somewhere along the line in our evolutionary history? Do we have some ancestors who had no after-life and others (more recent ones) who did? Are there any other species which enjoy the bonus of an after-life?

The scientific account leads naturally to the conclusion that humans are mortal like any other species and that tales of the hereafter are mere fictions. This is an example of Occam's Razor being used to remove mythological excesses from the scientific account of human evolution.

There is no reason for anybody to contradict themselves, therefore we all do and say what we believe to be right.

In order to resolve contradiction we must resort to another standard other than our beliefs; science and faith are two such standards, each refutes the other, hence one claiming both standards can only contradict themselves.

Les;

"However, as a Christian clergyman, Reiss must believe that humans have a life after death. ...It is very difficult to reconcile these two accounts."

Why?

"Does Reiss think that humans acquired their extra ingredient, an after-life, somewhere along the line in our evolutionary history?"

Probably, yes. We certainly acquired some kind of extra ingredient, of that we can be sure.

"Do we have some ancestors who had no after-life and others (more recent ones) who did?"

Who knows. Are apes, in the proper sense, our ancestors? They're not the same as us. our fish our ancestors? You may be able to trace a line, but does "ancestor" not imply a commonality? Is inert matter an "ancestor"?

"Are there any other species which enjoy the bonus of an after-life?"

Who knows. I don't think reiss would want to committ one way or t'other.

"The scientific account leads naturally to the conclusion that humans are mortal like any other species"

But the scientific account only deals with the physical aspects of humans. St Pauls "Ressurection bodies" aside, most Christians would probably suggest that the afterlife is not bound by physicality


and that tales of the hereafter are mere fictions. This is an example of Occam's Razor being used to remove mythological excesses from the scientific account of human evolution

Accidentally left the end of your post in there, ignore that.

"But it was the terrorist attacks in 2001 that turned Dawkins into an Alpha atheist and transformed him from an academic backwater into a populist ideologue"

What took him so long? Did he have an epiphany or did he just become more assertive? Inquiring minds want to know?

Widespread belief in god and religion is one of many evidences that ultimately the human characteristic trait is usually to be irrational. We call believers who try to reconcile the irreconcilable between religion and science "good believers" liberal, tolerant, enlightened, and those who would surpress scientific knowledge and research any way they can to any degree they can "bad believers" also known as "fundimentalists." From my point of view...they're all nuts.

"Widespread belief in god and religion is one of many evidences that ultimately the human characteristic trait is usually to be irrational"

And yet you think that it is right to be rational....why is that, if it's so unnatural?

Bernards_Insight, you missed my point completely as usual. What a misnomer you have chosen for a moniker. There ultimately is no right or wrong. These value judgements including all moralities are an artificial human construct. The only problem with irrationality is that it leads to actions which are unintentionally self destructive. Every crisis we face today is the result of it. Global warming, overpopulation, the economic meltdown, nuclear weapons proliferation, they all have one thing in common. They could have been prevented had we acted rationally. Instead it seems inevitable that at least one of them will wipe our pathetic species out. Religion denies what we know to be true. It wanted to see man as the ultimate reason for existance with earth at the center of the universe and all time directed at an ultimate salvation and eternal life because we are genetically programmed to fear death. Instead we know factually that it is a mere speck of dust that exists for the briefest of moments in time in a universe without limits in size, without end, and most probably of all, in truth without any beginning, just eternal oscillation between explosion and collapse. Why does it exist? The question itself is laughably absurd, there is no reason. The ultimate folly, a war of extinction over a reason for it which does not exist.

"The only problem with irrationality is that it leads to actions which are unintentionally self destructive"

And what's wrong with that?

"There ultimately is no right or wrong"

Oh, right. Nothing!

"They could have been prevented had we acted rationally."

Why bother though?

"Religion denies what we know to be true"

like what?

"The ultimate folly, a war of extinction over a reason for it which does not exist"

If there's no reason, then avoiding extinction is just as much of a folly, surely...

Plenty of people have held some religious belief and been good scientists (most of the great scientists in human history fall into this category). I don't see the issue, so long as his science is not informed by his religion.

Les Reid writes: "However, as a Christian clergyman, Reiss must believe that humans have a life after death. There are many tales in the books of Arabic folklore that Christians revere which refer to the life hereafter, the Judgment after death, rising from the dead, etc."

First of all, this doesnt follow. Belief in the after life is challenged by some theologians who are nevertheless believers in God. The two beliefs are different.

Second, even if it is the case that Reiss believes in the afterlife, so what? The question is whether this belief disqualifies him from his job as a scientist and educator. It clearly does not.

Reiss is not only a defender of evolution, Les, he has written many books about teaching evolution, and books about defeating creationism in the schools. This is why it is particularly annoying that he should be targeted by militant atheists like Dawkins. It is a crime against intellectual freedom that they should seek to ruin this man's career as they have done.

a quick word to John Wright. I agree with your basis point. There is no inconsistency in a clergyman scientist. Your second point is more controversial though. Many very distinguished scientists have written about how their science has been influenced by their faith. This is not to say that they use God language or religious terms in their scientific papers. But they have been inspired to certain work, and have acted on religious impulses as part of their research. Nothing odd about that at all. The double helix research was inspired by a non scientific sense of geometrical beauty. The same point applies there too.

John Wright;

At the instant someone believes in god, they are not a scientist. They can go back to being a scientist the next minute but at that minute they are entirely irrational thinking in non scientific terms. Science does not accept what there is no evidence for and is strongly suspicious of what there is no proof for.

Bernard's_Instinct;

The only reason to avoid extinction is the instinct for survival. But in the end, since life has no purpose and human existance is always finite, it hardly matters. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I will have lived what is a reasonably long lifespan for my species in a reasonably comfortable and interesting existance at the last possible moment this could have happened. Events seem to suggest that I may live to see the coming of the end of human life on earth in my old age. When I die, everyone else will be dying with me. If there is such a thing as wisdom, it is acceptance of what seems to be real and inevitable no matter how much we don't like it.

"at that minute they are entirely irrational thinking in non scientific terms"

Again, Marcus, as is your wont, you equate "rational" with "scientific". for someone who believes in the applicability of logic, this is a strange equation to make, as logic is in no way scientific.

However, if you really believe this;
"since life has no purpose and human existance is always finite, it hardly matters"

then, really, it hardly matters what arguments you make, what you think of science, what you think of rationality, or any claims that you make. Sure it doesn't matter. It's meaningless, in fact. so says you.

Re 19.
"Belief in the after life is challenged by some theologians who are nevertheless believers in God. The two beliefs are different."

I never said that they were the same. I simply stated that conventional Christianity has always asserted that humans do not die like other species but continue into another life in the alleged hereafter. This is an ancient belief which can be found in many primitive cultures.

It is contrary to the account of human origins which evolutionary biology gives us. There is no evidence for any special afterlife for humans. You have no more chance of living again in the fictitious hereafter than a gorilla or a chimpanzee.

People have emotional ties to the ancient beliefs which were fed to them as children. They can find it very difficult to abandon obsolete beliefs, even in the face of sound rational argument. But they should recognise that hanging on to those beliefs will sometimes prove to be an embarrassment for them. That is what has happened to Reiss, as far as I can see.

"It is contrary to the account of human origins which evolutionary biology gives us"

No, it is not.

"There is no evidence for any special afterlife for humans"

Perhaps not. in what way does this make it "contrary to evolution"?

So humans represent a development from apes...what does that say about any notion of an afterlife, or even of the mind/body problem?

Nothing. It simply says that humans represent a development from apes. It does not state that humans are identical to apes, or that we have ape-like minds. It just states that humanity may well have developed from apes.

Marcus says the minute someone believes in God, they're not a scientist. I think you're playing with words. Believing in God is not science, true, but not all of our thoughts are conducted scientifically. When he turns to science, though, he doesn't stop being a scientist because he believes in God. Belief in God does not affect the rational processes he uses when he looks through a microscope or studies the genome or fires protons or studies fossils.

John_Wright

When your conscious thoughts are that you believe in something for which there is no evidence, you are not a scientist. Science is a method which bases tentative conclusions about the physical universe on observed facts and logical deductions drawn from those facts. There is no way to logically deduce god because there is no observation to support such a theory.

You can be a scientist one minute and a believer in magic or the supernatural the next but you can't be both at once.

Marcus- Saying a religious person cannot be a scientist is like saying a gambler cannot be a banker. He's a good banker even when he's at the track placing unwise bets, and the fact that he gambles with his own money does not mean he is imprudent with someone else's. And at no point does he cease to be a "banker." At no point does our religious scientist stop being a "scientist": he always is, even if he believes things without evidence on a basis other than science when it comes to his religion. He's still observing the real world, reporting on his findings, hypothesizing on that empirical basis, testing his hypotheses, studying the results. Unless he's doing that improperly or neglecting the scientific method, I'm sorry, but he's as much and as good a scientist as the atheist in the next lab.

John_Wright

I don't agree and I don't accept your analogy. But I will say this about it. When a banker is using the mentality of the racetrack in his professional life, he isn't much of a banker. BTW, isn't that how the worldwide economic and financial crisis we are now in arose, by armies of bankers acting like high risk gamblers?

I am not saying human beings can't be multifaceted and have different aspects of their personalities which express themselves at different times. But the two ways of viewing the world are inherently incompatible and cannot be expressed by the same person at the same time.

Science draws tentative conclusions based on empiracle evidence and logic. Belief in god is a conclusion without such evidence. Religion is generally presented as a rigid dogma which will not easily bend even in the light of incontrovertable contradictory evidence.

Marcus - how do you the great scientist explain the prevalance of belief in God. It is an undeniable fact that man has evolved into a being, who, in the majority of cases, believes in God.

And how do you explain the quantum difference in capacity between man and apes, given the similarity of DNA?

Do you think that every time a scientist thinks he's in love, or reads a work of fiction, or goes to the ballet, he stops being a scientist?

Marcus- I agree and I think most people accept religion on entirely different terms than the way they approach almost any other thought; one of the only times at which they suspend reason is to assert belief in God. Thus, a scientist who believes in God is suspending his scientific judgement to believe in God, yet he's still utterly scientific when it comes to his work. That's what I'm getting at, and this man is therefore still an excellent scientist.

Smasher-Lagru

Why do some people deny global warming when the evidence is overwhelming while those who accept it expend their money and scientific resources on redundant super jumbo airplanes, redundant space programs, redundant global positioning satellites and giant atom smashers instead of finding answers to a threat to all of human existance?

Why do people sit back and allow insane lunatics like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim IL Sung to research and build nuclear weapons when they know if and when they get them there will be a nuclear war that will kill many millions?

Why do people remove all of the safeguards that were developed to prevent wild speculation by bankers that caused the great depression from happening again and then seem utterly surprised when it inevitably does?

Why do people think the earth can support a population of unlimited size and then rail at everything but their own folly when its resources and ability to sustain ever larger populations actually fails?

Why do people look on horror at the bloodbath of mass murder in a world war, swear never again, and then sit back when there is a Cambodia, Uganda, Ruwanda, Darfur, and countless others sometimes pretending it isn't even happening?

The answers to all of these questions and many more questions like them is that ultimately, human beings are in the end irrational. They know the answers, they know what to do to prevent trouble they have seen and studied to death, but they do the wrong thing anyway and then curse each other at what tragedy inevitably befalls them? And instead they worry about the nearly impossible like earth getting hit by a meteorite or a comet or the unimportant like who will win at the Olympic games.

So it is not surprising that frightened of inevitable death, wishing for an explanation of why they are alive and a meaning for life, they invent fairy tales to soothe their worst fears and then fight wars over whose fairy tale is correct. And if they actually tolerate others having a different version of this fairy tale, they are seen as tolerant and enlightened.

Inside many scientists are these same deep dark fears they haven't come to grips with and when they lie awake at night thinking about it, they are no different than the primitives 5000 and 50,000 years ago sitting around a fire or at the mouth of a cave in the dark looking up at the sky with the same fears and wonder reacting in exactly the same way. A lifetime of training and practice of how to think rationally is thrown out the window so that they can have the same comfort for that moment. You can hardly expect me to take them seriously when they talk that way because at that moment they are just plain crazy like a congenital liar who knows in half his brain that what the other half is telling him just doesn't add up but says it and half believes it anyway.

I'm not going to research for you the latest research on developmental anthropology explaining why homo sapiens evolved to a much further degree than simians. Go to a library or to the internet and research it for yourself. There are tons of information about it resulting from lots of careful study and the research will continue to find even better and more detailed explanations than we already have.

John

Did you see my question directed to you on the other ABC thred?

I want your take on the current state of the ecconomy, as a free market capitalist...

Otherwise i presume you just agree with the generally accepted belife that more regulation is required.

John (at #30), I think you are mistaken in this notion of parallel lives or ways of thinking. Any religious scientists I know are very integrated - they are ultimately interested in truth. They certainly don't believe in contradictory things at the same time, nor do they consider their faith irrational or that they have to suspend reason to believe in God.

Marcus - excellent points - clearly you believe in The Fall, and only the grace of God can save us from the chasm of irrationality. St Paul describes it well "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15)

Theists have been accused of dodging questions. Now I'd like a few answers from the skeptics waving Occam's Razor about. Are you going to be consistent? Do scientific theories successfully refer to extra-mental realities? Are there electrons, quarks, singularities, animals united by membership of a class and a common nature, laws etc? Or are these merely practically useful ideas?

Graham Veale

Re 34.
"Do scientific theories successfully refer to extra-mental realities?"

What an odd question!
I wonder if the answer could be "No. The moon, the Earth, etc are all figaments of our collective imagination."

Bizarre.
And yet I suspect that somehow GV hopes to deduce from the obvious existence of the material world that all the fictions of Arabic folklore have some claim to credibility. That's what I call going the long way round. In fact, I do not think that life is long enough for such a traipse.

Hello Graham,

I didn't mention Occam's razor, but I can provide some info on the others questions in your post.

"Are there electrons, quarks, singularities, animals united by membership of a class and a common nature, laws etc? Or are these merely practically useful ideas?"

The things you see around you are made up at the lowest level (at least as far as we know now, at some point protons and neutrons were thought to be elementary) of two families of particles, quarks and leptons.

There are 6 quarks: up, down, top, bottom, charm, strange.

There are 6 leptons, forming three pairs: electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon, tauon neutrino.

These particles can be combined into many other forms of particles (of which most have extremely short life times). They are susceptible to four fundamental interactions: the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravitation. Not all interactions work on all particles.

And then we have what could somewhat simplified be called 'interaction carriers', the bosons: photon, gluon, the two associated with the weak force and the elusive Higgs boson, the latter being predicted by theory but not observed yet. Hopefully the LHC will change that. Other particles were all predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics and except for the Higgs boson they have all been observed as they were predicted with rather incredible accuracy.

If you'd like to know more then Google 'Standard Model of particle Physics' or 'particle zoo'.

greets,
Peter

Peter
Oh, I believe in Leptons etc, and I've no quarrel with you believing in them either. You haven't been thoughtlessly waving Occam's Razor around .
But a thoroughgoing empiricism banishes these beliefs to the realm of "useful" rather than true, no matter how accurately we measure them. They cannot be verified by sense experience. Try Googling "Bas Van Fraasen" or "WVO Quine" or look at Stephen Hawkings view of Scientific Realism.

Like you, I'm a realist, and find it difficult to explain the results without the truth of the theories. And thank you for the post.
G Veale

Les
NO philosopher, mediaeval or otherwise, wants more entities than they need in their philosophy. The qusetion is, when are they necessary? The razor doesn't settle any debate just by invoking it; one philosopher might feel that the real existence of numbers is necessary to explain knowledge and science. Another may disagree. Shouting "Occams razor" hardly helps.
I was curious to see just how seriously you took the principle - whether or not you wanted to embrace an empiricism that wanted to base our concepts and our knowledge on sense experience. That would leave knowledge of the external world, or any inductively based knowledge claim, problematic. However it may be pragmatically useful to posit an external world and other minds. That's a different issue. And of course nothing says that empiricists have to DENY truth-claims about the external world. They just remain agnostic and judge them according to their usefulness.
Of course such a belief system is bizarre. We just can't prove it's bizarre. And, intellectually, it's much more rigorous than basing beliefs on "common sense/life's too short".
Now quarks are rather smaller than the moon. Perhaps you should follow the advice on Peter Klaver's post just to see what we are talking about here. Science posits many entities that are in principle unobservable. If you took Occam's Razor seriously you would not believe in them, but just take them as pragmatically useful. (Go tell Stephen Hawking that life's too short to take his opinions on Theoretical Entities seriously). But you don't really believe in the razor. You just like waving it at Theists.
Of course Science cannot explain the order and uniformity of nature, and it has to presuppose that our minds can make reliable inferences. And like it or not, robust arguments for Theism are still being published at the highest level, arguing from knowledge and nature to God. They may not compel belief, but they remain respectable arguments.
Now, by claiming that I was asking an odd question, you reveal that you haven't thought too hard about empiricism or philosophy of Science. And that reduces your posts to bluster.
Now let's probe a little deeper, just to see if there's any substance to your position. Should I believe that there is a person called Les Reid? Or should I merely adopt an "intentional stance" towards you?

However you can feel free to dodge the whole debate by saying you've far too much common sense for all this philosophy. Life is short.
But then, why did you introduce philosophy in the first place? And should you believe in things like "intentions" which are invisible to science, but necessary to common sense? And what about all that strange Quantum stuff? Best left to all those physicists who lack your common sense?
Graham Veale

PeterKlaver

Just been to particle zoo. Very good. Thanks for the pointer.

If I laughed when I seen the site, does that mean I'm not getting out enough?

GV

I'm assuming you meant the cuddly toys, and didn't want me to read essays on the theoretical entities. I know their names and what, roughly, they're meant to do. And that's quite enough for me thankyou very much.

GV

gveale #37

"Oh I believe in leptons..."

Then can I assume you beleive in Leprechauns too? After all, there's about as much evidence for the little people as there is for god.

Think of what a great insult that is, "you half life of a lepton you." :-)

Hello Graham,

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. When believers talk about science the result is often less than impressive. Usually you will find a dose of ignorant negativity in it. The believers just can't help but to talk down mankinds achievements, knowledge and insights. Usually because no competition to their divine imaginary friend can be allowed, let alone when that competition (i. e. scientists, engineers, etc) easily outdoes their imaginary friend by a long shot.
While I can't say for sure that the latter is your motivation, your post 37 in reply to me is yet another example that has all the hallmarks.

"Oh, I believe in Leptons etc"

Belief in leptons.....not the best opening half sentence for someone who wants to be taken serious when making a post about science.
It soon gets worse:

"But a thoroughgoing empiricism banishes these beliefs to the realm of "useful" rather than true, no matter how accurately we measure them. They cannot be verified by sense experience. Try Googling "Bas Van Fraasen" or "WVO Quine" or look at Stephen Hawkings view of Scientific Realism."

And where on FSMs green earth did you get the idea that something not directly observed by our senses can only be a useful construct and can not be judged to be real or not?! I don't know the work of Bas van Fraasen but I know you didn't get that idea from Stephen Hawking. It would make for a most bizarre and unstable notion of what is real or not. Suppose that there is some tiny little species of animal just too small for people to see. Then some people are born with remarkably good eyes who can see them. So then they are suddenly real whereas before they weren't? The birth of persons with sharper eyes than anyone before them changes these tiny animals being real or not? Come on. It's just the usual ignorant negativity of believers, in a different wrapping paper: "Nonono, we don't know all those things for sure at all. No one has ever seen a top quark. You shouldn't believe everything those damned scientists say. Here, if you want to really understand then I have a book for you. It's in two parts actually. There is an old part, written when people didn't have much of a clue about most things. And there is an even ridiculously older part, written by some troublesome, semi-literate goat herders living around the Eastern Medditeranean millenia ago."

In post 40 you wrote

"I'm assuming you meant the cuddly toys, and didn't want me to read essays on the theoretical entities."

It would have been good if you had read about these things, and the working of science in general, before posting. It really cracks me up that believers so often complain that it is atheists who don't know enough about the religion they reject.

Hi Peter (K),

I've been following your conversation with Graham and have a couple of (genuine) questions.

But before that a preamble.

I have no intention whatsoever of adopting the approach to the bible you outlined in post 42, indeed I have no intention of mentioning it at all on this thread, so I have no hidden agenda with my questions, I'm just interested. Second, I'm not, in any way, a scientist, so you are going to have to keep this simple for me, but I'll try to follow you as best as I can.

So after all that, can I ask, what do we mean (in this particular context) when we say that the particles have been observed, and how do the mathematical formulas and physics work together?

Please feel free to correct (even) my question!

Hello petermorrow,

I read your post a bit late in the evening to give a detailed answer covering everything. So let me give you some bits now, let me get back for more later hopefully.

One of the leptons, the electron, is probably a good one to start with. The electron has a tiny charge. So if you place it in an electric field, a force we be exerted on it. If you add or remove some electrons to/from an object, force will be exerted on that object if it is placed in the field. That object also experiences gravity of course. You can learn the charge of the electron by seeing when the two forces match. So in a famous experiment, a tiny oil droplet was made to hover in an electric field by adding or removing a few electron charges to it. One way to do this is to shoot high energy photons (you can think of them as little packets of light, only of wavelengths invisible to the human eye) at the droplet. These will sometimes tear an electron free from the object that is hit, giving the object a charge. And then gravity pulls the droplet down, the field pulls it up, letting it rest in equilibrium. As you can measure the weight of the droplet, you know how hard gravity is pulling on it, and thus how hard the field is pulling in the other direction. A field will pull on a charge proportional to the size of the charge, so then we have uncovered one secret of the electron, its charge.

Since we can make electrons move by placing them in a field, we can now start playing billiards with them. We can accelerate the electrons in a field and let them collide with other particles. From the way that the electron bounces of whatever it hits, as well as what happens to the target, we can learn various things. For instance, if we let the electron hit a relatively heavy particle, the electron will bounce off with most of its energy still with it. If it was a lighter particle, it can transfer a good deal of its energy to the particle it hits. This is called scattering and the way we learn about it is by seeing what comes flying off, where, and with how much energy. If the particle studied is an electron, it could for instance be detected by placing current measuring detectors all around the collision area and seeing which one shows the tiny current. That would be the one the electron went into after the collision (normally a current from many scattered electrons will be measured, as one is so tiny, very difficult to measure on its own).
Charged particles can also be visualized in a more appealing way by letting them travel through oversaturated water vapour. The charged particles can ionize atoms that then become condensation nuclei. The result is that if you place a radiation source in oversaturated vapour, you see trails of tiny droplet appearing.

People have found the rules that govern how particles with different mass, charge and spin scatter off each other. With that knowledge, we are then just going to have a series of frames of sub-atomic snooker. Once you learned the properties of some particle, like the electron, throw it at a different particle. The way the electron and its target scatter away from each other tells you things about the target. And so the number of experiments you can do quickly increases. With every bit you nail down, you immediately open up the way to the next bit.

As final thing for tonight, we are going to raise the stakes considerably. We're not just going the bounce particles of each other. Instead, we're going to crash them into each other with unimaginable energies. Such high energies that particles like the ones that form atomic nuclei are smashed into their smaller constituent parts. Again, where, and with how much energy you detect what comes off gives you information of what went on.
Not all particles can be measured like electrons by looking at e.g. a current they induce in a detector. Sometimes it is not the charge but e.g. the spin of a particle that is used for detection.


It's almost midnight now. End of post. One thing to disappoint you for next time: the mathematics of the Standard Model of particle physics are hugely complicated. I hardly understand any of it myself. And it's almost purely equations, not easily handled in html. So I leave that for someone else to elaborate on. Sorry to appear a lazy bum.

And to pile on the insults, it turns out you weren't sending me to a humorous website - you really did assume that only a scientist would have heard of the term "particle zoo"

And I don't confuse detectability with observability. If English isn't your first language I apologise. Or maybe your eyesight is really good.

I mean when I found out that you can do experiments, I mean wow, does the philosophical world know? You should publish in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, you should!

Can you write to Hawking and let him know that physicists do experiments, and that he's wasting his time reading Karl Popper and the Positivists? (I've quoted him extensively elsewhere on the blog - I thought too extensivley at the time, but now it turns out you can't be too careful).

Now I'm not a physicist, but I've Christian friends who are, and have done research in the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. My knowledge of science is just that of an undereducated layman. But if I compare it to your knowledge of philosophy I'd say I come out on tops. That's not much of a boast. I'm stunned that you are totally unaware that there is any deabte about the reality of Theoretical Entities, and that empiricists are those who are casting doubt- not religious believers. Heliopolitan and MarcusAurelius (both scientists, the first who refuses to believe in Theoretical Entities, the latter who thinks that all this quantum weirdness is just a passing phase) are the doubters on the blog, not me. Go argue with them.

But please have the courtesy to read their posts first, and don't make lazy assumptions about their arguments or presuppositions. They're atheists - but you mightn't like them, because they advance arguments rather than dismiss people.

As a matter of fact I double dare you to take on Marcus and Heliopolitan. Marcus thinks reality will turn out to be simple. So I'm assuming the standard model will go the way of phlogiston in his thinking. (You can do a google search on phlogiston - and it's always safe to read the first article you caome to and belive everything it says). Helio is one of the few scientists I know who is a thoroughgoing empiricist. And I'm willing to wager a lot of money that collectively they know much more about the subject than you do. (By subject, I mean any subject). So you may want to drop the condescending "I teach physics at a grammar school" tone if you decide to test your views against theirs.

In short, if you had read, actually read, some of the comments you remarked on in earlier threads, you would know that there are ATHEISTS on the blog who are skeptical about the truth of many respectable Scientific theories (but not their practical value, or their ability to make accurate predictions. Imagine that! They know that the theories they doubt make good predictions!).

I AM NOT SKEPTICAL AND HAD BEEN DEBATING WITH HELIO ON THIS ISSUE. MY REMARKS HAD A CONTEXT OF WHICH YOU ARE BLYTHELY UNAWARE.

Now that's a free period wasted and me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

I'll see y'all Monday. I've four hundred students who can be more insulting for free.

GV

(PS I'd be prepared to pay money to watch you take on Helio on this issue).

I mean you go on a four day course that makes you give CPR to a gender confused doll called "Annie", and then you find the sub teacher used all your coffee.

What sort of world are we living in?

And PK Tonite wasn't having a converstaion with me, he was winning a monlogue

I mean there's no problem with interpreting an electron realistically. It obviously has a definite location, and it's wavefunction is a useful fiction - oh wait, that's incoherent... let's see the wavefunction is real, and the electron takes a location when we're measuring it... no that doesn't seem to explain that damn cat... no there has to be a really simple explanation, all those A-Level teachers couldn't be misleading us...

Now that I've had my coffee

Peter

Now that I have had my caffeine infusion, this is what I should have typed earlier...

I think you may have misunderstood my position, and that you may be missing out on some rather interesting debates on the nature of reality.

Your posts were very clear, and now I am in a better mood, I should hope that you are considering a career in teaching rather than research.
I don't doubt your skills as a researcher, or a government lackey, but you obviously have a talent and a passion for communicating physics. And I've known one very fine physicist who gave up a promising career to teach physics at a Grammar school, and has never regretted it.

I just think your passion for physics (and the lack of precision in my posts) led you to assume I held a position that is in fact taken by many empiricists.

I am told that van Fraasens grasp of the mathematics involved in interpreting Quantum Mechanics is intimidating. It may not be wise to dismiss him so easily.

Sorry for the flame - this will happen when someone steals my coffee, and you are the only person around to get into a row with



Graham Veale

Just to be very clear, I reject "thoroughgoing empiricism" - I was critiquing that position. One reason I am not is that most scientists clsim they don't need that worldview. I was annoyed that you leapt in assuming that I held that Scientists were all rigid empiricists, and that you attacked that philosophical position without really understanding it.

GV wrote: ".. an empiricism that wanted to base our concepts and our knowledge on sense experience. That would leave knowledge of the external world, or any inductively based knowledge claim, problematic."

The external world? External to what? This sounds like some archaic version of empiricism which starts by assuming a solipistic scepticism ('my sensations are all I know for certain') and then gets in a tangle trying to find the material world. That stuff died out after WW2. Russell gave up on Logical Atomism and the model of the mind as a little box where sense data occurred gave way to a model which took as its basis the social foundation of language. End of 'the external/internal world' dichotomy.

But now it seems you do not subscribe to that antequated version of empiricism yourself, GV. So what on earth was the point of dragging it into this discussion? Don't we have enough red herrings and digressions to contend with?

Peter (K)

Thank you for time you have taken to respond to me.

As I was reading through the reply I jotted down a few questions which came to mind.

Really I'm not being a smart ass, I just find the science a bit bewildering. For example, I can see my keyboard, I can feel my keyboard, I can smell my keyboard, hear the keys click as I type and could, I suppose, taste it, tho' that might be a crime! Can I do this with electrons?

What is being measured, and how is it being measured? Where do we get photons from? How do we fire them? Do we need photons to see the effect of the photons we are firing?

Personal disclosure here, it was questions like this, and their equivalent, which frankly, were not answered in 'O' and 'A' level physics, and which led me to give up, switch off, and generally become suspicious of what I was being told. I'm not saying that what I was told was wrong, just that the answers never satisfied me and that on more than one occasion the questions were not answered at all.

You see, I could keep asking these kinds of questions about energy, the weight of particles, the charge of particles, how are they isolated and so on, but I'm not sure I'll ever be satisfied. Now, to be fair to you I have a friend who has already tried to explain this to me, he calls me a skeptic(!), and even though he has also explained the history of the subject to me, the people involved, the experiments carried out, the results and so on, I'm still struggling to visualise (maybe that's the problem, I'm a very visual person) what is going on.

I think I do understand that the maths and the physics match, in that the predications match the results of the experiments, (maybe that's a poor way to put it) but I really don't get how anyone knows what is happening.

I definitely get that it is all a process, that, "With every bit you nail down, you immediately open up the way to the next bit.", but I don't get what is being nailed down in the first place. The words, and I know you need them to help me understand and that they are descriptions, but the words you use like throw, scatter, spin, and the like make sense when it comes to 'real' snooker, I can see the balls bounce and scatter and spin and so on, they can hit me on the head and knock me out, but when it come to the things I haven't seen, I struggle.

Peter, this may come across as pretty dumb to you, or maybe I'm just voicing the questions that the average 'Joe Bloggs' in the street doesn't want to ask, but even though I'm happy to accept that these things are part of what makes this website and my computer work (scientifically I'm a pragmatist) I do genuinely struggle at times with the thought that none of it is 'real'. Maybe the other thing is that I could say that *I* don't need the knowledge to go about my everyday business, to enjoy my arabica, go to work and so on, in fact most people probably go about their daily business without ever thinking about the knowledge they don't have!, so (and I'm not being cheeky) how would you deal with a skeptic like me?

And here's the only criticism I'm going to make about scientists like Dawkins, as it is pertinent to this thread; maybe if he and others, spent as much time and energy in bringing the science to a popular audience as they have done in lampooning religion, we would all understand more, and he would do more good. Personally, I for one would be a 'watcher', if we could have a 'Particle Physics' version of some of the natural history programmes that the BBC makes very well.

Les
No I don't subscribe to that form of empiricism. But of course various versions are alive and well today (I hate 'em all) and I am stunned to find your grasp of the topic naive and simplistic.

GV

I'm off now, so I'll see everyone Monday

Peter;

"maybe if he and others, spent as much time and energy in bringing the science to a popular audience as they have done in lampooning religion, we would all understand more, and he would do more good"

An excellent point, well made. And surely that's precisely Dawkins' supposed role. Given that many many scientists have no problem with their faith and their science going hand in glove, why does Dawkins think that his vocational role is to show us all how stupid religion is.

Even on his recent Darwin programme, far far more time was given over to arguing with theists than to actually explaining the science.

I for one would like to see that, because i think Dawkins is actually a good explainer, and has a knack for accurately simplifying complex arguments.

Les

Conscience has got the better of me - I'm winding you up a bit.

Yes empiricism has moved on, but soemtimes Humanists talk as if the only philosophers who ever wrote was Hume. (Empiricism can be defined broadly enough to include Aristotle in any case).

I'm just trying to point out that shouting "Occam's Razor" solves nothing. And that any worldview that evades metaphysics altogether runs into very serious difficulties. And that if you are unaware of those difficulties you are better keeping quiet.

Graham Veale

And now I really have to go until Monday.

"(Empiricism can be defined broadly enough to include Aristotle in any case)."

Even Aquinas, in fact.

Graham, Peter M, Bernard:

I'm taking a break from preparing Humanism Ireland to see what you three are up to.

Ah, just as I thought when I first read it, Peter M! When you told Peter K that you had no hidden agenda with your questions, it was a total bluff. Maybe if theists stopped misrepresentating reality in the wider world (in the media, for example), dictating to others what they should think and do (especially children) and obstructing scientific progress (Embryology Bill), then we could all move on to a better world.

Scientists open their eyes and look and then acknowledge what they do see and detect, and either suspend judgement or reject any ideas for which they lack sufficient reason to give their assent. Theists tend to close their eyes, shut down their brains, and take a leap of faith into falsehood. Then they order the brain to waken out of its self-inflicted stupor to justify this leap by spurious reasoning. You would all learn something by following the scientific example.

Theists should stop lying about and/or misrepresenting what science has found and asserting that it says something that it does not say. It gets you nowhere, except to show your disrespect for the truth.

An example of this misrepresentation is the following from Graham, to whom most of the rest of this post is mainly addressed:

“Of course Science cannot explain the order and uniformity of nature, and it has to presuppose that our minds can make reliable inferences”.

The first part of this statement is a misrepresentation of both nature and science. It wrongly implies the absence of chance, poor design, chaos and illogicality.

(1) No major scientist would make such a presumption about nature being 'ordered or uniform'. If anything, they would say the opposite: there may be tiny pockets of order, but it is more likely that most of the universe is chaotic and random. Most of the matter and energy of the universe shows little structure and no sign of design. I was told ad nauseam on another thread by Graham and Bernard that this position was conceptually impossible, which proves how devoid of any reference to the real world some of your pseudo-philosophical reasonings are. They are positively a prioristic in their attempt to prove everything from deduction, based on your own biased theological assumptions.

(2) Evolution argues that organisms accumulate change by natural selection, modified by random mutations, that enables them to survive and have progeny that maintain those features. This implies that humanity was an accident and not the special creature of a creator.

(3) Biology tells us that the eye in all vertebrates is wired backwards, whereas other animals, such as the octopodes and squids, have their eyes wired more rationally. Indeed, it tells us that there are many flaws in the human body which an engineer would have avoided and would enable us to live longer. For example, our bones lose minerals after 30, making them susceptible to fracture, osteoporosis etc. Our rib cage does not fully enclose and protect most internal organs. Our muscles atrophy. Our leg veins become enlarged and twisted, lead o varicose veins. Our joints wear out as their lubricants thin. Our retinas are prone to detachment. Last, but not least, the male prostrate enlarges, squeezing and obstructing urine flow.

(4) To this list we may add the presence of vestiges of once useful parts of the human body. The appendix, the coccyx, and wisdom teeth may once have been vital to survival, but now tend to cause more problems than they are worth. If we were designed with a divine purpose in mind then these organs must play some very mysterious role indeed.

(5) A better designed human would have bigger ears, rewired eyes, a curved neck, a forward-tilting torso, shorter limbos and stature, extra padding around joints, extra muscles and fat, thicker spinal discs, a reversed knee-joint etc.

Bernard, as for Dawkins, you are quite wrong. He has spent years popularising science and evolution. What about all his other books: The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The Ancestor’s Tale... etc?
Presumably, you think he shouldn't write about evolution because it challenges your own beliefs.

Graham: As for you statement that "sometimes Humanists talk as if the only philosophers who ever wrote was Hume", well, he did make some devastating comments about religion, did he not? Humanists are quite capable of talking about other philosophers where the subject is not religious but political, social, moral, philosophy of science etc. The Humanist magazine which I edit ran a series on The Great Philosophers, which had 20 parts. I wrote most of them.

As for saying that science has to presuppose that our minds can make reliable inferences, sure this is true. I agree with you that it is reasonable to ask whether scientific theories successfully refer to extra-mental realities. But I would say that causal realism is the most satisfactory answer (you seem to hold to a similar position). The causes of our sense experiences are physical objects in the real world, which exists independently of our perceiving it. I accept that this is a metaphysical assumption, but it seems a reasonable one.

Hume would be sceptical on the grounds that we not have sense impressions of connections. Nevertheless, we could call him a sceptical realist because, although he did not think we could have perceptual access to the necessary connections, and thus we have no rational justification for believing in them (hence scepticism), yet at the same time we are compelled by natural instinct to believe there to be a necessary connection when we observe a regularity or constancy in our perceptions, and this natural belief is of an objective causal necessity (hence realism).

This view implies a correspondence theory of truth, at least on matters of fact or logic. Moral 'truths' are another matter altogether.

So I agree with the second part of your statement about scientific presuppositions, but the first is not an accurate description of the nature of the universe.

Hi Brian

I hope you are having a good break, of course you don't have to believe me.

I haven't read all you post, I stopped at "An example of this misrepresentation is the following from Graham, to whom most of the rest of this post is mainly addressed:"

I was just taking a quick look and have more important things to get back to, namely the new version of FIFA 09 for the Playstation, I will read the rest later.

Just a couple of comments for now. Where exactly did I betray my hidden agenda? Was it the Dawkins criticism? My use of the word skeptic? What?

Did it ever occur to you that I actually do have doubts and that these can relate to my faith?

And where did this come from? "Maybe if theists stopped misrepresentating reality in the wider world (in the media, for example), dictating to others what they should think and do (especially children) and obstructing scientific progress (Embryology Bill), then we could all move on to a better world."

That is a rant.

It was the Dawkins criticism - wasn't it, or is it just me?

"Theists should stop lying about and/or misrepresenting what science has found and asserting that it says something that it does not say."

Brian I wasn't lying, I made it clear that I don't know the science, that I find it 'bewildering', what's your problem with this? Do you read sarcasm into everything? And which bit of, "Personally, I for one would be a 'watcher', if we could have a 'Particle Physics' version of some of the natural history programmes that the BBC makes very well." is closing my eyes.

Brian - wise up. Better still maybe you could explain the intricacies of The Standard Model to me.

FIFA calls.

Peter:

a few quotes from La Rochefoucauld:

"If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing them in others"

"One gives nothing so freely as advice".

"Hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue".

"We only confess our little faults to persuade others that we have no larger ones".

Or, if you prefer, a remark about motes and beams spring to mind.

And as if there wasn't more than enough real football everywhere, you want to play at it as well!

Cheers,
Brian

Brian

Is there anything I can say that will be acceptable?

Hi Peter:
Stick to the arguments, perhaps?

Oh, I forget another La Rochefoucauld quote:

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example".

Hi Peter:

BTW:

Not ALL my criticisms of theists necessarily apply to you personally, or even to Graham or Bernard. only some. Unless you all want to tarred with the same brush! Collective suffering? Or collective guilt?

Hi Brian

Let me try and come at this a different way. Of course everyone has agendas. On this blog, I am biased towards theism. At break time in school, I am biased towards coffee. (in fact, maybe I'm just biased towards coffee - period) I have all sorts of petty idiosyncrasies, but when I said to Peter Klaver that I had no hidden agenda it was in direct response to his post 42 when he said that he was concerned about the "ignorant negativity of believers" and "Here, if you want to really understand then I have a book for you. It's in two parts actually. There is an old part, written when people didn't have much of a clue about most things."

I was making the point (or trying to), by asking a question (which I have asked others before), that I didn't understand the physics, and that I wasn't going to start into a whole defense of the bible. I was, and am interested in the science, and I am skeptical about some it in the sense that sometimes it all just sounds like words, and I'm sure that that's true for many. Peter gave a very thoughtful reply and I am grateful for that, but as I said in reply to him, I still really don't grasp what's actually going on (which is why I asked about the Maths bit too). Like I said I'm a scientific pragmatist, and one with open ears at that?

I then made a comment about Richard Dawkins, an opinion which is, incidentally, shared by others:

https://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article4473274.ece

The thread is about Dawkins and his suggestion that clergymen shouldn't be scientists, or at least not ones with any influence. Maybe it was tongue in cheek, I don't know, but my comment was on topic and that is why I was surprised when you jumped in with:

"Ah, just as I thought when I first read it, Peter M!" and "total bluff" and then the stuff about media and children; what's that all about? As I said before I don't care what you say about me or theism, but I do expect to be able to respond!

So I say again, I wasn't lying, bluffing or misrepresenting anything. I asked about Science and made a comment about Dawkins on a thread about Science and Dawkins.

I really don't see the problem, and it might be helpful to both of us if you could explain why you though I was off the argument/topic, and what it was that exposed a hidden agenda.

Anyway the suggestion for the TV programme stands. What about covering the key historical events, personalities and experiments of the math and physics of light, electricity, magnetism and so on (up to the present day) in a way which will explain to 'Joe Bloggs' what has been done, what we think might be able to be done and how we have benefitted from the models. Goodness me if somebody times it right the last shot could be of William reporting from CERN after the greatest discovery of all!

Peter:

We are back to this statement of yours, with which Bernard concurred:

"Maybe if he (dawkins) and others, spent as much time and energy in bringing the science to a popular audience as they have done in lampooning religion, we would all understand more, and he would do more good".

I was responding by saying that theists (in the world at large, not necessarily you personally) spend a lot of time doing other harmful things in the world, so scientists don't need any lectures about the alleged faults in what they are trying to do, especially when, as I say, Dawkins (who occasioned your remark) has done a lot, especially in several books, to bring the science of evolution to a wider public.

In fact, Dawkins is a very bad example, since he has spent most of his life doing exactly what you criticise him for not doing sufficiently.

Brian

Some theists can of course bring misery and pain to the world, which is most certainly worse that portraying a clergyman as the central character in a Monty Python sketch. We have agreed about this before.

You should note too that I wasn't criticising the 'faults' in Science; as I said, I don't know enough about the subject to do that. I was suggesting that Richard Dawkins appears to be best known (most certainly in recent years) for ridiculing religion, and that the ridicule of religion seems to be part and parcel of his presentation of science, and that that is a pity. (Could it be that this is how he will be remembered?)

As you will probably have read, AA Gill outlined similar concerns. Indeed Gill's points, too, are directly related to this thread.

On another point, does this mean that I'm being 'let off' the charge of "total bluff"?

Brian;

"Most of the matter and energy of the universe shows little structure and no sign of design."

And yet you're able to discuss it.

Brian, you misrepresent me in that I am not offering some form of design argument. I'm merely saying that one of the criterion for being part of the universe is a degree of structure and the resultant ability to be characterised. I agree with Aristotle that there are categories of reality.

You explicity mention energy and matter, and then go on to speak as if these are, in principle, unknowable. They are sufficiently knowable to be characterised as energy or matter...they fall within the remit of our inquiry and knowledge, even if only to a very limited degree.

"I was told ad nauseam on another thread by Graham and Bernard that this position was conceptually impossible, which proves how devoid of any reference to the real world some of your pseudo-philosophical reasonings are."

Nonsense. It IS conceptually impossible to think about or discuss anything which is, in principle, outside of any possible knowledge or inquiry. That is tautological

I don't think the rest of your post has any relevance to me.

I have no problem with evolution. In fact I embrace it.

The general scientific world-view which has been accumulating steadily since the Renaissance gives an account of this planet, Earth, and its place in the Milky Way galaxy. It describes the history of the planet in terms of plate tectonics, ice ages and giant impacts, etc. It describes the history of the human species as simply one strand in the evolution of all the species on the planet.

That scientific world-view has superseded the ancient religious world-view which held sway for centuries before that and was based on superstitious tales of miracles, gods and the after-life. Those tales came to Europe from Arabic folklore.

The difference in the two world-views is clearly seen when one considers natural phenomena like lightning and rainbows. The scientific account explains them in terms of layers of atmosphere, friction and electric discharge (lightning) or water vapour, refracted light and angle of observation (rainbow). The religious account tells of angry gods and of a promise made to humankind.

There is now a vast body of scientific knowledge. It is all theoretically open to revision, but much of it is, in practical terms, certain (eg explanation of rainbow; circulation of blood; chemical formulae). Of course, there are things that we do not know and phenomena that we cannot fully explain, but those problems cannot gainsay the fact that the overall scientific account is coherent and rational.

Choosing between those two world-views is no contest, in my opinion. I can only assume that people who cling to the ancient religious world-view are hooked on it emotionally and cannot bear to let go. Marx compared religion to opium, referring to its delusory comforts, but perhaps its addictive properties make the comparison even more telling.

Les

"the overall scientific account is coherent and rational."

Of course it is, why wouldn't it be? The explanation of the rainbow in terms of promise (or anything else biblical for that matter) is not a scientific explanation and was never intended to be a scientific explanation. I fear you are driving an unnecessary dichotomy.

Tell me this, whenever you happen upon a rainbow, for example, is your though always, "water vapour, refracted light and angle of observation"?

Bernard:

“It IS conceptually impossible to think about or discuss anything which is, in principle, outside of any possible knowledge or inquiry. That is tautological”.

It take it you are not referring to a God here. He, of course, is an exception to your own rule. But your position is frankly stupid. It amounts to saying: "it is possible to understand the universe rationally because it is rational, therefore God exists".

Actually, we could more reasonably argue: if we could prove that God existed by our reason, then there would be good objective evidence for his existence, but since there is no such evidence, he probably does not exist.

My position is perfectly rational. It does NOT say that the universe IS totally outside any possible knowledge or inquiry. It says that it MAY not be ordered or rational but there MAY be pockets of rationality within it. In those aspects where it is not rational or ordered, then indeed there is very little beyond that that we can say, at the moment at any rate. It is you, remember, who think we can say more than most scientists would venture to posit.
It is you who know the secret of the universe. It is the scientists who, by their nature, exercise caution.

Peter:

"I was suggesting that Richard Dawkins appears to be best known (most certainly in recent years) for ridiculing religion".

This is quite simply wrong. Before The God Delusion, he had written EIGHT major books outlining and explain evolution. The first, The Selfish Gene, was originally written more than thirty years ago.

In one of the books, Unweaving the Rainbow, he takes Keats's accusation that, by explaining the rainbow, Newton had diminished its beauty, and argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do 'myths' and 'pseudoscience'.

If he is remembered for his 'ridicule' of religion, that certainly won't be his fault.

At 74 PM wrote:"The explanation of the rainbow in terms of promise (or anything else biblical for that matter) is not a scientific explanation and was never intended to be a scientific explanation. I fear you are driving an unnecessary dichotomy."

The dichotomy IS necessary. The history of how the scientific world-view has developed since the Renaissance is the story of a struggle to escape from the ancient religious world-view which preceded it. One account of man's place in the cosmos, based on folk tales and tradition, has been replaced by another, based on rational argument, experiment and evidence.

The two world-views have collided head-on at various times. Here are two famous examples.

The old view placed Earth at the centre of the cosmos. The scientific view places Earth in orbit round the sun and on the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. The Church imprisoned Galileo and burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for daring to advance the scientific view.

A similar battle is being waged over evolution. Supporters of the ancient world-view are trying to prevent the general acceptance of the scientific account of how species have evolved on this planet.

The clash of world-views is a matter of historical record. Having failed to halt the advance of the scientific world-view, the supporters of the ancient religious one are now trying to say that there is no incompatibility after all. Sure .... Woden, Zeus, Jehovah, the Bogey Man, Santa Claus .... let's have the whole lot - and eat our scientific cake as well!

What on the Flying Spaghetti Monsters green Earth?! A double digit string of posts by Graham, mentioning his rather unchristian sounding games with Annie the doll, the internet equivalent of shouting with his all capitols lines, ranting and raving about coffee (does anyone else get the impression that alcohol was a factor in Grahams posts, rather than caffeine?), and his not very intellectual sounding claims to philosophical superiority over me. Really Graham, that last bit conjures up the image in my mind of you as the silverback dominant gorilla in a group, who is challenged in his authority. I see you know as a big ape, standing up, beating your fists on your chest, roaring 'WHRAAAGH, I AM BETTER THAN YOU! AND WITH MY ALL CAPITOLS POSTS I CAN SHOUT LOUDER THAN YOU! WHRAAAGH'!!

How intelligent. Do you have any idea how you're making yourself look with posts like that?

It gets rather depressing when we realize that you're an RE teacher. I shudder at the thought how intelligent pupils are met when they dare venture into the realm of critical questioning, not taking your lessons as gospel. Are you into such crazy yelling in real life too?

Anyway Mr. self-proclaimed Big Fancy Philosopher, in post 54 you wrote "this is what I should have typed earlier...". I'll not pay any more attention to your posts before that line then and focus on the substance of what came afterward instead. Which is very little. The only bit you present appears to be a single argument from authority when you write

"I am told that van Fraasens grasp of the mathematics involved in interpreting Quantum Mechanics is intimidating. It may not be wise to dismiss him so easily."

You are told? Well what is the argument you are presenting then? Merely waving about van Fraasens name. Not an argument at all, anything other than an argument from authority. Which amounts to very little of course.

While my grasp of the mathematics of the Standard Model is modest, quantum mechanics is involved in just about anything I do for a living. My understanding of the math of it is much better. So why, instead of waving names about, don't you present your argument about the mathematics of QM or give some more detail about your argument about the reality of things depending on whether they can be picked up by sensory perception. I promise you I'll look at it very thoroughly. I'll carefully consider every thought in it, triple check every equation down to the last bracket or square. Looking forward to it.

But it's not going to happen, is it? Just more content-free anti-science, anti-knowledge, obscured in a very thin, serious sounding wrapping paper meant to give it a veneer of acceptability. Too transparent Graham.

For some more confirmation of how your position is just anti-thinking and anti-knowledge in disguise, look at your humongously double standards. You're actually trying to cast doubt on any science not brought to us by sensory perception. If we can't see/smell/hear/touch it, you would have us think it's not true. You think the idea of there being a god is true. Care to tell us what hair style god has, how big his ears are, does he have a loud booming voice, and does jesus have smelly armpits or not? Since you think they're real, obviously you've seen, heard, or smelled them, right?

Or would you just be another believer who is into this very negative, unconstructive habit of talking down science you are almost entirely ignorant of, while giving a free pass to the wildest ideas? That's it, isn't it?



Again, I'll be happy to eat my words if you come up with a detailed presentation, your own presentation, of your broad unspecific FUD claims against science.

Brian

So, much the of attention on Richard Dawkins in this last few years hasn't been on his treatment of religion?

OK, if you say so.

And remember, I didn't say he hadn't made great contributions to Science.

"If he is remembered for his 'ridicule' of religion, that certainly won't be his fault."

Nothing to do with him putting thoughts in people's heads then?

OK.

And what various thoughts do you have when you see a rainbow?

I presume there are a variety...

Les

The two world views may well have collided at times, but that does not mean that they must. I take it, though, that Faraday's science is questionable.

Of course, if the God of the bible is analogous with Santa, then perhaps we ought to think again, but it's a poor comparison.

However back to the rainbow, are you telling me that you only think scientifically about it? You sort of omitted to tell me.

Hello petermorrow,

Documentaries about things like the Standard Model of particle physics for a general audience are indeed very few. An exception would be the 3 part series 'Atom' that the BBC aired:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/atom.shtml

It's not about the Standard Model, but you might find it interesting. I looked at YouTube. It seems you can watch it there, although it's chopped up into many parts. As a search term on YouTube I typed in 'Atom Khalili', the latter is the name of the presenting professor.

Closer to the Standard Model, I also did a bit of searching and found a website about particles you might find interesting:

https://www.particleadventure.org/

The part about detectors would hopefully answer some of your questions about how particles are detected.

Then a few specific issues.

How we can experience electrons: we can't hear them, see them individually, etc. There is one way of experiencing them, but it's not a pleasant one: go out into the country side until you see some cows closed in by an electrified fence, then pea against the fence.
I'm not financially liable for any medical care or undertaker bills resulting from the experiment btw.

Photons can be generated in a variety of ways. One is to let a current flow through a thin metal wire, thereby heating it (as in an old light bulb), or set something on fire, again heating it. You see the light coming of a lamp or fire because photons from the fire/lamp hit your eyes.

In a more controlled way, light with specific photon energies (or wavelengths, think of it as the color of light) can be generated by letting electrons pass through an electric field.
We start with two metal objects (say plates) with an electric field between them. Just connect the opposite ends of a battery to either plate and there will be a small field between them. Connect many batteries in series and there will be a stronger field between them. Then we shine some light (doesn't have to be of one specific wavelength, can be 'oridinary' light) on the negatively charged plate. Some of the photons will free electrons from the metal plate into separate particles. These free electrons are then accelerated by the electric field towards the other plate. As they travel through the field, they pick up energy from the field. Once they hit the other plate, this energy is transformed into a photon. The interesting bit is that the energy of the photon is proportional to the field between the plates. So that allows us to tune the wavelength of the photons. Just set the voltage to the right value.

I'm not a 100% sure, but I think this is how the x-rays used in airport luggage scanners are generated.

You asked if we needed photons to observe the photons we fire. The answer is no. Photons that come off something we experiment on, are visible to our eyes by themselves. If they have a wavelength that is in the visible spectrum for the human eye, that is.
It might be interesting to note there that some animal have eyes that are sensitive to wavelengths different from our eyes. If wavelengths are a bit longer than those we can see, the light is in the infrared part of the spectrum. We can't see that. We can feel the heat on our skin, but we can't see it. Animals like some snakes can. They can therefore 'see heat'.

Finally I'll echo others who mentioned Dawkins' earlier work. He hasn't been a full time atheist all his career. Only in recent years in fact. I read two of his books, The god delusion and The selfish gene. If you like nature documentaries, you would probably find The selfish gene a very interesting read. Apart from a few swipes at creationism, sometimes literally confined to footnotes, it's almost purely a very interesting read about how genetics play out in our behaviour. The chapter on genetics in insects in particular is fascinating. I found the first few chapters less interesting but well worth reading through to get to the good part.

Peter

PeterKlaver,

Thankyou.

And I will follow up on the links you have given me.

Peter M:

"So, much the of attention on Richard Dawkins in this last few years hasn't been on his treatment of religion?"

Let’s be quite clear. This attention has been focused in so small part by theists who don't like what he is saying or the success of his book. It was YOU who complained about him not explaining science to non-scientists.

Recall your words:

"Maybe if he (Dawkins) and others, spent as much time and energy in bringing the science to a popular audience as they have done in lampooning religion, we would all understand more, and he would do more good".

Now the point is that The God Delusion was published in 2006. For 30 years before, Dawkins was doing precisely what you have accused of not doing. It is NOT his fault if you paid absolutely no attention to what he wrote UNTIL he criticised religion.

Which rather raises the question: if you are genuinely interested in the science, then why on earth have you not read any of his other books?

Peter

I was about to call your last post silly and immature, but I suppose I started that. Let's start again, if we can.

Yes, I did go into a bit of a rant, and I apologised for that. I'm quite happy to make a little bit of a fool of myself, if it means that I don't have to directly state what I am feeling. You really leave me no choice but to outline why I was so frustrated by your posts.

I am not in the least bit intimidated by the fact that you can do sums. (And therein lies an appeal to authority). It's the interpretation of the Mathematics that is at issue(see question 1 below). Furthermore it is deeply frustrating to be critiqued for holding a position that you do not in fact hold. And then be told that Christians cannot talk about science.
As to my reaction to critical thinking, ask Brian or Helio (by the way, is Brian allowed to talk about science?) I did not detect any critical thinking in your posts, just misinterpretations of my statements (which due to their forcefulness others are now adopting).
However you will not allow critical thinking about the truth claims of Science. You seem to have an unreflective, unthinking acceptance of Scientific Truth claims. You also deliberately ignore the fact that I believe that Science is reliable and truth telling. In other words, I believe that good arguments can be advnced against those who are agnostic about electrons etc. But keep in mind it will do no good to repeat the experimental results; it's the interpretation of those experiments that is at issue.
I have told you several times that it is Helio, an atheist, who is the consistent empiricist - who is agnostic about the truth value of Scientific Theories. Now he is a trained scientist, and I have a lot of respect for him. So I was infuriated to see you dismiss his views with a simplistic accounts of scientific discovery. I also note that you consistently avoid challenging him on this issue. Marcus has views that seem more nuanced - but again you refuse to challenge him. This is ironic - I lack scientific training, yet they don't respond with "Oh, you've got to believe me, I'm a Scientist" when I challenge their views. You have scientific training, yet you will not debate them. And you had your opportunity after you accused me of adopting PB's mantle.
You also conveniently refuse to look at the views of Hawking, Van Fraasen, Popper etc. That's a refusal to accept criticism.

And then to have the temerity to describe the electron as a particle - it makes a person want to weep. (Maybe you hold to the De Broglie Bohm interpretation. If so, you should have said so. Otherwise, in the context of a debate about the interpretation of Scientific Theories, that's unforgivable.)
As to my arrogance, I made it very clear - I was denigrating your knowledge of philosophy, not advancing my own as authoritative. Brian and others on the site have a much clearer grasp of philosophy than I. And if you had bothered to skim through my previous comments on Will and Testament you would have seen that I have said this several time in the past.
Now let's look at the substantial issues that you have dodged.

1) Is the electron a particle? Do you hold to the De Broglie-Bohm interpretation? Can the wave function be interpreted realistically? Just curious. If you hold to the Copenhagen interpretation you are back to some form of empiricism. (My bet is that you are too busy calculating and applying for research grants to have an opinion).
2) Why should we infer to unobserved entities? (a) After all, when we do we are quite often wrong. If you are going to make inductive inferences, shouldn't you make a pessimistic induction about scientific theories? That most have turned out to be false -and that most will turn out to be false.
(b) Can you understand that philosophers who remain agnostic about Theoretical Entities are actually being more rigorous than those who accept them? Such inferences are always underdetermined by the evidence, but our observations are not.
(c) That as a simple matter of logic there are unlimited hypotheses that we have not considered, some of which explain data just as well, and presumably some explain it better? In other words, you could be committing a "base rate" fallacy when evaluating the success of Science? (d) That if false scientific theories can be accepted for social reasons, then the same can be said for scientific claims we consider to be true?

Now I think arguments can be advanced against all of these arguments against Scientific Realism. But they are substantial arguments, and I will not allow you to dismiss the views of posters that I have come to respect a great deal.

Graham Veale

Peter M

The two books I rely on for my understanding of Quantum Physics

"Quantum: a Guide for the Perplexed" Jim Al-Khalili

"A Beginners Guide: Quantum Physics" Alistair I. M. Rae

This is as advanced as my mathematics gets.

G Veale

Brian
I certainly wasn't referring to you when I was commenting on Humanist rhetoric. And if that 20 part series is online I'll take a read.
I think that Scientific knowledge can be defended on causal realist lines, and I am very grateful for an accurate reading of my position. Pure Empiricism seems untenable. However, if you want to say "make as few metaphysical presuppositions as possible" I think you have a rational position. It seems to sacrifice explanatory coherence and power to explanatory simplicity. But I don't know of any way we can rationally decide if that is a bad exchange.

Thankyou for a refreshing dose of sanity.

G Veale

For challenges and replies to Scientific Realism - neither written by a "believer", neither anti-science - I found these articles helpful.


https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/dept/lipton_truth_about_science.pdf

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

I appreciate how clever scientists are - but the focus is, of necessity, on the detail. Philosophy looks at a bigger picture. So the two cannot ignore each other. It is also unwise to keep history out of our understanding of the world.

GV

Graham:

The series is unfortunately not online as it was written before we developed a website.


I think we both agree that we do a disservice to our understanding, and to philosophy, if we 'explain' the world around us merely by appeals to 'common sense', which in my experience is not that common anyway.

Brian;

"?It IS conceptually impossible to think about or discuss anything which is, in principle, outside of any possible knowledge or inquiry. That is tautological?.

It take it you are not referring to a God here. He, of course, is an exception to your own rule."

Brian, God is not irrational, or outside of any knowledge or inquiry. He can be known through creation, but not in himself. I can again use the analogy of logic......the axioms of logic are not proven logically, or "known" logically, but they can be adverted to in their bearing on logical expression.

To refer to one single source of rationality outside of the rational universe is not the same as referring to an infinity of possible "irrationan beings" or "pockets of irrationality"....I have explained before, any apparent pockets of irrationality are still capable of being characterised, differentiated and identified.

Anything that cannot be characterised, differentiated or identified must be unique, one and self-sufficient.

To posit a possible infinity of completely irrational "beings" is to fall into the Kantian category error of positing noumena as actual "things" when there is no rational ground for doing so.

"But your position is frankly stupid. It amounts to saying: "it is possible to understand the universe rationally because it is rational, therefore God exists"."

That is my position. i don't think it is stupid. how else would you explain rationality itself? the universe IS rational, in its totality. It makes more sense to assume that that rationality has a rational source than to suggest that rationality springs from chaos.


"Actually, we could more reasonably argue: if we could prove that God existed by our reason, then there would be good objective evidence for his existence, but since there is no such evidence, he probably does not exist."

But it is precisely the nature of our reason that must presuppose an objective measure of rationality. If there is no objective measure of rationality outside of rationality itself, then everything is as rational as everything else....i.e., also as IRRATIONAL as everything else.

"My position is perfectly rational."

Yet you have no notion of any sense of a measure of rationality.

"It says that it MAY not be ordered or rational but there MAY be pockets of rationality within it."

Tell me, can you rationally assert that the universe MAY have pockets of "irrationality"....? If so, those pockets of irrationality are included in the intelligible whole "the universe".

"In those aspects where it is not rational or ordered, then indeed there is very little beyond that that we can say, at the moment at any rate."

What do we mean by "not rational or ordered"? Have you a rational conception of what that means? If so, it falls within the scope of the rational totality of the universe.


"It is you who know the secret of the universe."

I don't, I'm merely making the argument that there is one.

Brian

It's a shame about that series.

I'm pretty sure that the problems of induction can only be solved if we presuppose an ordered universe, and the existence of real entities existing on a higher order than quarks and leptons (ie. in many cases the whole really is more than the sum of the parts).
As to what most practicing scientists believe, I'd be surprised if they give the problem of induction a lot of thought. I imagine that they would appeal to "common sense".
But like you have said, common sense clashes with the scientific view of the world - and we don't have to go to the quantum level. Most people believe that there really is a colour red, and that other people have intentions. The scientific world-view can only admit particles and their interactions.
Now of course philosophy can bridge the gap. I think that we should retain as much of the common sense world and the scientific world as possible(following Scruton and O'Hear). Others may opt for the scientific world (the later Quine). Others may pay have more faith in our sense experiences than Scientific postulates (van Fraasen). We can say that the particles are ultimate, but that real properties supervene on them (Elliott Sober and many others). Or we can say that all this theorising is a waste of time, and just hold to what is practically useful (Goodman, the early Quine). I don't thin that one knock-down argument will win the day for any one approach.
But what is clear is that Science cannot validate itself, and that we cannot make the simplistic assumption that to ask questions about Science, and how it relates to other beliefs and common experience, is to be anti-science.

Graham Veale

Rereading that post I noticed a horrible mistake - Goodman/Quine would NOT say theorising was a waste of time - quite the opposite in fact. Rather endless speculation about the truth value of our theories was not nearly so important as considering their usefulness.
In one famous passage Quine refers to the myth of objects in the external world, saying that the difference between this myth and Homer's is that the former works.
Whether this coheres with his later work is beyond me.
GV

Brian/Les
I've re-read PK's post 78. It's just a horrible misreprsentation of everything I've been arguing for and to from day one on this blog. It also seems to have led Les, who doesn'y post here often, to misunderstand my position.

Thank you Brian for taking the time to read what I actually wrote, and responding with a careful criticism. Hopefully Les can take your word that I am not denigrating Scientific knowledge. I'm just trying to tease out how Les justifies his trust in Science (or to put it another way, how does he explain the success of Science. Something about humans, and something about the world, and something about their relationship need to be true for science to work. There's no mystery to the Christian, Muslim etc. Les seemed to be taking a hard empiricist line - I then found out this wasn't what he held to, quoting Russell. I'm curious to know more. The put-downs can be fun, but it is always good to hear another perspective.)

G Veale

Hi Brian

I'm trying to figure out whether or not to respond to your post 83.

Sort of hard to escape the thought that's most things on this thread (and the God on Trial one come to think of it) are my fault!!

I mean, bluff, illiteracy, removal of posts... but I suppose it makes a change from blaming God!!

You're pretty defensive of Mr. D, almost religiously so!!

BTW That wasn't my response!

And please note that this comment is littered with exclamation marks.

Brian
When you say that the universe may contain rationality, are you drawing on Hume's idea that the universe we know may be a local area of order in an infinite sea of disorder?
If so this would take some of the strangeness out of the claim.

G Veale

Bernard:

You say that the universe is rational but don't claim to know its 'secret'. That's an interesting juxtaposition.

Graham:

You also make the unjustified assumption that "we presuppose an ordered universe".

We do nothing of the sort. As I have said before, the words 'rational' and 'ordered' are human constructs. The patterns, the categories, the mathematics are tools scientists use for manipulating the world around us.

They may apply to some part of the universe, but most scientists would say that the universe is also chaotic and random.

Are you two saying that there is NO chaos or randomness in the universe at all?

Graham:

Just read your post after I wrote mine. I said something like that repeatedly on the otheri thread! However, I don't claim to know which is more prevalent: the order or disorder. I will leave that to the scientists. I imagine they will disagree on the degree of order and disorder (they don't know 'the secret' either), but I also imagine they would say that both are there.

Graham:

Let me say that I think one of the main problems that theists have is that a lot of shit happens. Yet you believe that God is good. Therefore, he couldn't possibly do anything that is 'irrational' or evil'. So you have to argue that the universe is 'rational' and that somehow or other everything that happens is part of his 'rational' plan, however strange it may seem to us.

The other day I accidentally crushed a bee while out walking the dog. It was probably dying anyway. But 'no one' planned that it should die that way. It happened 'randomly'.

In the same way we die 'randomly'. There is no 'logic' or 'reason' behind the fact that a close friend of mine died in his twenties, while forty years later I am still here.

Nature can be 'cruel' that way. But there is no grand puppeteer of it. Of that, I am pretty sure.

Brian;

Talk of "order" and "disorder" is muddying the waters....I am not claiming that the universe is perfectly ordered, well-designed, or totally structured.

I am suggesting that it is "rational"....it is open to the rational inquiry of humans. I'm suggesting that reality is the object of a true judgment.

Now, occassionally, I suggest, we DO know reality...when that is the case we do so by making a judgment. Those things that we don't yet know, we don't yet make a judgment on. However, this in itself is a rational decision.

So I'm not suggesting that we know the entire scope of rationality in the universe, and find it to be beautifully designed.

I'm suggesting that the human mind demands to know...and that its object is unlimited. Even if there are pockets of disorder and un-structured-ness, we can rationally posit such pockets, if we have any evidence to suggest that they might exist. In rationally positing pockets of disorder, we define them and thus bring them into the scope of rationality.

If we have no reason to posit such pockets of irrationality, there probably are none.

Graham:

Bernard thinks you are 'muddying the waters' by 'pressuposing an ordered universe'.

Do I detect a sudden split in the ranks?

Ha, actually, it was you who were muddying the waters, by conflating my assertion of a "rational" universe with Graham's assertion of an ordered universe.

We may well mean the same thing, but for the purposes of my debate with you, it helps to clear up precisely what I mean.