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Re: [Phys-l] God as an explanation (WAS: Darwinism, underattack?andthephysicsclassroom)



Hi all-
The conclusions of this posting are possibly true for the purpose of persuading students to learn what I am trying to teach.
Regards,
Jack


On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, kyle forinash wrote:

hi;

When using the term "explanation" it is useful to add "for the purpose
of" before proceeding. A scientific explanation is generally designed
"for the purpose of" understanding or possibly manipulating natural
events. A religious explanation might have a social purpose of helping
us define our moral position or have some psychological purpose for
defining where and who we are in the universe. In general religious
explanations are not very good "for the purpose of" telling us how to
build refrigerators or more efficient cars. The two explanations have
very different purposes which, at least part of the time do not overlap.

When we teach Aristotelian physics in a philosophy class we don't ask
students to believe it but we do ask them to understand it. I think we
can do the same for evolution; students have to understand it whether
they believe it or not. Same with relativity or quantum mechanics; I'm
sure we have all had students, particularly at the intro level who,
after a brilliant explanation of relativity walk away muttering under
their breath "that doesn't make any sense at all". We should expect them
to learn it but we do not need to ask them if they believe it (in fact,
not believing it might be good- they might be driven to find a better
theory).

"Truth" suffers the same bifurcation in meaning that "explanation" does.
In the sciences we are justified in thinking something is "true" if
there is evidence in support of it and we can find no evidence to the
contrary. If we later on find evidence to the contrary we are equally
justified in changing what we think is "true". Religion, on the other
hand, usually presents absolute "truth". While often tons of evidence is
given in support of this truth, it is very difficult (maybe impossible)
to even imagine a situation in which this "truth" could be contradicted
by evidence, which thus makes it absolute.

This contingent idea of "true" and the idea of "for the purpose of"
helps get past the problem of what to do with theories that we still use
but which we know are false, such as Newton's laws. Newton's laws were
"true" in the scientific sense up until Einstein pointed out certain
problems. Yet we are still justified in thinking they are "true" under
certain constrictions (e.g. low speed) or "true for the purpose of"
determining automobile acceleration, for example. Einstein's relativity
is "true" for now but we cannot say true forever or "true for the
purpose of" explaining why humans exist, for example.

Two interesting references (philosophers are way ahead of us on these
issues):
'Knowledge and its place in Nature' Hilary Kornblith
'Truth' Blackburn

kyle



On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, John Clement wrote:

This depends on how the question was asked. One way around this is to
always refer to models, and then to ask questions such as using the
model of
x explain y. After all there are a number of models which explain
various
aspects of physics. With time of course some models are discarded,
modified, or used less. However, I would assume that the question
asked
was
expected to be answered within the context of the course, and that
there
was
an appropriate answer within that context.

Because God wills it is a perfectly good explanation for Newton's
third
law
in an introductory course. The relationship between the interaction
forces
has no explanation. Even Newton resorted to that type of explanation
when
he couldn't figure out why orbits were stable.

This type of answer is usually either a symptom of a poorly asked
question,
or a student who didn't know the appropriate answer.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


What would you do if a student answered a question on your test
with "because God wills it to be that way"?

I suggest asking Brian W, as he has (had) such a student.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_w/2702703072/


bc reads four.



On 2008, Jul 27, , at 22:57, Marc "Zeke" Kossover wrote:

--- On Sun, 7/27/08, paul c. cheffi <cheffi@ROADRUNNER.COM> wrote:

None of this fits into light, sound, energy...
whatever that
is happening in your world. Let the Biology teacher figure
it out.

What would you do if a student answered a question on your test
with "because God wills it to be that way"?

How do you know that your explanations about light, sound, energy,
whatever are true or at least close to being true?

Marc "Zeke" Kossover




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--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley



_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l

_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l






------------------------------

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 10:45:55 -0700
From: Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] God as an explanation (WAS: Darwinism
underattack?andthephysicsclassroom)
To: Forum for Physics Educators <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Cc: Nancy Seese <nancyseese@redshift.com>
Message-ID: <B241A60B-243C-4C8B-9992-3369ECBD39CB@redshift.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; delsp=yes; format=flowed

Can one imagine a universe with out Newtonian axioms? How about a
"parallel" universe with sl. diff. laws? Would beings be at all
similar? Chemistry would be very different?

No need for god or what ever. Just, if it weren't this way, we
wouldn't be asking these questions.

bc devout atheist.

p.s. "... the truth is opaque beyond a certain point." I remember in
fresh. philosophy being led down the explanation path to "opacity" ?
la Socrates


On 2008, Aug 01, , at 09:43, David Whitbeck wrote:

Actually it is perfectly fine for an introductory course. Well
obviously not a discussion of classical field theory, but in the
honors introductory course that I took as a freshman we were
exposed to the idea that the conservation laws go hand in hand with
symmetries.

Ah but saying something to the effect of "there is symmetry in the
laws of physics" trumps "god built our brains to make it seem that
way" because the latter is not more fundamental, it moves the wrong
way up the chain of causal explanations. We're left open with the
possibility that god created our brains to merely perceive symmetry
*where none exists*. At least the former explanation asserts a
property of the universe, the latter is closer to being the absence
of an assertion, being much closer to a metaphysical argument with
no substance that can't be argued for or against.

I agree that at any level you can just ask "why?" and answer with
the g word. And somewhere in the process eventually science will
stop being able to produce explanations. It's like reaching the
surface of last scattering, the truth is opaque beyond a certain
point. But if at that point what you finally reach is intuitively
obvious, shouldn't that be acceptable? I thought the point is to
be able to explain processes (and of course make predictions) in
terms of simple principles that we hold to be true. If we question
our ability to even perceive truth and falsify claims, we would be
forced to decide that the scientific enterprise is a waste of time,
because the whole endeavor is predicated on our assumed ability to
make these kind of judgments.

David Whitbeck



--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley