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Re: [Phys-l] Richard Dawkins Answers Reddit Questions



But is it true?
Regards,
Jack

"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




On Wed, 17 Nov 2010, William Robertson wrote:

The statement indicates that people with religious habits and ways of
knowing are significantly handicapped, meaning they somehow are unable
to decouple their religious beliefs and the scientific enterprise.
Seems insulting to people with religious beliefs, to me.

Bill


William C. Robertson, Ph.D.


On Nov 16, 2010, at 10:38 PM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

Seems like an analytic statement to me. Define religious habits and
especially ways of knowing, compare w/ scientific habits and ways of
knowing and you'll find they are incompatible.

bc thinks JM forgot what he wrote, and (bc) sometimes has great
difficulty understanding the religious mind.

p.s. I don't think it's anti-religious; it's just don't expect to
get very far using religious methods in the lab. Just like don't
expect to get very far using arithmetik to solve a differential
equation -- well not very good example, as one can use numerical
methods which are arithmetik. If it were a good example, would
anyone believe my statement was an attack against arithmeticians?

Initially string theorists were compared to believers, because their
results were not testable; well that's changed according to G. Kane
(current PT).

On 2010, Nov 16, , at 15:13, William Robertson wrote:

You stated:

but I would maintain that anyone who brings traditional religious
habits and "ways of knowing" into the lab with them, at the very
least
operates under a very significant handicap.


Okay, so I substituted severe for significant. In what other way
did I
misrepresent what you said?

Bill


William C. Robertson, Ph.D.


On Nov 16, 2010, at 4:10 PM, John Mallinckrodt wrote:

William Robertson wrote:

You state that anyone with religious beliefs is operating under a
severe handicap when doing science.

Nope; sorry. Not what I said. Read it again.

That's not just an unbiased, objective view. It's anti-religion. To
make such a statement as if it's obvious to everyone is rather
arrogant and certainly not fair-minded. I believe that's the kind
of comment that raises Rick's ire.

If you want to take issue with what I said, I'm all ears, but please
don't construct and then attack straw men.

John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona
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Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
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_______________________________________________
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

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