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

One really needs to know the exact antecedent to "it" to answer the
question.

As to science, there are beliefs, convictions, or paradigms which scientists
use. Indeed there there are no absolute proofs of many of these things. So
this is certainly in some ways similar to religion. I already named that we
have faith that experiments are in principle repeatable, and that the laws
we create are applicable to other places in the universe under the same
conditions. Einstein had faith that a beautiful theory had to be correct.

The problem is when one tries to explicitly use religious beliefs to
generate the laws and models of science, or when you use science to prove or
disprove religion. The conflicts occur when the religion claims that
specific writings are absolute descriptions of physical reality. This sort
of conflict happened with Galileo and Copernicus, and some groups have not
learned the lesson that came out of that situation.

So both religion and science have moved on. But some churches have retained
an absolutist Fundamentalist view of their writings. This comes up against
the scientific views and conflict ensues. To a certain extent this can be
defused by teaching students that science creates models of the physical
world not "truth".

One can be a good solid state physicist and believe that the world is on
6000 years old, because these do not come in conflict. But to believe in
geology and not in evolution is cutting the line finer. Essentially the
individual compartmentalizes the two things. But one can not be a good
astronomer and believe in the Young Earth idea. One can not be a good
biologist and disbelieve evolution. It might be possible to be a good
biologist and an anti-evolutionist if you were an experimentalist studying
say diseases that affect certain species. But a biological theoretician
would need evolution as part of their model for how things got to be the way
they are.

In any case a good scientist can not use sacred writings as a guide to their
models. Sacred writings have been useful as just one possible source for
historical events, but not generally for science. So the mainline churches
have long interpreted most of the writings as spiritual and not as
scientific primers. Nobody would question the idea that Shakespeare's
writings are not a scientific primer, but many want to force others to
accept their writings as a guide to science.

On our part we need to teach students in such a way that they understand
where our ideas come from, and that these ideas are not absolute truth, but
provisional models. That would help students greatly, and at the same time
help defuse the anti-science rhetoric. Also, students need to learn how to
use critical thinking. Since the majority of HS and college graduates do
not test at the formal operational level, it is difficult for them to
understand science. The formal operational level is defined in terms of
scientific/mathematical tests.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



But is it true?

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
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