Comments on: Philosophy and Cosmology: Day Three

By: Alain A.

Alain A. — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:53:11 +0000

Ian, most scientists are not interested in debating with the religious, which is why you won’t see much reaction to your comments here. Reason cannot be applied to theology, because theology requires faith, and faith cannot be explained rationally. Those are two very separate domains. The problem with scientists is that they often let people like you get away with disseminating the idea that religion has to do with science to the masses without reacting and that’s why, in the end, you win – because no one answers. And no one will answer to the obscenity you just posted, except me, because I’m not a scientist hehehe. Their attitude is comparable to an adult with children – after 25 questions, sometimes the only answer is “yes, my dear, yes yes” in order to be able to pursue with more serious work

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:22:00 +0000

@25 Again late in the day so I appreciate you may not see this response.

“Lemaitre always emphasised that it was scientific reasoning not his religion that let to his proposing an expanding universe.” I agree – but you cannot deny that he was a theologian too, who just happened to come up with the answer. If you apply reason in science then you apply reason in theology.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:18:26 +0000

@22 – This is late in the day so I you may not see this response.

“…but “creation out of nothing” is a fairly simple concept to understand”. But sadly Einstein didn’t get it, and neither did Hoyle. Was it so simple to understand?

By: chemicalscum

chemicalscum — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:21:53 +0000

@17

Lemaitre always emphasised that it was scientific reasoning not his religion that let to his proposing an expanding universe. When asked where in science one might find evidence for God, he thought about it for some time and finally replied “psychology”.

It seems to me that Lemaitre was a good mathematical relativist who followed relativity theory where it leads. Perhaps Everett taking QM seriously is similar in that sense.

By: Tina

Tina — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:04:19 +0000

Some of the ideas about multiple universes are very questionable. And the problem is created by scientists who do not differentiate between observable phenomenon versus theoretically unobservable phenomenon that is not theoretically necessary (i.e. fiction). I could give many examples but just read Thomas Neil Neubert’s new book A Critique of Pure Physics. He calls 11-dimensional spacetime sound; but he calls overzealous mathematical extrapolation fantasy physics. He gets very specific, suggesting that LIGO is the most important null experiments since Michelson-Morley; and he gives a simple and convincing calculation that shows that the gravitational redshift is sufficient to account for Hubble’s law. I wish someone with more credibility than me would comment on this calculation; because it he is right; it changes everything. My point is that science, when it doesn’t stick to the science and begins to talk about the fiction i.e. time travel and mutliple parallel universe in which an almost identicle copy of you and me exist; well science just does itself a disservice and looses credibility and becomes a modern form of alchemy or astrology.

By: Arun

Arun — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:46:42 +0000

Best comment award: my vote goes to Thomas Larsson.

By: Alain A.

Alain A. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:22:01 +0000

@17: “Religion takes a great deal of understanding”.

You may have other examples, but “creation out of nothing” is a fairly simple concept to understand. I don’t see anything complicated in the answers provided by religion. Its very language, across all religions, is simple and aims to convince the largest audience possible. See Vatican’s bank account or televized preachers in the USA to confirm this.

The debate here is highly scientific – I didn’t want to divert from this, only trying to see if you guys agree on the limits of our imagination and brains, and thus conclude to the possibility that the search for truth may be pointless because our tools are biased.

By: Cartesian

Cartesian — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:04:22 +0000

“Remember history: August Comte in 1859 scoffed at the idea we would ever know what stars were made of.”

August Comte was a positivist like too much French are, “In God they do not trust”, so it is difficult to be a scientist in the field of quantum mechanics in this country for some reasons which are well explained by Heisenberg, see :

http://eternal-cartesian.blogspot.com/2009/08/heisenberg-and-god.html

By: Thomas Larsson

Thomas Larsson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:34:40 +0000

The anthropic explanation of the Michelson-Morley experiment: human life is incompatible with non-zero ether wind. Surely the multiverse idea has explanatory power

By: Cranks Anonymous « In the Dark

Cranks Anonymous « In the Dark — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:18:27 +0000

[...] around a series of debates on topics of current interest. See Sean’s posts here, here and here for expert summaries of the three days of the [...]