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Topic: SciAm (Read 947 times) |
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Hermit
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SciAm
« on: 2002-05-11 13:35:23 » |
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In a meandering and often confusing article (not to say confused article) W. Wayt Gibbs in Berkeley, Calif quoted Einstein as having said "science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Deliberately or otherwise, he appears to have attempted to couple this sound-bite with a belief in a personal god or gods. While this form of slanderous attack is often perpetuated on Einstein, who is no longer around to defend himself, it is worthwhile refuting it as inferior minds frequently attempt to bend the opinion of Einstein in a vain attempt to provide legitimacy to their ramblings.
The quotation should be read in the context of Einstein's clear exposition of his personal belief system. "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." [Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side"]
Trying to find the basis for the pretty graphic associated with the article was even more challenging. There is a lamentable lack of data or references to explain it sitting in gorgeous isolation demonstrating a series of unlabelled "pretty curves". Contrast "Life can evolve here" as shown in the graphic with "and life as we know it could not exist" in the body of the article. While neither of these opinions is substantiated in the article, it did put me in mind of Christians attempting to explain that "Those who are not against us are for us" and "Those who are not for us are against us" really do mean the same thing.
And while a scientist may be "at the top" of his/her field, this is no guarantee of intelligence or even common sense. Your article illustrates this truism fairly conclusively with its blatant lack of a rational basis. This post-modernist (post-rationalist?) thinking has no place in a scientist or philosopher's repertoire. The only valid tools we have to determine truth, are our facilities for observation, critical analysis and reasoning. Once we deny their capability to evaluate phenomena, we give up our ability to differentiate between the reasonable and unreason. Fairies at the bottom of the garden become as valid as the idea of an insane god slaughtering his own offspring in an alleged attempt to appease his own anger at a couple long dead....
Any unbiased investigator reading the key religious texts of the world will soon realize that the gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had supposedly created, but imagined them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives (and from what I can see, ethically), they were far inferior to the average of American presidents.
This is what W. Wayt Gibbs seems to be implying American Scientists are turning to. Fortunately not any American Scientists I know, Mr Gibbs. And if once reputable organizations like Scientific American did not provide a platform for this kind of pseudo-scientific babble, intelligent amateurs might not be as doubting of the ability of Americans and of Scientists to tell when they are being taken for a ride.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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