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To: marron; betty boop
"Philosophy is a natural extension of science. A good scientist needs to be a bit of a philosopher."

"After all, philosophy is basically analysis, extracting meaning from what we see, and projecting meaning out beyond what we can see. If science gathers the data, it is philosophy that analyses it and formulates the new questions for further investigation."

"Its a natural part of the process, and a really good scientist, the ones who go for the big questions, have to walk on the wild side."

That was, I believe, more or less Einstein's attitude on the matter.

862 posted on 04/23/2006 1:48:33 PM PDT by YHAOS
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To: YHAOS; Alamo-Girl; marron; hosepipe; AndrewC; Slingshot
That was, I believe, more or less Einstein's attitude on the matter.

Yep. And I do believe that Niels Bohr saw it that way, too. But Bohr added a fascinating fillip: If a scientific discovery could not be articulated in common language such that even a non-scientist could understand it, then science has not fulfilled its obligation to society, with the implication that quite possibly the final test of the worthiness of a scientific theory has not been met.

Bohr's ideas are so worthy of further study. I mean to pursue that, in due course, with a little help from my friends. :^)

Thanks so much for writing, YHAOS!

895 posted on 04/23/2006 3:35:17 PM PDT by betty boop (The world of Appearance is Reality’s cloak -- "Nature loves to hide.")
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