Now look at this statement from the top of the article, placed there with no aparent sense of irony:
I see nothing about the human mind any more than about the weather that stands out as beyond the hope of understanding as a consequence of impersonal laws acting over billions of years.
Steven Weinberg,
1979 Nobel Laureate in Physics
"Impersonal laws" are a Trojan Horse for atheism.
Weinberg has reached a completely ascientific conclusion. He has stepped boldly into metaphysics with that staterment, and about the mind of man, no less. Science can not inform us about purpose in the Universe, nor whether the laws of it are personal or not.
Hilarity ensues when the author of this otherwise reasonable critique of the nonscientific underpinnings of I.D. unwittingly chooses to highlight Weinberg's equally egregious revelation.
Design an experiment utilizing the scientific method to test whether the natural laws of the Universe are impersonal or not.
If it can't be done, then the assertion of "impersonal laws" by Weinberg is non-falsifiable.
I see nothing about the human mind any more than about the weather that stands out as beyond the hope of understanding as a consequence of impersonal laws acting over billions of years.
The scientific enterprise is the attempt to understand the laws which govern the appearances of the natural world. This attempt proceeds by trying to make the smallest number of hypotheses necessary to account for the phenomena. The leap to 'explanation by deity' is such a huge one, and is so far-reaching in its explanatory presumption, that it explains nothing. Any phenomenon at all can be deemed understood with the utterance of the phrase, "That's the way God made it". That's just not science.
Would you suggest that studies of brain function and consciousness (and also perhaps studies of the weather) should be abandoned? I hope not.
Yes!!! Excellent insight sir!
"I see nothing about the human mind any more than about the weather that stands out as beyond the hope of understanding as a consequence of impersonal laws acting over billions of years." "I see nothing..." says Steven Weinberg, but actually, I think it was Sgt Schultz who said it first....and with a lot more feeling.
It's true, Weinberg is proudly standing on his own limited apprehension. But for him to extrapolate that observation, to make a "proof" statment that nothing outside his apprehension exists...well, he should have stuck with "I see nothing".
Thanks for your observation!
It brings to mind the famous perversion of Newton's quote posted upon some graduate student's door:
The reason I cannot see as far as others is that giants are standing on my shoulders.
Non-sequitur. What Weinberg said is "I don't see why the mind can't be understood, in principle." That's the attitude any scientist must take. It has nothing to do with metaphysics. Either the mind is understandable or it is not. Until the mind is proven not to be understandable--a very tall order--we must proceed as if it will someday yield to our probing. To do otherwise is to abandon science.
And whether the mind is understandable or not, I don't see how any of this has to do with atheism. If the mind turns out to be made of only springs and gears, that has nothing to do with whether God exists.
Bravo. As someone who has sometimes battled creationist forces in a school, I can say that scientists constantly shoot themselves in the foot with statements like that. The people I deal with can't tell whether a theory is well supported or not but they instantly recognize a hostile theological position. If the Weinbergs and Dawkins' of this world didn't exist, the creationists would have to invent them.
Remove me from your ping list.