[Hank Kerchief]

Someone needed to say it.

[Hank Kerchief]

PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Hank

[TomServo]

Here.

[Ichneumon]

Already posted.

[Batrachian]

Historical fun fact: Isaac Newton was a lifelong virgin.

[shrinkermd]

Someone should tell Mr. Harriman that Isaac Newton wrote extensively on theological matters.

[BIGZ]

Junk Science? Global warming, Silicone breast implants, second hand smoke, Bill and Hillary, Liberals in general.

[ElkGroveDan]

The same is true of economics.

I actually once stood in the back of the California State Assembly chamber 10 feet from a very prominent Democrat who declared during a debate" "Your republican theories of supply and demand work nicely in economics classes, but what is all that going to do to put more food on people's tables? We need to step in and regulate the prices of the necessities of life so that more people can afford their fair share."

She's a very powerful State Senator now.

[GeekDejure]

Sooooooooo . . . that's why all these Islamic Newton creatures are running around the planet chopping off fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, ears, noses, tongues, heads, etc., etc., etc. !!!

.

[SoDak]

I just finished reading my first Ayn Rand book. I was blown away.

[ModelBreaker]

Someone needed to say it.

To say what? That this article is nonsense? The person who wrote it understands little or nothing about the physics he criticizes.

Considering the source, I guess that he has deduced, directly and inexorably from a=a that the theory of relativity and the general model of physics is just metaphysical claptrap. Ignore the fact that both theories have impressive experimental proof and make predictions that test out fine. Ignore that because the theories aren't stylishly 'objective.'

[Restorer]

Real knowledge is the hard-won reward of a step-by-step process that takes us from observations to abstractions, generalizations and theories.

A very limiting approach. Quantum mechanics could never have been developed this way. Without QM, no transistors or computers.

[desertcry]

But who is to say what is and when it is rational? What is rational (by most people in science} today, was not yesterday, and may not be again tomorrow.

[Restorer]

Although.

Today, physicists suppose that a particle can travel many different paths simultaneously, or travel backwards in time, or randomly pop into and out of existence from nothingness.

What is the author's evidence that such particles do not exist? His being offended by these propositions does not constitute evidence against them.

A great many well-proven facts of subatomic physics have no correlation whatever to traditional "common-sense."

They enjoy treating the entire universe as a "fluctuation of the vacuum," or as an insignificant member of an infinite ensemble of universes, or even as a hologram. The fabric of this strange universe is a non-entity called "spacetime," which expands, curves, attends yoga classes, and may have twenty-six dimensions.

The theories of relativity are based on this concept called "spacetime." Its general truth is remarkably well attested by experiment. Apparently the author is offended that it doesn't comply with his common sense. I suggest that the universe really doesn't care whether he agrees with it or not.

[DannyTN]

Physics under attack bump.

[Constantine XIII]

I sincerely doubt that this guy has bothered to read any actual litterature outside of Scientific American. From the tone of the article, my first inclination is to guess that the author doesn't know an integral from an elbow. (IOW, he sounds like someone talking out of his posterior orifice)

Look, I'm a guy who makes fun of the theorists all the time, but there is a method behind their madness. What "intellectuals" like this guy doesn't see and would never try to understand is that all these "wacky" theories are just new ways to package what we already know in a different mathematical formalism. Theoretical physicists use new mathematical methods to describe a possible universe, throw in some realistic parameters, and see if what comes out looks like the universe we live in. The best ones give unusual solutions that we can test in the lab or look for through a telescope. When we talk about the universe "as a hologram" or whatever, it is an attempt to help those unfamiliar with 11-dimensional membranes, supersymmetry, and gauge theory visualise what might be going on.

While some of these guys do take themselves too seriously, most physicists do not. The theorists blaze the trail for experimentalists who will test these new ideas. If new experimental data doesn't rule an idea out, whoopie! If it does, we go back to the drawing board. That is how science works.

It is so much easier for people to get a philosophy degree and gripe all day about these things rather than actually think about them. That's why we have liberals... :oP

[B-Chan]

Isaac Newton called for an end to such lunacy. He famously declared that he "framed no hypotheses"—meaning that he dismissed any idea that was unsupported by observational evidence

1. No, he didn’t. He believed in God, for example.

2. The statement “only ideas that are supported by observational evidence are true” cannot be demonstrated to be true on the basis of observational evidence. Thus the statement is self-refuting and false. QED.

Ayn Rand — the Lenin of the American Right.

[RightWhale]

You don't need to understand the root truths of science to do good science any more than a musician needs to understand music theory completely in order to create great music. Somebody ought to understand root truths, and that's what philosophers are for.

[netman]

WELL, All I can tell you is I listen to Art Bell so as never to get confsued...??

[beavus]

I wonder what the O-ist interpretation of wave-particle duality is.

[Little Ray]

Personally, I cringe every time I see an advertisement for a Palmist or psychic. Generally indicates that I'm in an area facin' hard times.

BTW: How many folks know that ol' Isaac was into alchemy and other forms o' mysticism?