Posted on 08/18/2005 5:16:50 PM PDT by RightWingAtheist
This year contains two notable scientific anniversaries. The one most widely mentioned is the centenary of Albert Einstein’s three trailblazing papers in the German scientific journal Annalen der Physik on the nature of matter, energy, and motion. Those papers opened up broad new territories for exploration by physicists. The discoveries that followed, and the technology that flowed from those discoveries, helped shape the whole 20th century. Radiation therapy and nuclear weapons, the laser and the personal computer, global positioning satellites and fiber-optic cables — all trace at least part of their lineage to Einstein’s papers. The 20th century was the Age of Physics. The first quarter of that century — when dramatic discoveries in the field were coming thick and fast, with theory racing to keep up — was a wonderfully exciting time to be a young physicist.
It seems to me that we are passing from the Age of Physics to the Age of Biology. It is not quite the case that nothing is happening in physics, but certainly there is nothing like the excitement of the early 20th century. Physics seems, in fact, to have got itself into a cul-de-sac, obsessing over theories so mathematically abstruse that nobody even knows how to test them.
The life sciences, by contrast, are blooming, with major new results coming in all the time from genetics, zoology, demography, biochemistry, neuroscience, psychometrics, and other “hot” disciplines. The physics building may be hushed and dark while its inhabitants mentally wrestle with 26-dimensional manifolds, but over at biology the joint is jumpin’. A gifted and ambitious young person of scientific inclination would be well advised to try for a career researching in the life sciences. There is, as one such youngster said to me recently, a lot of low-hanging fruit to be picked. Charles Murray, in his elegant New York Times op-ed piece on the Larry Summers flap (for more on which, see Christina Hoff Sommers elsewhere in this issue), wrote of the “vibrancy and excitement” of scholarship about innate male-female differences, in contrast to the stale, repetitive nature of research seeking environmental sources for those differences. Sell sociology, buy biology.
This fizzing vitality in the life sciences is, as Larry Summers learned, very unsettling to the guardians of political correctness. It is at least as disturbing to some Biblical fundamentalists, which brings me to this year’s second scientific anniversary. The famous “monkey trial” in Dayton, Tenn., happened 80 years ago this summer. John Scopes, a young schoolteacher, was found guilty of violating a state statute forbidding the teaching of evolution theory. Well, well, the wheel turns, and the other day I found myself looking at a newspaper headline that read: “Pa. School Board at the Center of Evolution Debate.” The story concerned the town of Dover, Pa., which was sued by the ACLU in federal court at the end of last year over its incorporation of “intelligent design” (I.D.) arguments in the public-school biology curriculum.
It is odd to be reminded that I.D. is still around. I had written it off as a 1990s fad infecting religious and metaphysical circles, not really touching on science at all, since it framed no hypotheses that could be tested experimentally. The greater part of I.D. is just negative, a critique of the standard model of evolution by natural selection, in which random mutations that add to an organism’s chances of survival and reproduction lead to divergences of form and function and eventually to new species. This theory, said I.D. proponents such as Phillip E. Johnson (Darwin on Trial, 1991), Michael J. Behe (Darwin’s Black Box, 1996), and William A. Dembski (The Design Inference, 1998), is full of conundrums and unexplained gaps — the mechanisms of mutation, for instance, are poorly understood.
Biologists are not much impressed with this critique, since conundrums and gaps are normal features of scientific theories. Atomic theory was in considerably worse shape in this regard when Einstein published his three great papers. A few decades of research clarified matters to the point where the theory’s practical applicability and predictive value could revolutionize human existence. Nor are scientists much impressed by the facts of Behe’s being a biochemist and Dembski’s having done postgraduate work in math and physics. (Johnson is a lawyer.) This just recalls Newton’s fascination with alchemy and Kepler’s work on the Music of the Spheres. Scientists have all sorts of quirky off-duty obsessions.
And I.D. was always off-duty. Scientifically credentialed I.D.-ers have been reluctant to submit their theories to peer review. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University and a critic of I.D., wonders why Behe has never presented his ideas to the annual conference of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, as is his right as a member. As Miller explained, “If I thought I had an idea that would completely revolutionize cell biology in the same way that Professor Behe thinks he has an idea that would revolutionize biochemistry, I would be talking about that idea at every single meeting of my peers I could possibly get to.” Dembski likewise declines to publicize his research through peer-review conferences and journals. His explanation: “I find I can actually get the turnaround faster by writing a book and getting the ideas expressed there. My books sell well. I get a royalty. And the material gets read more.” Ah.
It is not surprising that most working scientists turn away from I.D. with a smile and a shrug. Phillip Johnson, in a 1992 lecture, predicted that Darwinism would “soon” be thoroughly discredited, leading to a “paradigm shift” and a whole new view of biology. Thirteen years later there is not the faintest trace of a sign that anything like this is going to happen. To the contrary, the fired-up young biologists who will revolutionize our lives in these coming decades take the standard evolutionary model for granted, not only because it is an elegant and parsimonious theory, but because I.D. promises them nothing — no reproducible results, no research leads, no fortune-making discoveries in genomics or neuroscience.
If the science of I.D. is a joke, the theology is little better. Its principal characteristic is a flat-footed poverty of imagination. “Don’t eff the Ineffable,” went the sergeant-major’s injunction against blasphemy. With a different reading having nothing to do with blasphemy, effing the Ineffable — what A. N. Whitehead called “misplaced concreteness” — is exactly what the I.D.-ers are up to. Their God is a science-fiction God, a high-I.Q. space alien plodding along a decade or two ahead of our understanding. The God of Judaism and Christianity is infinitely vaster and stranger than that, and far above our poking, groping inquiries into the furniture of our rocky little daytime cosmos. His nature and deeds are as remote from our comprehension as, to quote Darwin himself on this precise point, Newton’s laws are from a dog’s. The prophet Isaiah held the same opinion: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
I.D. had its little hour in the spotlight of public curiosity, and will linger on for a while among those who cannot bear the thought that living tissue might be a part of the natural universe, under natural laws. Neither science nor religion ever had much use for I.D. Both will proceed happily on their ways without it
No, but it's hot stuff with the Muslims:
That figures!
ID? Islam? "Why, let's just step back to the Middle Ages, shall we?"
Gag me with a spoon.
Einstein died in, what, 1955? I don't think details of the Soviet gulag system were generally recognized (in the West) at that time. Solzhenitsyn, for example was not published until the 60's (except for samizdat versions of his early work). He was in a gulag himself until 1953.
I suspect Albert was unaware of the gulag system.
Make up your mind, RWP! From your FR homepage we have: "The Right Wing Professor is currently suffering from acute stupidity poisoning as a result of exposure to the ever increasing levels of religious fundamentalism on this site. He will be off this site from 8/19/05, through 9/4/05, and maybe longer, while he repents of ever having served the GOP in an official capacity."
C'mon, big guy: you're either on the bus or you're off the bus! Can't have it both ways, unless you're currently occupying Schrodinger's box.
Heh heh!
1. Appeal to authority -- apparently a big NO-NO, unless you're quoting a scientist :-)
2. Appealing to an authority on something that isn't even his specialty.
Full Disclosure: Yes, Einstein's IQ was supposedly 220+ . As such, yes, even without a degree in a field, he could happen to know more than many active practitioners, or even (like Feynman) undercut the whole area of study. BUT without advance knowledge of how informed Einstein was on an area, just blindly quoting him is not a good idea.
Einstein's words were never, and I mean never, directed at one military entity, but the soldier in general. For you to claim differently is reading thoughts not put on paper into his words. His miserable pacifist stance never wavered. He never left Germany until after the WW1. He never retracted his opinion of soldiers, nationalism and his wish to die before bearing arms himself however he did say that the worst mistake he ever made was advising Rossevelt to pursue nuclear weapons. Of course he barely did anything to advance that particular project but what the hell.
There are many folks like him right here in todays USA. Those who despise war and the military, vow to never take up arms and living their deluded lives thinking they are the principled heroes who defend freedom.
Oddly enough, in the same war, a certain Alvin York also declined (at first) to fight; even though in his case he was actually fighting for a democracy. I guess he wasn't a great man either. The First World War was the most pointless waste of human life in the entire misbegotten history of this planet. It produced a lot of pacifists.
Your losing contact with reality. Alvin York declined to fight "at first". Albert Einstein said he would rather die than pick up arms in service of his country. You understand the difference Professor? One served, one would rather die than serve.
Whenever you wander outside your chosen field you make very little sense because you are caught in a box of your own making, you defend the indefensible based on the chosen field of the person in question and very little else. Sad Professor.
Still, I can't believe I'm reading a born American criticizing a man for objecting to fight for the Kaiser.
You heard no such thing, you made it up. Or as you and your friends like to say, you're a damnable liar. Did I get that tone about right?
The statement is garbage.
There is no evidence for evolution a process which has either stopped or never happened for instance why dont fishermen develop webbed feet and gills to enhance their survival, why are apes still apes why havent penguins developed a defense from those nasty seals the whole premise of evolution is laughable the laws of nature like gravity are observable, but where is evolution where is any link between serpent and lizard between man and monkey
and if there is a missing link why would it dissappear but the monkey and man live on?
"His miserable pacifist stance never wavered."
Except when he warned "Rossevelt" (sic) that the Allies should pursue Nuclear weapons.
"Those who despise war and the military,"
Would Jesus approve of war? Does that make Einstein a Christian?
"Of course he barely did anything to advance that particular project but what the hell."
E=mc^2
I guess that was nothing.
"Or as you and your friends like to say, you're a damnable liar. Did I get that tone about right?"
Well, if you really want to get it right, just call him a Marxist Homo Troll and tell him to suck on a shotgun. Then you would get the right anti-evolution tone we are accustomed to here.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1466845/posts?page=410#410
"The statement is garbage."
Einstein didn't encourage the Allies to build an atomic weapon? Please elaborate.
He warned Roosevelt and then recanted. Understand? He stated "it was the worst mistake I ever made".
Einstein was born a Jew, lived as an atheist and probably died as an atheist. The fact is, by Alberts own words, he would rather die than throw the money changers out of the Temple. See the difference here. St Thomas Aquinas, a bit more of an authority on Christianity and the Bible than you, states that while the intentional taking of invent human life is a grave sin, not defending ones own life or that of other innocents is just as grave a sin. Albert was just another guy who despised the men in uniform who provided for his freedom and liberty. Defend that if you must.
Einstein did not work on the project in any significant way. That is the fact of the matter. If you have proof to the contrary supply it, E=mc^2 not withstanding.
And as for calling RWP those names, that would make me a liar, which I'm not. His statement about me and the Kaiser was a lie, a false assertion, bearing false witness. You get the drift here Carolina?
I did in the post preceding this one. He recanted his advice. He fought nothing. He did not contribute his considerable and unique talents to the project. Those are facts.
Do you always defend military hating pacifists?
These names numbnuts:
"Well, if you really want to get it right, just call him a Marxist Homo Troll and tell him to suck on a shotgun."
I know, I know, you're evil twin wrote that suggestion.
You know very little about Albert Einstein and seemingly nothing about the Manhattan Project and Einsteins non participation in same.
Such is life.
Savant-like geniuses are rarely the lodestar to wise public policy. It is just the way it is. We must look elsewhere for the silver bullets, which is in itself a rather Quixotic quest. All we are left we is blood, sweat and toil. The Old Testament still has great resilience and relevancy. It cannot be escaped. No pain, no gain.
From posts 26 and 71 in this thread I got the impression people were quoting Einstein not merely to refute claims that Einstein believed in a personal God; but also to lend credence to their own assertions in that direction.
I agree (Childish paraphrase 1) "No Fair! They Started It!"--
but if any of the Evo's were quoting Einstein to bolster the luster of their own position, then they are in fact arguing from authority; and as such, acting as "scientific" hypocrites, engaging in a double standard for evidence.
Childish Paraphrase 2: "You can't argue from authority for religiion, because argument from authority is invalid.
For we, the sage seekers of empirical wisdom, have surpassed reliance on authority with the all encompassing gaze of scientism.
And by the way, poopy-heads, you are so too wrong, because look at all these famous scientists who agree with US."
If you're gonna argue for the supremacy of science, don't let your frustration with non-scientists take you down to their non-rigorous methods.
And oh, for the Creationists:
Threatening people with Hell is probably not the best way to change people's hearts and minds. Realize that science is about reproducible measurement and observations, (hopefully under controlled conditions) and the careful construction of models to explain said observations. It is not concerned primarily with morality. So please realize that just as you consider many of the evo's statements to contain major philosophical or theological blunders, they too have professional standards, and apparently many of the arguments for ID do not pass scientific muster.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled flamewars.
Cheers!
100. Prime!
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