Posted on 12/07/2005 3:31:28 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Ping
In the U.S., Darwin still needs defending
And for at least one good reason: we can elucidate laws of physics. Does this say that the set of laws we observe to operate are the only possible set and that the universe must necessarily have been?
I think not, thus Dawkins draws a distinction where there is only difference in appearance: Mount Rushmore's etching is the result of the action caused by physical properties imposed, which could have been otherwise.
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I'm not quite sure I take your point. Care to elaborate?
Milner, a pal of Gould and the long-time editor of NH magazine. Now he hires Dawkins (Gould's bete noir) to write an article.
Guess he/they are evolving.
Simply this: Dawkins is taking the laws of physics to be immutable and assumes they are as they must be. In fact, we have inferred the laws of physics by watching and measuring the operations we see occurring around us. We first infer such 'laws' as theorems, suggesting that they are probably true. As evidence continues to mount, we then harden our opinion about them all say thay always operate and are thus 'laws'.
So, let's stipulate that physical laws really are fundamental are really do operate the same way everywhere.
Now, what authority do we have to state that the physical laws we have inferred to exist are the only possible set of physical laws that could be. It seems to me that we can't eliminate such a possibility, just that only one set of physical laws appears to operate. That's not the same thing but is very much what Dr. Dawkins does not want to talk about. There is no illusion about intelligent design, it amounts to higher intellectualized trash talk. It certainly reassures those who don't bother to think these things through and confirms their lack of intellectual inquiry, but it does not contribute to the discussion, save to call those who disagree with his opinion about the source of physical law delusional.
I find his own position to be short-sighted and I consider him intelligent enough to have to come up with what source he believes physical laws have, rather than to simply pass in silence over the whole question.
I'm afraid I don't see Dawkins asserting (even implicitly) the immutability of physical laws as we know them. Nor do I think he saw it as part of his job in this essay to address the questions of the origin of physical laws or whether the physical laws we experience could be different. Why would you think he should have done that in this particular essay devoted to introducing readers to some elementary facts about Darwinism and evolution, and also to referring readers to other articles in the magazine?
I don't know who gave you the authority. But, scientists do not have that authority and do not make such ludicrous presumptions.
Case in point: This one was recently posted here at FR, but I've not got the time right now to search it out. A physicist at Harvard proposes that gravity may leak from a fifth dimension into the known four dimensions. Such a phenomenon, if verified, would radically alter our understanding of the "physical laws."
There are many other examples, some related to Einstein's theories on gravity, but the point is made.
I see it as intellectual totalitarianism to publicly call out your intellectual opponents with ad hominems suggesting no sane person even listens to them when the issue which is really at point, what is the source for the basis of one's own theory, is utterly ignored. I didn't say he said what he said, I said he didn't say it and his utter silence doesn't make it go away.
It makes as much sense as a quadriplegic dog skier...
It makes as much sense as a quadriplegic dog skier...
But the question whether intelligent design is really science or not (Dawkins and many others, myself included, say it isn't) doesn't depend on the precise character of our physical laws at the deepest level or whether those laws are unique in the wider universe.
Thanks for a great new tagline!
Thanks for the reminder of Dawkins, whom I haven't read that I recall.
On your 'immutability of physical laws' corespondent; I reccommend some reading on 'the Science Wars'. From the 'left', Norman Levitt writes Prometheus Bedeviled. Paul R. Gross and Levitt edited The Flight From Science and Reason that introduced me to this genre that I have found very satisfying. Alan Sokal's essay Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity is a bright spot in the war against unreason.
Subtle.
Thanks for a great new tagline!
It's a good 'un...
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