The Sunset of Darwinism

tfp ^ | 06.04.08 | Julio Loredo

[Coleus]

Praised until recently as dogma, Darwin’s theory of evolution is now fading away, discredited by the same science that bore its poisoned fruit. Instead, the Christian vision of a supernatural design is being increasingly affirmed. “Evolution is now a datum proven beyond any reasonable doubt and no longer a theory, it’s not even worth taking the trouble to discuss it.” This is what a spokesman proclaimed at the Festival of Science held in Genoa in November 2005, thereby neglecting a very important aspect of modern science—the need to be open to new perspectives. Instead, the truth is quite the opposite. Paradoxically, evolutionists are taking an ever greater distance from empirical science and are wrapping themselves up in a dogmatism that borders on ideological fanaticism.

Unprovable Hypothesis
“What is left, then, in evolutionism, that is valid according to the scientific method? Nothing, actually nothing!” This is the conclusion of journalist Marco Respinti in his recent book Processo a Darwin (Darwin on Trial, Piemme, 2007). He continues: "Not one of his postulates can be verified or certified based on the method proper to the physical sciences. His whole claim escapes verification. Based on what, therefore, other than on strong prejudices of an ideological nature, can anyone affirm or continue to affirm that the evolutionist hypothesis is true?"  Indeed, the consistency of a scientific theory is founded on its capacity to be verified empirically, be it through observation of the phenomenon in nature or by reproducing it in the laboratory. The evolutionist hypothesis fails on both counts. “Thus,” Respinti shows, “Darwinism remains simply an hypothesis devoid of empirical or demonstrable foundation, besides being unproven. . . . The evolutionist hypothesis is completely unfounded for it does not master the very domain in which it launches its challenge.”

Respinti reaches this “verdict” after a rigorous “trial of Darwin” in which he analyzes the main arguments that debunk the notorious theory, ranging from nonexistent fossil records to the conflict of Darwinism with genetic science and the flimsiness of the “synthetic theory” of neo-Darwinism, without forgetting the countless frauds that have stained notable evolutionists in their insane quest to fabricate the “proofs” that science tenaciously denied them.  Respinti concludes by denouncing the ideological drift of the evolutionist school: “To categorically affirm the absolute validity of the theories of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution based on the claim that discussing them would be unscientific by definition, is the worst proof that human reason can give of itself.”

A Long Sunset
The sunset of the Darwinist hypothesis has picked up speed over the last two decades. For example, consider the work carried out by the Osaka Group for the Study of Dynamic Structures, founded in 1987, in the wake of an international interdisciplinary meeting convened “to present and discuss some opinions opposed to the dominant neo-Darwinist paradigm.” Scientists from all over the world participated, including the outstanding geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti, then a professor at the University of Perugia, Italy. In 1980, together with Roberto Fondi, now a professor at the University of Siena, Sermonti wrote Dopo Darwin—Critica all’evoluzionismo (After Darwin—A Critique of Evolutionism, Rusconi, 1980). “Biology,” Sermonti explains, “has no proof at all of the spontaneous origin of life, or rather biology has proved its impossibility. There is no such thing as a gradation of life from elementary to complex. From a bacterium to a butterfly to man the biochemical complexity is substantially the same.”   For his part, Fondi shows that from the first appearance of fossils to this day, the variety and riches of living beings have not increased. New groups have replaced older ones, but the intermediate forms that the evolutionists have so frantically searched for do not exist. “The theory of evolution,” Sermonti and Fondi conclude, “has been contradicted as have few other scientific theories in the past.”

In Le forme della vita (The Forms of Life, Armando, 1981), Sermonti unveils other obstacles to Darwinism. According to the renowned geneticist, the “random” origin of life and the gradual transformation of the species through “selective change” are no longer sustainable because the most elementary life is incredibly complex and because it is now proven that replacement of living groups takes place “by leaps” rather than “by degrees.”  Putting together forty years of experience, in 1999 he wrote Dimenticare Darwin—Ombre sull’evoluzione (Forgetting Darwin—Shadows on Evolution, Rusconi, 1999). With rigorous argumentation, the author demolishes the three pillars of Darwinism: natural selection, sexual mixing and genetic “change.” According to him, history will remember the theory of evolution as the “Big Joke.”

Not Just Creationists
Sermonti has been often accused of being a “creationist” or a “religious fundamentalist” even though he has always said he does not fit his scientific vision into a Christian perspective, and this yet one more aspect to note in the polemic against Darwinism, which many people other than Christians also contest it.  In this sense, it is interesting to note the recent editorial in Il Cerchio, “Seppellire Darwin? Dalla critica del darwinismo agli albori d’una scienza nuova,” ("Bury Darwin? From a Critique of Darwinism to the Dawn of a New Science") containing essays by seven specialists including Sermonti, Fondi and Giovanni Monastra, director of Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research. The title refers to the famous phrase by Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor of applied mathematics of the University College of Cardiff, “The probability that life was formed from inanimate matter is equal to 1 followed by 40,000 zeros . . . . It is large enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution.”

From Dimenticare Darwin—Ombre sull’evoluzione’s introduction: For the first time in Italy, a critique of Darwinism is presented in all its complexity thanks to the interdisciplinary contribution of scholars of several orientations—[b]eyond the polemic between neo-Darwinian fundamentalists and religious integralists, the essay demonstrates how the critique of the now old neo-Darwinist paradigm opens the doors to a new science.

A Crisis of the Positivist Paradigm
Francis Crick, who together with Watson discovered the structure of DNA, openly declared, “An honest man, armed only with the knowledge available to us, could affirm only that, in a certain sense, the origin of life at the moment appears to be rather a miracle,” In the same wavelength, Harold Hurey, a disciple of Stanley Miller who made history with his failed attempt to recreate life in the laboratory from a so-called primordial broth, said, “All of us who studied the origins of life uphold that the more we get into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved in any way.” Indeed, a lot of faith is required to believe in evolutionism, and it is precisely that faith, of a clearly positivist^[1] mold, that is now beginning to weaken.

In Darwinismo: le ragioni di una crisi (Darwinism: The Reasons of a Crisis), Gianluca Marletta sticks his finger in the wound by observing that “The crisis of Darwinism is above all a crisis of the philosophical paradigms that allowed its success.”  “One cannot understand the origin of this doctrine,” Marletta explains, “without going back to the cultural climate of ‘triumphant positivism’ straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” According to Marletta, Darwinism constituted a wonderful occasion to strengthen the positivistic view of the world being affirmed at that time. Darwinism represented the perfect tool to transplant, into the biological field, the mechanic and materialist paradigms already imposed on the social sciences. This is the true motive of this theory’s success. A motive that now begins to subside with the crisis of the positivist paradigm. This explains the almost fanatical tenacity with which evolutionists are defending their convictions. “Many fear,” concludes Marletta, “that the fall of Darwinism can bring down with it the whole positivist vision of the world.”

God’s Comeback
The crumbling of positivism is bringing back to the limelight issues that a certain conventional wisdom thought to have definitively eliminated. Shaken from the sudden crumbling of old certainties, worried about the chaos that increasingly marks this postmodern age, many people are once again asking the fundamental questions: Does my life have a transcendental meaning? Is there an intelligent project in nature? In short, does God exist?   Sociologist Rosa Alberoni wrote about this in her book, Il Dio di Michelangelo e la barba di Darwin (The God of Michelangelo and Darwin’s Beard), published last November by Rizzoli with a preface by Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council Justice and Peace. The onslaught of “Darwin’s worshippers,” Alberoni explains, is carried out by the “usual destructive atheists obsessed with the goal of stamping out Christ and destroying the Judeo-Christian civilization after having sucked its blood and essence.” This sullen assault, however, in the deeply changed ambience of post-modernity, risks being counterproductive: The monkey myth is what really shook ordinary people. Like soldiers woken up by an alarm in the middle of the night, Christian believers and [O]rthodox Jews prepared for the defense. Or rather for the war, because that is what it has become . . . [o]n the symbolic level, the bone of contention is the ancestor of man: God or a monkey? Should one believe in God or in Darwin? This is the substantial nature of the ongoing clash in our civilization.

In other words, a real war of religion looms in the dawn of the Third Millennium. Precisely that which secularists have tried to avoid at all cost.

Footnote:

1. Positivism is the philosophical system created by August Comte (1798–1857), which only accepts the truths that we can reach by direct observation or by experimentation. Thus it denies classical philosophy, theology and all supernatural religion.

[allmendream]

excellent post ping.

[LeGrande]

(By the way, if you shoot a laser through a thick piece of glass into a photo diode which feeds the input of an audio amp which drives a speaker, some most fascinating things can be heard! It's really just interference patterns, but you can hear them as you change the angle of the thick glass.)

Did you know that if you lower the frequency of sound down enough it becomes a discrete sound particle/wavepacket?

As to Stern-Gerlach, doesn't that require an enormous vacuum? I'd never heard of the experiment before you mentioned it, but I've been searching google since then, and find that most sites speak only very abstractly of it. But from what I've gleaned, a diffusion type pump or something that gets to 10-6 Torr is needed. I'm assuming your whole apparatus was inside a vacuum chamber, on the centrifuge.

Yes but the centrifuge is in the vacuum. and the primary problem is getting the d*** atoms to individually go where you want them to go. This is the kind of experiment that really should be done in space.

I guess you must have been detecting the silver atoms with photographic plate and must have done everything in a dark room?

It is all in an evacuated box.

As to light being a wave - I'm certain of that due to interference patterns. As to it being a particle, I'm not convinced. I realize that light does tend to arrive in quantum sizes, but I also know that in many cases it is generated in quantum sizes. For example, any fluorescent or chemically generated light will be due to an electron falling down a quantum number of level(s). What about incandescence? Do we actually know that it doesn't produce light in quantum sizes for its own reasons?

Hmmm, if the double slit experiment doesn't convince you that light is both a wave and a particle how about Planck's formula for black body radiation and Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect? That is what he got his Nobel prize for after all.

This explanation may help. Everything is a wave/particle, particles are emergent properties of waves. Much like water is an emergent property of water vapour and ice is an emergent property of water, each phase has different properties.

Furthermore, I'm not certain that our ways of detecting a single photon aren't applying their own quantization: If we were to play a low power continuous wave light beam on a photo-sensitive emitter in a photomultiplier tube, how do we know that the atom doesn't start ringing up like the glass in front of the loud voice singer, then finally, like the glass breaking, reach such a high energy state that it throws an electron, thereby quantizing it?

LOL Seriously, read Einsteins theory. Your reasoning is very similar. If you had been born a 150 years earlier we might be calling it Mr Jesse's theory : ) I will have to start treating you with more respect.

Interestingly, some even claim to have demonstrated that super tiny antennas which are half a wavelength of visible light behave with light just like radio waves do with normal antennas.

Light and radio waves are the same, just different wavelengths. You are on the right path : )

As to all matter being waves, I'm not ready to accept that one yet. How does the Stern-Gerlach experiment prove that matter is waves? I would be most amused to see some photos of the photo plates from a good Stern-Gerlach experiment, if you know where I might find such a thing.

Stern-Gerlach doesn't prove that matter is waves. It is demonstrating the spin of the particles.

About pictures, I will let you in on a dirty little secret. Except for the double slit experiments all of these QM results are dirty and probabilistic in nature. What you get with the S-G looks like just what you would get if you shot a shotgun twice at a target. Two areas where a lot of the BB's went through and then tons of random holes where the scattered BB's went through.

The result is precisely (and I do mean precisely) what the equations predict, but they don't produce a nice clean image. An analogy is the fuzzy edge to a shadow.

Another oddity of QM is that even though it is fantastically precise it can only provide a probability for any particular event. With a large enough number of events though it makes Newtons equations seem like primitive scribblings. For a particular event though Newton's equations work remarkably well.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Stern-Gerlach doesn't prove that matter is waves. It is demonstrating the spin of the particles.

So why did you bring it up in the context of "waves of nothing"? And why keep asking people to "look up" experiment X as evidence for P, and then insist that they "look up" experiment Y, when X turns out not to address P in the first place, and so on? How often do you plan to do this? Why not just settle down and discuss how one of these experiments proves that we are all made of nothing?

Hmmm, if the double slit experiment doesn't convince you that light is both a wave and a particle how about Planck's formula for black body radiation and Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect?

It's best not to bring Planck into this. IIRC he didn't believe in photons, and considered Einstein's usage of his quanta of action to be illegitimate or dubious at best. He had his own ideas about electromagnetic radiation.

Another oddity of QM is that even though it is fantastically precise

People often make this comment about quantum electrodynamics. But there are dissenters, such as E.T Jaynes.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

That is what Aristotle thought. That everything could be determined by reason alone

The cognitive dissonance in trying to fathom this is a bit much for me. It's like trying to figure out what someone means by 'McCarthy was a communist' or 'Spencer was a church-going Anglican.' Best to let it pass.

What we have learned is that abstract reasoning has to be verified by observation, not more 'reasoning'... I verify the TOG every time I go flying.

It has to be verified by reason and observation. When you observe a rock falling, your eyes do not relate the inverse-square law to your brain. If it were so, there would be no need for Newton, or science for that matter.

Because the rock could be anywhere and I would have to exhaustively search everywhere. That can't be done.

Then what you mean by this "can't prove a negative" canard is this: it is hard to find a needle in a haystack. It seems that the reason you want to phrase it as "can't prove a negative" is because it sounds absurd to say "you can't prove that God does not exist because you can't find a needle in a huge haystack."

In any case, if it can't be proven that God does not exist, why should anyone believe that God does not exist? It's not as if unprovability should make a proposition more plausible.

Yes, but they were unable to account for Mercuries deviation and Einsteins theory could.

So? The point is that the history of science shows that this Popperian "falsification" business is nonsense. Newton's theory is still here and we both agree it was not disproved by what, if Popper's views had any merit, should have been falsifications.

[LeGrande]

Why not just settle down and discuss how one of these experiments proves that we are all made of nothing?

As you well know, there is no single experiment that proves that we are all made of nothing. I don't think that is your real question though. You are disagreeing with the conclusion. How about if I said that we are made up of waves of Space-time. Does that help you?

It's best not to bring Planck into this. IIRC he didn't believe in photons, and considered Einstein's usage of his quanta of action to be illegitimate or dubious at best. He had his own ideas about electromagnetic radiation.

Using that logic I shouldn't bring Einstein in either, he spent that last half of his life arguing against QED too.

People often make this comment about quantum electrodynamics. But there are dissenters, such as E.T Jaynes.

The equations have one degree less of freedom and that is huge.

[LeGrande]

The Stern-Gerlach experiment proves that particles have intrinsic quantum numbers, eg, intrinsic angular momentum or spin. However, the other poster, by reasonings unknown, derives from this result, that matter is made of "waves of nothing."

You are trying to lump different posts together. Show me where I said that I can derive "waves of nothing" from the Stern-Gerlach experiment.

We might as well conclude that everything is nothing, and nothing exist. So, the Stern-Gerlach experiment proves that neither you nor I nor the other poster exists. See? That's Science. How can you argue with Science?

Since you are trying to improperly lump my posts together, you should also recall that I said that that matter is an emergent property of those waves of nothing. I am certainly not claiming that nothing exists.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

How about if I said that we are made up of waves of Space-time. Does that help you?

Not really. I don't think it's correct to say that the solutions of, say, the Schoedinger equation, are waves of space-time. Weisskopf wrote a lengthy monograph on the properties of the quantum mechanical vaccuum. Why would that be necessary if it was nothing?

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

I said that that matter is an emergent property of those waves of nothing. I am certainly not claiming that nothing exists

Of course you are not saying it because you know as well as anyone else here that it is absurd, and we would just laugh at you if you said it directly. But one can reasonably infer it from what you say, like so:

Matter is a property of waves of nothing
Waves of nothing are made of nothing
ergo,
Matter is a property of nothing
Everything is made of matter
ergo,
Everything is made of properties of nothing
Ergo,
Nothing exists.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

I said that that matter is an emergent property of those waves of nothing.

In post 405 you go a little further and imply that matter is actually made of nothing:

"As you well know, there is no single experiment that proves that we are all made of nothing. I don't think that is your real question though. You are disagreeing with the conclusion."

Is this correct?

[LeGrande]

LeGrande - That is what Aristotle thought. That everything could be determined by reason alone.

Ethan - The cognitive dissonance in trying to fathom this is a bit much for me. It's like trying to figure out what someone means by 'McCarthy was a communist' or 'Spencer was a church-going Anglican.' Best to let it pass.

LeGrande - This is what you said, "You can't observe an abstraction. So, you can't demonstrate "the theory of gravity" by dropping a rock,... Abstractions apprehended by the intellect must be verified or refuted by acts of the intellect: reason, judgement, etc." Clearly you are trying to simply apply reasoning alone.

Ethan - "It has to be verified by reason and observation. When you observe a rock falling, your eyes do not relate the inverse-square law to your brain. If it were so, there would be no need for Newton, or science for that matter."

LeGrande - Now we agree : )

Ethan - "In any case, if it can't be proven that God does not exist, why should anyone believe that God does not exist? It's not as if unprovability should make a proposition more plausible."

LeGrande - The burden of proof is not on the deniers, the burden of proof is on those who claim there is a God. If you claim to know a Leprechaun, would you expect anyone to believe you without your being able to provide some evidence that the Leprechaun exists? Or do you expect the skeptics to try and prove that the Leprechaun doesn't exist?

Ethan - "So? The point is that the history of science shows that this Popperian "falsification" business is nonsense. Newton's theory is still here and we both agree it was not disproved by what, if Popper's views had any merit, should have been falsifications."

LeGrande - That is because Einsteins equations are simply more precise than Newtons. Extending π from 3.14 to 3.1415 doesn't falsify the first three digits, it verifies the first three digits. Learning that π is an irrational number does change the conceptual framework though and that is why we laugh when legislatures occasionally try to change π to 3.

Einstein did falsify the conceptual framework that Newton had built in almost exactly the same way that the discovery that π is an irrational number destroyed its original framework. The basic equations remain valid, just not as precise. Future advances on Einsteins theory will simply be more precise and they will most probably destroy his conceptual framework.

[LeGrande]

In post 405 you go a little further and imply that matter is actually made of nothing:

Hmmm. Why don't you tell me what a quantum field or space-time is composed of? Nothing, right? I know it is a tough concept to try and explain, but I am brave : )

Robert Laughlin wrote a book, A Different Universe (I believe) that explains this concept in considerably more detail than I can here.

Since I hate appeals to authority, like my reference above, I will try and explain what I mean by waves of nothing. At the quantum level (and beyond) everything can be modeled with a wave equation, but a wave needs a medium. If you look out at waves in the ocean just what exactly do you see? You probably don't see water molecules going in circles, but that is what is happening. But I digress, waves are not the medium. Originally scientists claimed that there was an Ether that transmitted everything, but Ether was disproved by Mickelson-Morley.

So along comes Einstein who really put the dagger into the Ether theory, but low and behold Einstein brought Space-Time into play for his Special Relativity theory. What is Spacetime? It is a mathematical construct or in other words, nothing. That is what waves travel through, nothing. Hence "Waves of nothing", the waves are real though.

[mrjesse]

Sorry for the long delay. I got rather distracted for 2 days. I'll mention more on that further down.

Did you know that if you lower the frequency of sound down enough it becomes a discrete sound particle/wavepacket?

In fact I do not know that. I'm not even sure what you mean :-)

What you say doesn't make to me any sense if we take sound to have its common definition. Could you please elaborate? Thanks!

Hmmm, if the double slit experiment doesn't convince you that light is both a wave and a particle how about Planck's formula for black body radiation and Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect? That is what he got his Nobel prize for after all.

I have long considered light a wave and a wave only. The double slit experiment clearly demonstrates it as a wave. But what part about the double-slit experiment demonstrates that light is a particle as well?

Anyway, this weekend (Friday and Saturday) I did several interesting double-slit experiments. I even discovered (I'm sure I'm not the first) a formula that at least roughly describes the distance between bands on an interference band pattern. (Distance_To_Target/Distance_Between_Slits)*Wavelength)

(The formula should probably have a reference to sine in there too. But I didn't go that far.)

I also made a javascript simulator for testing my calculations against. and I also verified that all the colors (at least R,G,B) from the sun also form interference bands - but each color forms its own at a slightly different size. Anyway, I had a lot of fun and took a lot of pictures. See them all here!

And by all means feel free to let me know if you see errors - I was definitely in a rush and it's just fresh up.

But please do explain how the slit experiments demonstrate light as a particle. THanks!

This explanation may help. Everything is a wave/particle, particles are emergent properties of waves. Much like water is an emergent property of water vapour and ice is an emergent property of water, each phase has different properties.

How could you best demonstrate that to me?

Light and radio waves are the same, just different wavelengths. You are on the right path : )

This we agree on!

Stern-Gerlach doesn't prove that matter is waves. It is demonstrating the spin of the particles.

Or perhaps it demonstrates the spin of electrons.

Thanks, and do let me know what you think of my primitive and simplistic experiments for the weekend! (By the way, the pictures aren't clickable because I haven't uploaded the high-res ones yet since I'm on 256kbit dsl and well it's slow enough. I'll try to get them all uploaded tonight.)

-Jesse

[mrjesse]

waves have to travel in a medium,

And in #411:

but a wave needs a medium. If you look out at waves in the ocean just what exactly do you see? You probably don't see water molecules going in circles, but that is what is happening.

You seem here to be mixing up different domains of concepts, in trying speak as if radio/light waves were the exact same species as waves on water or through air.

But these are actually 3 different kinds of waves. Radio/light is the one, and the other two, which are in an entirely different realm, are Pressure and Surface waves.

Let me explain.

Surface waves are like those on the ocean. They move very very slowly, compared to all other kinds of waves. Pressure waves, on the other hand, are like those which carry sound through a substance with mass (like water and air). Pressure waves are much much faster then Surface waves for any given medium. It is true and well demonstrated that Pressure and Surface waves do require a medium.

But radio and light (heretofore just 'radio') waves are of a completely different species from pressure/surface waves.

For example, pressure and sound waves are the actual movement of atoms of mass - it is a purely mechano-kinetic process. No electric fields are produced from them, and they are not produced directly from electric fields. And they must always travel inside a medium. (Or at least every experiment so far has concluded that.)

Radio waves, on the other hand, are generated by oscilating electric fields, and radiowaves do themselves carry an electric field as well as a current field. They can be detected either by the voltage they induce upon an antenna or by the magnetic field they induce into an iron bar.

The standard method for measuring the strength of a radio signal at a certain distance from a radio station transmitter is to measure the "Microvolts per meter."

That's why we call radio waves and light "Electro Magnetic Field."

Furthermore, radiowaves have been demonstrated to propagate through what we call empty space -- as a matter of fact, that is where they work the very best.

I would be most helpful to your study and understanding of science if you can begin to think intuitively about these differences.

-Jesse

PS Ethan Clive Osgood: Check out the results from my experiments this weekend involving the wave properties of light!

[mrjesse]

LeGrande said to Ethan Clive Osgoode: You are trying to lump different posts together. Show me where I said that I can derive "waves of nothing" from the Stern-Gerlach experiment.

I too had the same impression -- that you were saying that Stern-Gerlach experiment supported "Waves of nothing."

Must have been the way things flowed in the conversation or the way you worded things.

It might have been because I was asking about what things you took as faith and what you knew to be fact.

So "waves of nothing" -- is that a matter of faith for you, or how can I demonstrate it for myself? You seem to be using as a foundation for many of your arguments this idea that all matter is waves of nothing, if I understand correctly. (Or at least that's what it always seems to boil down to.)

Thanks,

-Jesse

[LeGrande]

But please do explain how the slit experiments demonstrate light as a particle. THanks!

First start by shooting particles (electrons or larger) at your target through a single slit. Photons technically will work but they are generally just considered electromagnetic radiation (waves) and make great interference patterns as your experiment demonstrated, but they make lousy particle patterns. You should get something that looks like what shooting a shotgun at a paper target looks like (lots of little holes). That is the particle verification.

Then insert the double slits in between your source and the target, then you should get an interference pattern, that is the verification of the wave nature. The idea is to shoot a single electron at a time. Concurrent electrons could invalidate the results.

If you have the theory that the particles are just tiny waves (I envision them as smoke rings) then just make the distance between the slits wider than the the wavelength you think that they are. It will still work with quite a large spacing.

Your experiment and post was great by the way: )

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

LeGrande - This is what you said, "You can't observe an abstraction. So, you can't demonstrate "the theory of gravity" by dropping a rock,... Abstractions apprehended by the intellect must be verified or refuted by acts of the intellect: reason, judgement, etc." Clearly you are trying to simply apply reasoning alone.

I'm not sure why you disagree with this--it's merely common-sense to note that, with respect to theories, "verified", "refuted", and "demonstrated" are things which are decided at the the level of intellect. Your eyes do not make theoretical decisions for your brain. In seeing a rock fall, your eyes do not decide something about the theory of gravity and inform your brain about it. Rather, it's your reason-enabled brain that makes those decisions. If it were not so, a monkey would be able to "verify" Newton's theory of gravity, because a monkey can observe a rock falling just as well as you can.

Does it really make sense to say that Newton's theory of gravity can be "verified" or "demonstrated" by dropping a rock and observing that it falls? If so, then Newton could have avoided the laborious route involving the invention of calculus and so on, and instead he could have thrown rocks up in the air a thousand times over. Others, observing this, would have to say that his theory of gravity has been demonstrated and verified a thousand times over. Any monkeys who happen to be there would add their howls of approval too.

[mrjesse]

First start by shooting particles (electrons or larger) at your target through a single slit. Photons technically will work but they are generally just considered electromagnetic radiation (waves) and make great interference patterns as your experiment demonstrated, but they make lousy particle patterns. You should get something that looks like what shooting a shotgun at a paper target looks like (lots of little holes). That is the particle verification.

Then insert the double slits in between your source and the target, then you should get an interference pattern, that is the verification of the wave nature. The idea is to shoot a single electron at a time. Concurrent electrons could invalidate the results.

If you have the theory that the particles are just tiny waves (I envision them as smoke rings) then just make the distance between the slits wider than the the wavelength you think that they are. It will still work with quite a large spacing. Your experiment and post was great by the way: )

Thanks for the reply. But it didn't answer the one question it aimed at :-)

Here you have explained how to demonstrate that light is waves and how to demonstrate that particles are also waves, but my question was how does the double-slit experiment demonstrate light as a particle -- and the reason I asked is because you said "..if the double slit experiment doesn't convince you that light is both a wave and a particle.." -- but I'm still trying to understand how the double slit experiment might even begin to convince me that light is a particle.

I'm still very much interested in understanding. I can well see that the double slit experiment demonstrates the wave properties of light but I did not see any evidence of particle properties.

Thanks,

-Jesse

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

I too had the same impression -- that you were saying that Stern-Gerlach experiment supported "Waves of nothing."... You seem to be using as a foundation for many of your arguments this idea that all matter is waves of nothing, if I understand correctly. (Or at least that's what it always seems to boil down to.)

Just like the 83,000 links story (remember that?), I bet we have both been through this before. I have, many times. Sometimes I go along with it. A science-talker puts out some strange assertion like "matter is made of nothing". I ask, whatever are you on about? He says "go look up quantum mechanics" or whatever. Go look up this, go look up that. In pursuing this to the end, though, we discover that none of the things we are to look up lend any credence to "matter is made of nothing." It turns out, invariably, that this conclusion "matter is made of nothing" follows from an unfathomable chain of misconceptions, erroneous reasoning and scientific word-salad emerging from the science-talker's head.

What is the reason for this? Why saddle physics with a metaphysical absurdity like "matter is made of nothing"? There must be a pressing need to kick science in the nuts this way. What is it? Since I had this same sort of conversation many times before in other forums, I'll tell you what I learned from that.

For some people who happen to be atheists, a notion like "matter is made of nothing" is a brick in their mental framework. Perhaps even a necessary brick, depending on what other notions they have. Now, an atheist isn't going to merely come up to you and say point-blank "matter is made of nothing" in the middle of a theological dispute about God and creation and such. It is necessary to couch this in a way that is easier on your ears, otherwise you wouldn't give it any consideration at all. So, the best delivery for an absurdity like "matter is made of nothing" is to bury it with a lot of talk about quantum mechanics, waves, and space-time and such. This is necessary for the atheist's sanity as well. After all, who can really believe that things are made of nothing?

If a lawyer, politician, or man in the street -- anyone but a science-talker -- emphatically insisted that things are made of "waves of nothing", we would shrug our shoulders and move on. But when a science-talker says exactly the same thing, we stop and listen for a while. I wonder why? Maybe it is like the morbid fascination we have with train-wrecks and auto-accidents -- we must slow down the car, roll down the window, and have a better look as we drive by.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

PS Ethan Clive Osgood: Check out the results from my experiments this weekend involving the wave properties of light!

Indeed very good stuff. I commend your diligence. I like the books in the pictures. Nice touch.

The demonstration on your page reminds me of Lord Kelvin's "drawing room" demonstration concerning the wavelength of light. From time to time Kelvin would gather round some British society and give talks and demonstrations while they smoked cigars or whatever. It's a great talk and when I dig up the book in which it appears, I'll send you the link. Faraday also used to give these sort of demonstrations. Much of this is published in old books and I'm sure you'd enjoy reading it.

I note that you are a fan of J.J. Thomson. Have you read Notes on Recent Researches in Electricity and Magnetism? The first part is out of this world. Thomson forgoes the usual "field" picture of EM and goes back to Faraday lines, because he says that it's simply easier to think in terms of Faraday lines. He develops all the usual EM theory this way, and, on top of it, by means of a remarkable argument, the dependence of the electron inertia on velocity.

[LeGrande]

Radio waves, on the other hand, are generated by oscilating electric fields, and radiowaves do themselves carry an electric field as well as a current field.

What are those fields composed of? In the second part of your statement you seemed to contradict the first part of your statement by implying that the waves "carry" a field.

Could you please elaborate a little?