Original Message Follows:
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evolution-digest Friday, October 3 1997 Volume 01 : Number 690
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Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 09:58:42 -0500
From: "Eduardo G. Moros" <moros_eg@castor.wustl.edu>
Subject: Re: Creation ex nihilo
I have been reading the Special 1994 issue of Scien. Am. on Life. It is full
of what I have called
"Scientirrific Story Telling"
paul.carline@virgin.net wrote:
>
> I think you're right about the "science fiction". I heard an eminent
> British physicist on the radio the other day telling us the story of the
> creation of the elements, full of unqualified statements such as: "The
> universe began 10 or 20 billion years ago .... The universe began with an
> enormous bang. A very, very, very tiny ball of energy that was to be
> everything exploded... and gradually it cooled.. and the energy turned
> into matter etc, etc.. and in each of our bodies there's about 7% by
> weight of hydrogen atoms that stem from the Big Bang..and the other 93%
> of us is made of 'star stuff', so we're all 'stars'."
>
> Only when challenged at the end of her tale did she concede: "Well.. I
> think that all scientists have to say: This is our best understanding;
> it's based on the current paradigm. And I sometimes think that 'paradigm'
> is another way of describing the assumptions that we forget to
> articulate."
>
> Forgetting is one thing. Deliberately misleading by making unqualified
> claims about the nature of reality is quite another.
>
> Regards,
>
> Paul Carline
- --
Salu2
- -------------------------------------------------------
Many times when reading "science" I have the
annoying sensation I'm reading science fiction.
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Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 23:23:56 -0700
From: paul.carline@virgin.net
Subject: Re: Creatio ex nihilo
David Bowman wrote:
>
> It seems that Paul Carline has read far more into my comment than is in it
> or was in my intentions in writing it.
>
> >Some more reflections on David Bowman's imputed antagonism between
> >theology and physics and the implied non-competence of the former to
> >explain the phenomena of the 'natural' world.
>
> I imputed no such antagonism, nor did I imply the non-competence alleged
> above. What I did imply was that Sproul was probably going beyond his own
> personal competence in physics if he actually thought that virtual quantum
> processes violated the laws of physics.
>
> Actually, I believe that physics is incomplete in that, at best, it may be
> able to discover the patterns of physical phenomena and how the patterns at
> a deeper level automatically explain the patterns at more phenomenological
> and superficial levels, but physics is incapable of explaining why there
> should be any patterns or laws at all for nature to obey. It is also
> incapable of explaining why anything rather than nothing exists. It is
> incapable of explaining how the physical laws discovered at the deepest
> levels are actually enforced, i.e. what is the mechanism which translates
> a mathematical description of the universe and its workings into the (an)
> actual working universe. If a successful 'theory of everything' is ever
> worked out which explains all physical phenonema, the name will be found to
> be a case of false advertising since even that theory will be incapable of
> explaining why it should have to hold at all. There is plenty of room for
> theology to help "explain the phenomena of the 'natural' world". Theology
> can give important insights into those areas that physics by its very
> nature is incapable of addressing. Physics can help answer (or at least
> address) the 'how' questions and theology can help answer (or at least
> address) the 'why' questions.
>
> >
> >Consider this:
> > "Quantum mechanics is *theory* (my emphasis) of nature founded on
> >the *philosophy* (my emphasis) that one ought to be able to assign a
> >precise, quantitative description of the systems of interest."
>
> This "philosophy" as you say is behind all of physics and behind much of
> all other science. There is good reason for this philosopy; it works.
> Quantitative mathematical theories of natural phenomena are spectacularly
> successful in agreeing with the experimental facts (for those systems that
> are simple enough both for the theory to yield a clean mathematical
> prediction, and for the experiments to yield clean unambiguous results
> uncontaminated by extraneous effects). In the case of quantum mechanics
> the agreement with experiment is as fully accurate as the theoretical
> predictions allow given the tractability constraints on the math, and given
> the experimental uncertainties in the experimental results. The cleanest
> results are for predictions of things like the intrinsic magnetic moment of
> elementary particles such as the electron. In this case the theoretical
> prediction for of the electron's magnetic moment agrees with the
> experimental results to some 12 significant figures, which is at about the
> limit for both the tractability limit of the theory to predict and the
> experimental limit of the ability to measure. In other cases the precision
> is not so great. But in no case (that I know of) are the experimental
> results definitely in known disagreement with the predictions of quantum
> theory. This statement is for only those theoretical predictions where the
> theory is well accepted (i.e. at the level of the standard model or above).
> In other cases various deeper tenative quantum theories that are not
> accepted may disagree with experimental results. For instance certain
> simple grand unified theories predict that protons should radioactively
> decay on a timescale of about 10^30 yrs. The current experimental results
> are that protons are stable on a time scale of up to 10^33 yrs. This means
> that those simple GUTs are not accepted. People working in the field have
> been coming up with other (more mathematically intractable) theories. In
> order for any such theory to be viable it must (among other things) predict
> the proton lifetime in excess of 10^33 yr.
>
> >
> >This is an unfortunately all too rare example of scientific honesty in
> >stating openly the metaphysical assumptions which underlie the definition
> >of 'natural' laws and therefore of the qualified nature of the
> >information gathered by experiments carried out in accordance with those
> >laws.
>
> Whatever do you mean by this? Why is this rare? Of course science looks
> for explanations for phenomena in terms of natural law. Of course the
> existence of natural law must be assumed to do science (esp. theoretical
> science, but even experimental science requires this assumption). The
> reason that science has not come to a halt and crashed down around the
> scientists is that that assumption seems to be born out in the physical
> world around us. This assumption is no guarded secret. The extent to
> which it is unfamiliar to those with little scientific background is a
> measure of the general ignorance of science in the general population in
> our culture.
>
> Paul then give some extended quotes from Conrad, Home, and Josephson's
> paper: "Beyond Quantum Theory: A Realist Psycho-Biological Interpretation
> of Physical Reality". This and other recent works of Josephson, et. al.
> are considered by most physicists in a position to know to be heavily laced
> with large doses of psychic new age quackery. I'm surprised that Paul
> chose to quote so approvingly from it. These quotes in no way represent
> the physics community at large, and are no more than the personal
> metaphysical opinions and speculations of the authors. The only reason
> that such a paper could have recieved the air play it has is because of
> Josephson's prior fame (derived from work that he did before becoming a
> new age mystic).
>
> >
> >The different levels of reality have different modes of knowledge
> >appropriate to them. David Bowman's unwarranted jibe:
> >>I think that RCS should stick to theology< merely demonstrates his
> >unwillingness or inability to respect the (probably superior) validity of
> >the theological mode of knowledge, which describes a deeper level of
> >reality and causation at which the contradictions inherent in purely
> >physical descriptions of the universe are reconciled and, more
> >importantly, a meaning is given to human life.
> >
> >Paul Carline
>
> I think that this above outburst merely demonsttrates Paul's inability to
> read and his great ability to jump to incorrect conclusions based on such
> faulty reading.
>
> I had thought of my comment as some friendly advice, not an unwarranted
> jibe. The warrant for my comment was the request by Chuck Warman: "WDYT?"
> which I took as a solicitation of the thoughts of list participants. I
> then gave my thoughts based on the evidence presented that Sproul was
> drawing conclusions about physics based on his misunderstandings of quantum
> phenomena and how they relate to the laws of physics (he seemed to think
> that quantum phenomena violate the laws of physics rather than demonstrate
> the workings of those laws). I'm not opposed to Sproul commenting on
> things pertaining to physics per se. I just think that if he is going to
> do so he should first take the time to learn enough of the relevant
> background physics so his conclusions will not be public displays of
> ignorance. He should 'stick to theology' in his published conclusions
> until he has learned the requisite physics. If he is not going to make
> the necessary mental investment of learning the physics, then, IMO, he
> should continue to just "stick to theology".
>
> By what stretched exegesis of my comment did you (Paul) come to the
> conclusion that my comment "merely demonstrates his [my] unwillingness or
> inability to respect the (probably superior) validity of the theological mode
> of knowledge, which describes a deeper level of reality and causation at
> which the contradictions inherent in purely physical descriptions of the
> universe are reconciled and, more importantly, a meaning is given to human
> life". I happen to have a great respect for the validity of the theological
> mode of knowledge and its importance in describing causation. I happen to
> believe that things exist because God makes them exist and that things happen
> because God makes them happen. I also happen to believe that God gives
> meaning to human life.
>
> David Bowman
> dbowman@gtc.georgetown.ky.us
Dear David,
I'm always happy to have my inaccuracies, illogicalities and ignorances
pointed out to me. Apologies for any false imputations!
I haven't read the original remarks by Sproul, but the point I imagine he
was trying to make was that there is a gap in scientific understanding
about the behaviour of sub-atomic particles. Walter Hicks answered my
question about this by explaining that the phenomenon (of the apparent
de-materialisation and re-materialisation of substance) is called 'the
vacuum fluctuation' and that it "just pops out of the equations". Giving
a label to a phenomenon is not the same as explaining it. The mystery of
the creation of substance and the creation and maintenance of form, even
at the level of the crystal, let alone in the living world, is something
beyond current physical science. In this sense, therefore, these
phenomena 'violate' i.e. lie outside the current physical canon. The
importance of the paper I referred to (hopefully the URL is now workable)
was in the clear indication that quantum physics, because of its
inherent limitations, was incapable of describing the reality of life, a
point which you appear to accept It is simply not good enough for physics
or any other discipline to lay claim to a phenomenon merely because it
has identified it and labelled it, with the usual rider: We don't
understand it at the moment, but we're quite confident that we will find
an explanation for it (in our terms) at some point in the future.
Thank you for your support for my argument that, as you put it: "Theology
can give important insights into those areas that physics by its very
nature is incapable of addressing".
Thanks also for explaining where there is congruence between theory and
experimental data "for those systems that are simple enough .. for the
theory to yield a clean mathematical prediction". As an example you cite
"the electron's magnetic moment". Fine. The extrapolation from such
confirmations at the level of fundamental particles to that of biological
phenomena is what is more problematical. When you say that "there is good
reason for this philosophy: it works", do you also include the phenomenon
of CJD (Creutzfeld-Jacob's Disease: the result of eating BSE-contaminated
meat), which is a direct result of the assumption that life processes can
be reduced to energetic equations? The conclusion that many people are
drawing from their direct experience of a purely quantitatively-based
science - in medecine, for example - is that "it does *not* work; that
the conclusions based on purely mechanical, quantitative processes are
defective and dangerous; that they lead not to life, but to death.
"We shall have to wait till physicists and chemists have witnessed by
their own research a kind of 'reductio ad absurdum' of the existing
theoretic structure of their science". We are approaching the position
prophesied nearly eighty years ago by the Austrian scientist-philosopher
Rudolf Steiner.
"Materialistic science seeks explanations of phenomena in terms of
'centric forces' acting from point-centres. Phenomena in which life is
working can never be understood in terms of centric forces. It will be
the dawn of a new world-conception in this realm when it is recognized
that the thing cannot be done in this way." (Steiner 1920)
The paper by Conrad, Home and Josephson points in this direction.
I was beginning to be sympathetic to your position and apologetic about
my criticism until I came to your dismissal of 'Josephson et al's'
position because it is "considered by most physicists in a position to
know to be heavily laced with large doses of psychic new age quackery"
and your dismissive reference to Josephson as "a new age mystic". What in
God's name does this mean? It sounds to me like the heavy tread of the
scientific Inquisition, the mark of the witchfinder-general and the
sniffer-out of heresy. Oh dear! I'm afraid that any respect I might have
had for your integrity and objectivity began to slip away. I scent the
reaction of an establishment defending its doctrinal position, the
archetypal Pharisaic reaction to challenge. This has nothing to do with
scientific objectivity. There is nothing in the paper by Conrad, Home and
Josephson which merits this response and your contemptuous dismissal does
you no credit.
Paul Carline
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End of evolution-digest V1 #690
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