Stephen Hawking and Baroness Greenfield
Posted on 09/08/2010 10:40:57 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Physicists like Professor Stephen Hawking who claim God has no place in the creation of the Universe are behaving like the Taliban in trying to shut down freedom of discussion, according to Baroness Greenfield the former head of the Royal Institution.
Stephen Hawking and Baroness Greenfield
Lady Greenfield, former head of the Royal Institution and current professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford, criticised the "smugness" of scientists who claim to “have all the answers”
Hawking also attacked philosophers for failing to keep up with modern developments in physics and biology so that “their discussions seem increasingly outdated and irrelevant”.
Lady Greenfield said: “Science can often suffer from a certain smugness and complacency. Michael Faraday, one of the greatest scientists, had a wonderful quote, he said: ‘There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right’
“What we need to preserve in science is a curiosity and an open-mindedness rather than a complacency and sort of arrogance where we attack people who come at the big truths and the big questions albeit using different strategies.”
Asked whether she was uncomfortable about scientists making comments about God, she said: “Yes I am. Of course they can make whatever comments they like but when they assume, rather in a Taliban-like way, that they have all the answers then I do feel uncomfortable. I think that doesn’t necessarily do science a service.”
She was also critical of Prof Hawking's comments about philosophy, saying: “Scientists have a duty, if they want to have people who aren’t scientists to appreciate that value of what they are doing, if they want to place it into a wider social and moral context, the duty is on the scientist to explain in words ordinary human being can understand. What is dangerous…
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Why go there at all since it is humanly unknowable.”
Why attack Hawking for stating a position that you yourself seem to acknowledge can’t possibly be refuted with real evidence?
Is that like the science temple’s doctrine of man made Global Warming and all it’s degreed gods who found evidence of it? Heck the smart people even had a solution of giving alms to the global warming god in order to cool the earth down.
Science is anything but pure truth and scientists are anything but honorable priests in that atheist temple. As we learned with global warming, the high priests of science who review the lower priests proclaimations of scientific truth are self serving asses, too. They are no different than the fallen idiots who run the real churches and temples. Atheism and their science doctrines do not cure this disease of mankind, even in their own congregation.
Really, without "biblical creation" you have no reason to believe the very same principles of friction, molecular adhesion, Newton's Laws of Motion or any of the other dozens of principles and laws of physics at play, will apply the exact same way the second time you sit in a chair as they did the first time you sat in a chair. Is that what you're saying?
What complete nonsense.
Where do people get so facially unintelligent ideas about science? It's a mystery.
I'm not surprised you'd take that as a compliment. Your delusion is fully-formed.
“You could choose to accept that the existence of something is the fundamental evidence that their is an intelligence behind that existence, but you are—in the words from Romans—without excuse.”
Why does existence imply an intelligence behind that existence? By adding an “intelligence” behind the existence all you’ve done is add something else who’s existence you can’t explain.
It’s like the theory that life on Earth originated on Mars. So far there is little evidence that says it didn’t happen, but it adds complexity to the theory of the origin of life without explaining things any better. In science when that happens you apply “Occam’s razor” and go with the simpler theory that is consistent with the evidence.
So, what are YOU basing your assumption that the laws will be the same next time as last time?
And if you say “they always have”, you’re making a circular argument, assuming that which is to be proven.
Good luck with that pocket watch found in the deep woods, which you prefer to insist got there by complete chance, without an intelligence behind it’s existence.
Empirical observation. How about that? You know, the foundation for all physical laws.
What you're asserting is absent a supernatural force - biblical creation in your example - the known physical laws of the universe don't exist. That's beyond ridiculous.
"And if you say “they always have”, you’re making a circular argument, assuming that which is to be proven."
This sentence is gibberish - absent any logical meaning. You think that concluding physical laws of nature behave today the exact same way they've behaved since the beginning of time is "circular logic", then you don't understand the definition of fallacious argument known as circular reasoning.
I wouldn’t be questioning the intellect of others if your argument is simply “he is right because he is Stephen Hawking and he is brilliant”....there are a great many FOOLS whose walls are lined with worthless papers....
Empirical observation?
So you’ve personally seen that these laws are uniform throughout time, since the beginning?
And empiricism is based on observable, sensual input - so how do you know you can trust what you see, even of those things you have seen?
I’m not asserting anything, I’m asking you to tell me what your assumptions are based on, because being arbitrary is not an option.
And, by the way, I’m not going to back down from the standard “I’m smarter than you, you don’t understand, and you have no right to argue this with me” typical (leftist) arguments.
So, prove uniformity to me based on your empirical worldview.
Water that is wet today, was wet yesterday. In physics, this is known as physical constant.
2+2=4, which is just as true today as it was yesterday. In mathematics, this is known as a mathematical constant.
Neither one of these constants is dependent on a supernatural force. Now, just because you say it must be, doesn't make it so, nor does it mean I can prove it doesn't. As I mentioned to another poster, familiarize yourself with the phrase argumentum ad ignorantiam.
Fail.
You’re using past uniformity to assert future uniformity.
Try again.
Why can you assume that uniformity will continue in the future without assuming uniformity? That’s a circular argument.
You say “constant”, but have nothing beyond arbitrary assumption to base that assertion on.
And I’m not arguing for any “supernatural force”, so I don’t know why you keep bringing it up.
Really? "Biblical creation" (your words) is not a supernatural force?
You said that you can't expect the chair to hold you the second time, as it did the first time absent "biblical creation". That's gibberish.
"You say “constant”, but have nothing beyond arbitrary assumption to base that assertion on."
Says the guy who doesn't understand even the most elementary laws of physics. Here's one of the many mathematical formulas for fine-structure constant, as developed by Sommerfeld (sp?) almost a 100 years ago. It's not a circular argument, no matter how much you wish it so. It's a mathematical formula. There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of similar formulas that mathematically prove constants found in the laws of physics....
Do you understand that the standard model endeavors to explains why physical laws of the universe have remained (virtually) unchanged throughout the history of the universe? Cosmic constants are a foundational principle of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Can’t be refuted. Can’t be confirmed.
That’s the point.
Bad science.
No, I’m not talking about MY assertions. This is all on you.
Prove uniformity will continue.
You keep trying to shut me up through the standard atheist/leftist “proof by arrogant condescension”,
but you never address the real question. You keep posting assertions of uniformity as proof of uniformity.
Now tell me why, logically, you can assume uniformity in the future. No need to post any more formulas, they are not proof, they are examples.
Perhaps not, but I am.
I can understand why you don't want to talk about what you've already said - I'll remind you here...
"Without biblical creation, you have no foundational reason to believe that that chair will hold you THIS time, just because it did LAST time."
This statement is facially absurd. Why is it absurd? As I said, if you have even an elementary understanding of the laws of physics - like molecular adhesion and Newtonian Laws of Motion - it's quite self-evident why it's absurd. Then, I've gone further and provided the MATHEMATICAL proof to support why it's absurd. Which of course, you don't understand, so you don't accept them - naturally. I can see why you'd have a problem with all that fancy book-learning stuff.
"No need to post any more formulas, they are not proof, they are examples."
Is exactly what someone will say who doesn't posses the intellect to understand the physics.
because your worldview is not rationally self sustaining.
I can tell you can't answer what I'm asking, because you keep resorting to the same "proof by arrogant condescension":
someone ... who doesn't posses the intellect to understand the physics
I already told you, I'm not subject to such intimidation.
Now just tell me how you can prove uniformity without assuming uniformity or something else as arbitrary.
I don't know. First, I went to school to be an economist, not a physicist. But, physics is something of a hobby, and something that has always interested me. As I said, my copy has not arrived yet, but I'm eager to receive it and read Hawking's theory more closely.
"Another, how does that argue that God played no part in the universes creation?"
This is what Hawking's co-author recently said - That they're aren't per se saying there is no God, they are saying there needn't be a supernatural force to explain the creation of the universe. It is a difference with distinction.
"At least to me....Hawking's is stating that the laws that govern this universe are what they are and there is no need to understand why the laws exist in the first place...."
No, what he's saying is the "why" has no impact on the "how".
Science endeavors to find scientific understanding to the natural universe. Faith and religion has throughout the history of man endeavored to do two things - to explain the natural world, and why the natural world exists.
Religion has a poor record of explaining the natural universe as we now understand it. Clearly, the Earth is older than 6K years, and dinosaurs and man did not walk the Earth at the same time - which is NOT how the story of biblical creation goes.
Also, it should not be a surprise to anyone when a lifelong scientist who specializes in the moments immediately after the Big Bang, finds a purely natural reasons for "how" the universe came into being. That is, after all, what he's endeavored his entire life to do.
I already have. I'm sorry you aren't smart enough to understand it, and I'm sorry you think it's condescending of me to point out you're not smart enough to understand it.
The formula I provided for you is a "proof", it's not an example. If you understood mathematics, you understand that distinction.
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