Website review: The New York Times & Log In
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•1 reviews since Nov 24, 2007
worldviews
•nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html
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laodan discovered 6 months ago- Taking Science on Faith in the NYT an opinion by PAUL DAVIES
Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. And just as Christians claim that the world depends utterly on God for its existence, while the converse is not the case, so physicists declare a similar asymmetry: the universe is governed by eternal laws (or meta-laws), but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe. It seems to me there is no hope of ever explaining why the physical universe is as it is so long as we are fixated on immutable laws or meta-laws that exist reasonlessly or are imposed by divine providence. The alternative is to regard the laws of physics and the universe they govern as part and parcel of a unitary system, and to be incorporated together within a common explanatory scheme. In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus. Taking Science on Faith Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life on Amazon a book by Paul Davies Paul Davies makes a good point. Science is based on the same foundational assumption than the religions of the word. "... to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin." And if this kind of blind following in the belief of a beginning of reality is accepted it should also be extended to the belief in an end of that reality. It is noteworthy to observe that Paul Davies does not mention that other foundational systems have no need to recourse to beginning nor end to make sense out of reality. Should science not be better off trying to niche itself inside such non dualist philosophic systems than perpetuating the dualism of the religions of the word?
- Taking Science on Faith in the NYT an opinion by PAUL DAVIES
