“I have no need of that hypothesis.” Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827) in reply to Napoleon’s inquiry of why Laplace had left God out of his book on astronomy Our leading scientists are not disclosing all of the facts about what we know and don’t know about the Big Bang theory and are covering up evidence that the universe is in fact finely-tuned. Why is this important? Because a finely tuned universe leads to the conclusion that there is a mind or intelligence behind creation. This conclusion would then mean that science must evolve to incorporate intelligence into the scientific world picture. And I am not talking about what is commonly called, “Intelligent Design.” Rather, I am saying that we must move beyond both science and religion and build a new worldview where mind ¾ our mind ¾- is placed front and center into any explanation of natural phenomena. Using the tools of...
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In his book, Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics has Betrayed the Search of Scientific Truth, Jim Baggott sets out six principles that he believes should serve as criteria to judge a credible scientific theory. One of these is the Copernican Principle, which he describes as follows: ” The universe is not organized for our benefit and we are not uniquely privileged observers. Science strives to remove “us” from the centre of the picture making our existence a natural consequence of reality rather than the reason for it. ” In my interview with Jim Baggott on October 21, 2013 (Conversations Beyond Science and Religion) we talked a little bit about the validity of this principle and I want here to expand on a few points I did not have time to make during the show. As an initial matter, Copernicus did not invent the Copernican Principle. Rather, he is credited for...
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‘We all agree that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.” Niels Bohr Modern physics is at a crossroads. Since the time of Einstein, it has pursued a quest to unify the laws of physics using a naïve realist or materialist approach. This viewpoint holds that there is a real world independent of the scientific theorist, that ultimate reality is a material thing (matter) rather than a mind, and that the mind has no influence on the world. Most theorists likely assume that discarding the realist perspective is too crazy. And that’s the problem: modern science will not be able to unify the laws of science working within the box of materialism. Instead, as might be expected, it will need to go outside the box to arrive at a unified theory Front-page announcements such...
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In a recent article, What is Real?, published in Scientific American, Meinard Kuhlmann, Professor of Philosophy at Bielefeld University in Germany, breaks the news: the world is not made out of particles after all. This conclusion may come as a shock to the vast field of particle physics and the thousands of physicists working at the $6 billion Large Hadron Collider in Europe. As Professor Kuhlman writes, “one must conclude that ‘particle physics’ is a misnomer: despite the fact that physicists keep talking about particles, there is no such thing.” Quantum theory, in fact, spelled doom for particles almost 100 years ago, but modern physics has not quite absorbed this point into its worldview. Quantum theory, as Professor Kuhlman writes, is based upon on the fundamental precept that no such thing as a particle can be localized in a particular place or time; Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle forever dispelled the notion that we...
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On my upcoming radio show, Conversations Beyond Science and Religion, webtalkradio.net, scheduled for posting on July 29, 2013, I interview Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University and author of the controversial book, Darwin’s Black Box. This book, which the back cover says helped launch the intelligent design movement, contains a devastating attack on Darwin’s theory of natural selection. We are conditioned to reject the intelligent design movement as unscientific (if not unAmerican) and to believe that the Darwinian camp, led by Richard Dawkins (of Blind Watchmaker fame), must be right. While taking this stance, I would guess many people have not really examined for themselves natural selection or Behe’s version of intelligent design. And this may be the biggest problem facing opponents of Darwin: it doesn’t matter what the facts show, to be a true scientist one must be a materialist (matter, not mind, is fundamental) and reject any role...
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