http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/leonard-susskind
"How do you respond to critics who see the anthropic approach as quasi-religious or unscientific?
I cannot put it better than Steven Weinberg did in a recent paper:
Finally, I have heard the objection that, in trying to explain why the laws of nature are so well suited for the appearance and evolution of life, anthropic arguments take on some of the flavor of religion. I think that just the opposite is the case. Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the wonderful adaptations of living forms could arise without supernatural intervention, so the string landscape may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator. I found this parallel well understood in a surprising place, a New York Times op-ed article by Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna. His article concludes as follows:
Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human nature by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.
There is evident irony in the fact that the cardinal seems to understand the issue much better than some physicists."
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evident irony here on elitetrader as well.
We have nobel prize winning scientists and co founders of string theory saying the cardinal was right when he said it is abdication of human intelligence to try and explain away the appearance of design as a result of chance or necessity..
yet I predict a bunch of atheists here will completely misunderstand this clearly written quote.
"How do you respond to critics who see the anthropic approach as quasi-religious or unscientific?
I cannot put it better than Steven Weinberg did in a recent paper:
Finally, I have heard the objection that, in trying to explain why the laws of nature are so well suited for the appearance and evolution of life, anthropic arguments take on some of the flavor of religion. I think that just the opposite is the case. Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the wonderful adaptations of living forms could arise without supernatural intervention, so the string landscape may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator. I found this parallel well understood in a surprising place, a New York Times op-ed article by Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna. His article concludes as follows:
Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human nature by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.
There is evident irony in the fact that the cardinal seems to understand the issue much better than some physicists."
--
evident irony here on elitetrader as well.
We have nobel prize winning scientists and co founders of string theory saying the cardinal was right when he said it is abdication of human intelligence to try and explain away the appearance of design as a result of chance or necessity..
yet I predict a bunch of atheists here will completely misunderstand this clearly written quote.
