Well, yes Liz. If scientists won't try to help as a matter of principle, then religionists, no matter how gooey-minded, will step in. Brent's late friend, Vic, saw his role as shooting down nonsensical thinking, like religion, or even non-conformist thinking by scientists. This is also the mind set of SciAm, and they have been wrong on at least two occasions. One is when they called nanotechnology, a Cargo Cult, and the second, is when they exaggerate the Impact of global warming. No Hockey Stick, no, Auckland turned to the Sahara dessert. At least not yet! The same thing that Vic Stenger did is now peformed by physicist, Sean Carrol, who writes for SciAm, and like to play the role of debunker. Debunking is ok, but neither bakes bread, nor build bridges, nor provides clean energy. Great debunker, bad on reducing the sad stuff. Larry Krauss, the same.
-----Original Message----- From: LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com> Sent: Sat, May 9, 2015 10:15 pm Subject: Re: "Physicists Are Philosophers, Too" I'm not so keen to read (or watch) stuff online that takes more than a few minutes, but I will almost certainly read that in full when my handy go-anywhere, random access information storage system (also known as the paper copy of "Scientific American") arrives in the post. In the meantime the bits I looked at seemed to be ambiguous as to whether the small-p platonic objects that are assumed to exist despite the impossibility of proof or direct observation are of a mathematical, or what is called on this list "primary physical" nature. But maybe I missed something, and it will make more sense when I get around to reading the whole thing. And yes, ultimately science does need to provide hopefulness to be a worthwhile enterprise - as it already does for millions of people suffering from diseases, genetic conditions, lack of shelter - or just a lack of entertainment - and so on. (And as it would do for millions more if the richer people in the world got in touch with their humanity - as some are doing, but not yet enough - and helped out those less fortunate, especially the millions of children who still die of preventable diseases.) PS there is a mention of Aristotle, but only in passing. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
