Science trapped by religious thinking?

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I agree, but I disagree. So many people (Platonists) think these laws exist outside of human experience, and it's so obvious that they don't. WHAT they try to describe does, but there's a big difference. We can say a^2 + b^2 = c^2, but the very notion of a triangle is completely circumscribed by human experience, and the notion of abstract notation is also a human thing. To say such a relation exists a priori is where I believe rationalism runs off the rails into a kind of metaphysics of "belief" as opposed to empirical science, and where empirical science mistakes itself for reality.

We ARE creating the laws, but what we create them ABOUT is something we do not have control over. The universe and human evolution rolled those dice aeons ago. Yes, you COULD write a law that says gravity doesn't exist, IF the law you write permits the kind of observations we make regarding objects in space/time. In fact, this is an interesting example. The Einsteinian view is that gravity (in and of itself) doesn't exist. It is our perception of how objects behave in curved space time. In the other ring, you have physicists who are bound and determined to shoe-horn gravity into some grand design of particle physics, and are on a continuous (and IMHO, quixotic) quest for the Graviton.

So, you grab a brick, hold it out. Let go. It falls. The effect of it falling on release we can call "gravity", but whether gravity exists as a REAL force in the universe, or just some weird effect of space/time warpage is another issue. So, yes, you CAN write a law that says "gravity doesn't exist" as long as your law accounts for the behaviour exhibited in the test of your dropping the brick.

What is insightful about your brief post is the point that what we call "Scientific Laws" are merely descriptions of nature. The laws are Scientific, and are therefore, tentative. They will remain "true" only as long as they can be proven to be true. Once some genius comes along and disproves it, or, more likely, incorporates it into some larger understanding, it will cease to be "true". Science is not based on absolute permanent truth. Scientific truth is ALWAYS provisional. It is so, as it is a product of language - a tool of our species.


Science supposedly supplanted religion in the mind of the enlightened with regard to explaining the natural world. The one thing that many scientists have still not abandoned is that notion there is some supernatural force at the center that has decreed the way the world works. Early Christianity placed no limits on God and wrote off the investigation of the outside world as meaningless because it had nothing to do with spirituality or the next life. Later Christianity attempted to prove that God's mind was ordered and reasoned at that recurring patterns in natural phenomenon were a result of the dictates of God. The investigation of theologians/early scientists in the era was to "Discover the Mind of God."

Today, most scientist or at least those who purport to believe in science hold just as firmly as any fundamentalist Christian in the faith of a natural and mathematically precise order that is just waiting to be discovered once sufficient empirical evidence has been gathered an analyzed. While it may be impossible to ascribe the relative accuracy of Newtonian physics (something which is technically wrong, but still precise enough to work relatively well) to mere coincidence, it seems a bit arrogant or perhaps naive to think our tiny evolved brains can understand the Universe as we would a self-contained geometry problem.

For science to truly progress, we need to abandon our faith in a non-living, non-sentient, rationality laying down precise and discoverable laws governing the universe just as many have abandoned the idea of a living, sentient, rational being laying down precise and discoverable laws governing the universe. Scientific findings are great and often useful, but the irrational belief that each new empirically discovered law is "The Truth" leads us down false paths like (in all likelihood) looking for the GUT or gravitons.

Getty Spacey about Science

Pinkerton: After Sputnik we aimed high, now our aims are low

Krauthammer: What Sputnik launched

The more I read Jim Pinkerton, the more I am convinced he has no understanding of history, science, or technology. Krauthammer still thinks we should be going to the Moon, but if you read the two articles you will see what an intellectual midget Pinkerton is compared to Krauthammer in terms of understanding the significance of Sputnik and local space travel.

Going to the Moon was a PR event and nothing more. It may have had some impact on the Cold War or our perception as a superpower in the rest of the world, for good or bad, but any positive effects would be impossible to quantify. The real positive by-product of the race for math and science technology spurred (perhaps) by hysterical overreaction to Sputnick was satellite communication, computer technology, and yes even the Internet that Pinkerton says has turned into a collosal time waster.

Then again these things might have happened on their own with government grants or focus on science and math. We love to worship the false gods of politicians who take credit for things that really happened on their own through the invisible hand of people making their own decisions about how to spend their time and money.

I disagree with Pinkerton's negative assessment of the internet being a waste in the form of introspection (i.e. "staring at our bellybuttons") since exploring one's own mind and thoughts can be one of the most productive human activities if used positively to achieve self-understanding or progress our understanding of others. In other words, increasing our own happiness and sense of satisfaction in life. Pinkerton would rather have us wasting billions to go to some cold, desolate place where there is absolutely nothing of value for us. Why not dig a 20 mile deep hole in the Earth and send people down there on exploratory missions? All this money wasted so that the baby-boomers can feel they are part of something big. A giant Woodstock with other people's money which, at the end of the day, is meaningless.

2001 imagined daily shuttle flights to the moon because there was still a sense that there might actually be some purpose to having people on the moon. There might be hidden water or valuable and rare minerals hidden under the surface. I think the flights in the movie were even done by private companies (I remember seeing ads on the TV monitors at least). This has not happened with either the private sector or the government sector for one key reason: it serves no purpose. The moon is a giant desolate rock up close and there is nothing to be gained by populating it.

So let's abandon the belief that spending billions of dollars to put a few people on the moon is "science". It is a reflection of technological achievement, but it is neither science nor anything that benefits humanity other than some government contractors and bureaucrats. Saying that we need to be in space or we will lose our edge on science (by which he really means technological advancement) is like saying American businesses will not be productive unless we have the world's tallest building. A trip to the moon is like holding the record for the world's largest pizza - it's a trivial event that shows you have the ability to do something. Imagine if we spent that money on something productive or let people keep it instead of having it forced away by the government.

Breaking the Light Barrier

'We have broken speed of light'

This has always been a pet peeve of mine. The theory of General Relativity does not say that nothing can travel faster than light. That is an implication of the theory - and apparently one that Einstein also believed, but this apparent breakthrough - whether it is real or not - doesn't destroy General Relativity. E=mc2 means that nothing with any mass can travel faster than light.

If photons are measured as moving faster than the speed of light (and the reading is accurate) then one of two things is happening. Either space is being bent in a way that brings the two points closer together - hence no change in the speed of a light photon, or a mechanism has been developed to allow a photon (something without mass) to travel faster than the ordinary speed of a photon. I do not see this as breaking General Relativity no matter what the pundits say. This is how science gets dumbed down - an abstraction become a cliche and people test new phenomenon against the cliche, not the real theory.

The implication may be that if we can accelerate light then we can accelerate something with mass. These are two different creatures altogether though, so don't jump to that conclusion. General Relativity still works for things with mass. Changing the energy in a system to accelerate something without mass does not destroy GR.

I still think that it will one day be possible to move things "faster than the speed of light", but it can only be done by manipulating space - curving it a la science fiction - which again with not violate GR since the object will still not be able to travel faster than what E=mc2 dictates. GR sets the limit on how an object with mass can travel and how its frame of reference is modified depending on its speed (hence the relativity part). GR does not limit how fast something without mass can travel or prevent something with mass from traveling between points faster than a photon. In the latter case however, space has to be manipulated since GR is accurate and will not be violated.