Pentcho
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Why Science Is Not Part of Culture 1 Year, 9 Months ago
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The problem is getting more and more pressing:
voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/...t_alright_every.html
"Everybody is worked up about the state of education in the United States. The KIDS are FALLING BEHIND. No, it's not the KIDS, it's the SCHOOLS. No, it's not the SCHOOLS it's the TEACHERS. No, it's not the TEACHERS, it's the PARENTS. Okay, so if we fix the schools and the teachers and the parents, will our kids stop falling behind? I'm inclined to extend the ring of panic out one ring further. If it's true that the supporting envelope of the home is crucial to education, might it not also be true that the supporting envelope of society is important, too? It's not just the kids or the schools or the teachers or the parents, it's the CULTURE. Look around. Where is the support for careful reasoning?"
www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sciencetoda...9/1224275683050.html
"...Isaac Newton would be astounded that his theories of motion and gravitation had been usurped by Einstein's theory of relativity. Christopher Wren would be amazed that modern astronomical measurements had led to the discovery that we live in an expanding universe that was once smaller than an atom. But what would surprise the founding members most is that these, and other discoveries, remain the preserve of a few. Far from being an indispensable part of the human experience, science has remained a specialised subject understood by only a fraction of society. Does it matter? (...) A second, and often overlooked, reason for a public understanding of science is that science is part of the human experience, just as history and music are. Not everyone may want to partake in the actual discovery of the workings of the natural world, but they deserve to know what has been discovered! This science-as-culture argument was first articulated by the physicist C P Snow when he realised that he could engage in literary discussion with friends in the humanities, while they knew nothing of his subject. Indeed, he felt that the general public was being cheated out of a scientific education. This coincides with my own belief, and that of many scientists, that society has a right to know the discoveries of modern science. Indeed, I believe society also has a right to know how those discoveries were made, as the story of unfolding scientific discovery is an important part of human history."
Clues:
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink: "Snow stands up for the view that exact science is, in its own right, an essential part of civilisation, and should not merely be valued for its technological applications. Anyone who does not know the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and is proud of it too, exposes oneself as a Philistine. Snow's plea will strike a chord with every physicist who has ever attended a birthday party. But his call for cultural recognition creates obligations too. Before one can claim that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it (Bridgman 1941, p. 116). And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it continues to attract new efforts at clarification. A recent example is the work of Lieb and Yngvason (1999)......The historian of science and mathematician Truesdell made a detailed study of the historical development of thermodynamics in the period 1822-1854. He characterises the theory, even in its present state, as 'a dismal swamp of obscurity' (1980, p. 6) and 'a prime example to show that physicists are not exempt from the madness of crowds' (ibid. p. 8).......Clausius' verbal statement of the second law makes no sense.... All that remains is a Mosaic prohibition ; a century of philosophers and journalists have acclaimed this commandment ; a century of mathematicians have shuddered and averted their eyes from the unclean.....Seven times in the past thirty years have I tried to follow the argument Clausius offers....and seven times has it blanked and gravelled me.... I cannot explain what I cannot understand.....This summary leads to the question whether it is fruitful to see irreversibility or time-asymmetry as the essence of the second law. Is it not more straightforward, in view of the unargued statements of Kelvin, the bold claims of Clausius and the strained attempts of Planck, to give up this idea? I believe that Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa was right in her verdict that the discussion about the arrow of time as expressed in the second law of the thermodynamics is actually a RED HERRING."
plus.maths.org/issue37/features/Einstein/index.html
John Barrow: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of science. Everyone knew that Einstein had done something important in 1905 (and again in 1915) but almost nobody could tell you exactly what it was. When Einstein was interviewed for a Dutch newspaper in 1921, he attributed his mass appeal to the mystery of his work for the ordinary person: Does it make a silly impression on me, here and yonder, about my theories of which they cannot understand a word? I think it is funny and also interesting to observe. I am sure that it is the mystery of non-understanding that appeals to them...it impresses them, it has the colour and the appeal of the mysterious."
www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages 57-78
"The prediction that clocks will move at different rates is particularly well known, and the problem of explaining how this can be so without violating the principle of relativity is particularly obvious. The clock paradox, however, is only one of a number of simple objections that have been raised to different aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity. (Much of this criticism is quite apart from and often predates the apparent contradiction between relativity theory and quantum mechanics.) It is rare to find any attempt at a detailed rebuttal of these criticisms by professional physicists. However, physicists do sometimes give a general response to criticisms that relativity theory is syncretic by asserting that Einstein is logically consistent, but that to explain why is so difficult that critics lack the capacity to understand the argument. In this way, the handy claim that there are unspecified, highly complex resolutions of simple apparent inconsistencies in the theory can be linked to the charge that antirelativists have only a shallow understanding of the matter, probably gleaned from misleading popular accounts of the theory. (...) The argument for complexity reverses the scientific preference for simplicity. Faced with obvious inconsistencies, the simple response is to conclude that Einstein's claims for the explanatory scope of the special and general theory are overstated. To conclude instead that that relativity theory is right for reasons that are highly complex is to replace Occam's razor with a potato masher. (...) The defence of complexity implies that the novice wishing to enter the profession of theoretical physics must accept relativity on faith. It implicitly concedes that, without an understanding of relativity theory's higher complexities, it appears illogical, which means that popular "explanations" of relativity are necessarily misleading. But given Einstein's fame, physicists do not approach the theory for the first time once they have developed their expertise. Rather, they are exposed to and probably examined on popular explanations of relativity in their early training. How are youngsters new to the discipline meant to respond to these accounts? Are they misled by false explanations and only later inculcated with true ones? What happens to those who are not misled? Are they supposed to accept relativity merely on the grounds of authority? The argument of complexity suggests that to pass the first steps necessary to join the physics profession, students must either be willing to suspend disbelief and go along with a theory that appears illogical; or fail to notice the apparent inconsistencies in the theory; or notice the inconsistencies and maintain a guilty silence in the belief that this merely shows that they are unable to understand the theory. The gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of professional discourse."
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
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Pentcho
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Posts: 466
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Re:Why Science Is Not Part of Culture 1 Year, 9 Months ago
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Karma: -17
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More clues to the question "Why is science not part of culture?":
www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3338512/T...g-like-Einstein.html
Martin Rees: "Cynics have said that Einstein might as well have gone fishing from 1920 onwards. Although there's something rather noble about the way he persevered in his attempts to reach far beyond his grasp, in some respects THE EINSTEIN CULT SENDS THE WRONG SIGNAL."
articles.courant.com/2009-03-26/news/tho...ity-arthur-eddington
"Albert Einstein strengthened science through his contributions, but he may have inadvertently crippled science education through his example. This notion is supported by an editorial, "Redefining Science Education," published in January by Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of the journal Science. His main concern is that "many college-educated adults in the United States," including teachers, "fail to understand that science is a way of knowing completely different from mysticism, tradition and faith." Science is based on "evidence that can be logically and independently verified," rather than on personal authority. Most of the public accepted Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity based on his authority, rather than on the evidence presented."
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/31...vity-and-relativism/
Washington Times: "A frequently heard statement of cultural relativism goes like this: "If it feels right for you, it's OK. Who is to say you're wrong?" One individual's experience is as "valid" as another's. There is no "preferred" or higher vantage point from which to judge these things. Not just beauty, but right and wrong are in the eye of the beholder. The "I" indeed is the "ultimate measure." The special theory of relativity imposes on the physical world a claim that is very similar to the one made by relativism. (...) So how come the speed of light always stays the same? Einstein argued that when the observer moves relative to an object, distance and time always adjust themselves just enough to preserve light speed as a constant. Speed is distance divided by time. So, Einstein argued, length contracts and time dilates to just the extent needed to keep the speed of light ever the same. Space and time are the alpha and omega of the physical world. They are the stage within which everything happens. But if they must trim and tarry whenever the observer moves, that puts "the observer" in the driver's seat. Reality becomes observer-dependent. Again, then, we find that the "I" is the ultimate measure. Pondering this in Prague in the 1950s, Beckmann could not accept it. The observer's function is to observe, he said, not to affect what's out there. Relativity meant that two and two didn't quite add up any more and elevated science into a priesthood of obscurity. Common sense could no longer be trusted."
ftp://ftp.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/SISTA/markovsky/reports/06-46.pdf
"From the pedagogical point of view, thermodynamics is a disaster. As the authors rightly state in the introduction, many aspects are "riddled with inconsistencies". They quote V.I. Arnold, who concedes that "every mathematician knows it is impossible to understand an elementary course in thermodynamics". Nobody has eulogized this confusion more colorfully than the late Clifford Truesdell. On page 6 of his book "The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics" 1822-1854 (Springer Verlag, 1980), he calls thermodynamics "a dismal swamp of obscurity". Elsewhere, in despair of trying to make sense of the writings of some local heros as De Groot, Mazur, Casimir, and Prigogine, Truesdell suspects that there is "something rotten in the (thermodynamic) state of the Low Countries" (see page 134 of Rational Thermodynamics, McGraw-Hill, 1969)."
www.rsc.org/pdf/uchemed/papers/2002/p2_carson.pdf
"For many students, the study of thermodynamics presents problems; it is seen as consisting almost entirely of equations which are not understood and which have to be learned by rote in order to do calculations and to pass examinations."
canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/23682
"In 1929, when spectral analysis revealed a 'red shift' in distant galaxies, astronomer Edwin Hubble speculated that this might be due to acceleration away from Earth and a possible expanding universe. Before he could reflect on other possible explanations, a radio interview stumbled onto the phrase "Big Bang" and a run-away train left the station. Dr Hubble was uncomfortable with both the concept and the catchy nick-name, but he had a 'conflict of interest' on this issue. In a Times magazine interview, on Dec 14, 1936, titled "Science: Shift on Shift", Dr. Hubble made his opposition clear. One reason that he was not more forceful was because he was begging the government for funding of the Mount Palomar telescope."
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757145,00.html
Monday, Dec. 14, 1936: "Other causes for the redshift were suggested, such as cosmic dust or a change in the nature of light over great stretches of space. Two years ago Dr. Hubble admitted that the expanding universe might be an illusion, but implied that this was a cautious and colorless view. Last week it was apparent that he had shifted his position even further away from a literal interpretation of the redshift, that he now regards the expanding universe as more improbable than a non-expanding one."
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
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Re:Why Science Is Not Part of Culture 1 Year, 9 Months ago
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Monday, Dec. 14, 1936: "Other causes for the redshift were suggested, such as cosmic dust or a change in the nature of light over great stretches of space. Two years ago Dr. Hubble admitted that the expanding universe might be an illusion, but implied that this was a cautious and colorless view. Last week it was apparent that he had shifted his position even further away from a literal interpretation of the redshift, that he now regards the expanding universe as more improbable than a non-expanding one."
You are citing something from 1936 that has been proven wrong
by the actual emission lines. Hubble didn't have the nice
instruments that year.
This is a shameful use of authority, like backdating checks.
Either you are very, very bad at knowing science and knowledge,
are you are attempting to deceive people by blowing
invalid references up their backsides.
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Pentcho
Platinum Boarder
Posts: 466
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Re:Why Science Is Not Part of Culture 1 Year, 9 Months ago
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Karma: -17
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More clues to the question "Why is science not part of culture?":
www.wellingtongrey.net/articles/archive/...open-letter-aqa.html
"I am a physics teacher. Or, at least I used to be. My subject is still called physics. My pupils will sit an exam and earn a GCSE in physics, but that exam doesn't cover anything I recognize as physics. Over the past year the UK Department for Education and the AQA board changed the subject. They took the physics out of physics and replaced it with... something else, something nebulous and ill defined. I worry about this change. I worry about my pupils, I worry about the state of science education in this country, and I worry about the future physics teachers - if there will be any. (...) UPDATE 2009: After much frustration I'm leaving teaching England in physics. I've started a side business in time management and am taking a break from the profession."
www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/may/22/h...reducation.education
Harry Kroto: "The wrecking of British science....The scientific method is based on what I prefer to call the inquiring mindset. It includes all areas of human thoughtful activity that categorically eschew "belief", the enemy of rationality. This mindset is a nebulous mixture of doubt, questioning, observation, experiment and, above all, curiosity, which small children possess in spades. I would argue that it is the most important, intrinsically human quality we possess, and it is responsible for the creation of the modern, enlightened portion of the world that some of us are fortunate to inhabit. Curiously, for the majority of our youth, the educational system magically causes this capacity to disappear by adolescence.....Do I think there is any hope for UK? I am really not sure."
L. McGlashan, Chemical thermodynamics, Academic Press, London (1979), pp. 72-73: "For an infinitesimal change in the state of a phase alpha we write
dU = T dS - p dV + SUM mu_B dn_B (1)
We regard equation (1) as an axiom and call it the fundamental equation for a change of the state of a phase alpha. It is one half of the second law of thermodynamics. We do not ask where it comes from. Indeed we do not admit the existence of any more fundamental relations from which it might have been derived. Nor shall we here enquire into the history of its formulation, though that is a subject of great interest to the historian of science. It is a starting point ; it must be learnt by heart."
www.beilstein-institut.de/bozen2004/proc...en/CornishBowden.pdf
Athel Cornish-Bowden: "The concept of entropy was introduced to thermodynamics by Clausius, who deliberately chose an obscure term for it, wanting a word based on Greek roots that would sound similar to "energy". In this way he hoped to have a word that would mean the same to everyone regardless of their language, and, as Cooper [2] remarked, he succeeded in this way in finding a word that meant the same to everyone: NOTHING. From the beginning it proved a very difficult concept for other thermodynamicists, even including such accomplished mathematicians as Kelvin and Maxwell; Kelvin, indeed, despite his own major contributions to the subject, never appreciated the idea of entropy [3]. The difficulties that Clausius created have continued to the present day, with the result that a fundamental idea that is absolutely necessary for understanding the theory of chemical equilibria continues to give trouble, not only to students but also to scientists who need the concept for their work."
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/science/26essay.html
"The worrying continued. Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist from Arizona State, said that most theories were wrong. "We get the notions they are right because we keep talking about them," he said. Not only are most theories wrong, he said, but most data are also wrong..."
www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/87150187.html
"Dark Energy: The Biggest Mystery in the Universe (...) "We have a complete inventory of the universe," Sean Carroll, a California Institute of Technology cosmologist, has said, "and it makes no sense."
www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/Goodies/passage/index.html
John Norton: "A common belief among philosophers of physics is that the passage of time of ordinary experience is merely an illusion. The idea is seductive since it explains away the awkward fact that our best physical theories of space and time have yet to capture this passage. I urge that we should resist the idea. We know what illusions are like and how to detect them. Passage exhibits no sign of being an illusion....Following from the work of Einstein, Minkowski and many more, physics has given a wonderfully powerful conception of space and time. Relativity theory, in its most perspicacious form, melds space and time together to form a four-dimensional spacetime. The study of motion in space and and all other processes that unfold in them merely reduce to the study of an odd sort of geometry that prevails in spacetime. In many ways, time turns out to be just like space. In this spacetime geometry, there are differences between space and time. But a difference that somehow captures the passage of time is not to be found. There is no passage of time. There are temporal orderings. We can identify earlier and later stages of temporal processes and everything in between. What we cannot find is a passing of those stages that recapitulates the presentation of the successive moments to our consciousness, all centered on the one preferred moment of "now." At first, that seems like an extraordinary lacuna. It is, it would seem, a failure of our best physical theories of time to capture one of time's most important properties. However the longer one works with the physics, the less worrisome it becomes. (...) I was, I confess, a happy and contented believer that passage is an illusion. It did bother me a little that we seemed to have no idea of just how the news of the moments of time gets to be rationed to consciousness in such rigid doses. (...) Now consider the passage of time. Is there a comparable reason in the known physics of space and time to dismiss it as an illusion? I know of none. The only stimulus is a negative one. We don't find passage in our present theories and we would like to preserve the vanity that our physical theories of time have captured all the important facts of time. So we protect our vanity by the stratagem of dismissing passage as an illusion."
www.renewamerica.us/columns/hutchison/080616
"Like bronze idols that are hollow inside, Einstein built a cluster of "Potemkin villages," which are false fronts with nothing behind them. Grigori Potemkin (17391791) was a general-field marshal, Russian statesman, and favorite of Empress Catherine the Great. He is alleged to have built facades of non-existent villages along desolate stretches of the Dnieper River to impress Catherine as she sailed to the Crimea in 1787. Actors posing as happy peasants stood in front of these pretty stage sets and waved to the pleased Empress."
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
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Re:Why Science Is Not Part of Culture 1 Year, 9 Months ago
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religion and science are not mutually exclusive. to present it so is to create uneccesary animosity.
1. is true, they call it "faith" lol.
2. is true SOMETIMES. some religions are quite progressive
3. is false, everyone knows something about another religious view. not everyone has the time to study them
4. true for fundamentalists.
5. generally true, not all religions are like that.
science is objective search for the truth, religion is a subjective search for the truth with a pre established bias. that is the difference.
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Re:Why Science Is Not Part of Culture 1 Year, 9 Months ago
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banku...you have a rare opportunity
to look into Psychology here. This
kind of hungry delusion-molding exists
all over now.
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