Catholic priest selling false accusations against physicists
Reference of that
summed up version of the accusation, by Fr Paul Robinson, author
of the book "The Realist Guide to Religion and Science", and which I saw copied as
a post in a facebook group. The few comment replies to that post in facebook were visibly
swallowing this absurd accusation of stupidity against scientists....
Here is the quote I took from there, followed by my reply:
"The reason is that light beams or photons are used to detect the movement
of particles... A certain school of scientists, called the Copenhagen School, took the following
philosophical stance: since our measurements of particles are indeterminate, particles must
actually be indeterminate. In other words, since we cannot know exactly where particles go or
how fast they are going,
they must not have regular speeds or position. They must be random! Now, this is a very
clear fallacy for anyone with a lick of philosophy. It is obvious that my inability to measure
something precisely does not prove that the thing does not exist precisely... Good science,
bad philosophy,"
Of course this is a very clear fallacy, so it would have been very stupid for someone to see
this as a proof. But someone so stupid would never have had the intelligence to develop
quantum theory either. So of course this fallacy is NOT the way physicists obtained their
conclusions about indeterminacy and randomness in quantum physics ! Now all this proves
is that these religious people are allowing themselves to fool the public in their anti-science
propaganda by casting false accusations of stupidity against scientists.
Now quantum physics actually provides the basis for one of the best argumentations against
materialism IF understood right - a right understanding which stays unknown by the above
author who stays outside science and just pretends to analyze some ideas from scientific
popularization, that is some shadows from science cast for fun and $$ by some scientists
or journalists of science on the wall of the cave, as if that could suffice to know what we are
talking about... of course such path leads to illusions of finding gaps in scientific arguments...
By the way, what is the whole argument for so-called compatibility between science and religion
developed in the book ? As summed
up there, it amounts to this : they'd be compatible just because
the enterprises of following them have the same quality of not obviously
looking totally insane when looked at from far away... at least by Fr Paul Robinson...
yeah right.
Looking at his much longer video (42 min) featured in his web site, he claims to be open
to any scientific evidence for darwinism, nevertheless (21:37) "we know that God had
to directly create human beings the first human being Adam and Eve". As for his long
praise of Catholicism for being the birthplace of science, that is the same argument for others to praise philosophy,
see my reply there.
"Thou shalt not bear
false witness against thy neighbour"
The incompatibility and superiority
of science over religion
Introduction to quantum physics
for philosophers
On the philosophical treatment of dualism
After Year Of Atheism, Former Pastor: 'I Don't Think God Exists'
On proofs of God's existence