John W Burgeson wrote:
> George -- just wanted to let you know I purchased this book and last
> night began my way through it.
>
> I like it. It seems "just right" for leading a SS class on any level from
> High School on up on the issues the title suggests. I'll be suggesting
> such a class to our Christian Education committee later this year.
>
> There are, of course (you knew this was coming) a few marginal notes I've
> put into my copy. There are those which are complimentary; I'll not
> mention them here except to say there are several such so far.
>
> I'll pick up today on one sentence I found on page 19. You write:
>
> "The successes of science-based technology are one indication that
> science actually is telling us something about a real world."
>
> It is not that I disagree with this, but I suggest it might well have
> been offset by, say, Bohr's somewhat famous saying:
>
> "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature
> is. Physics concerns only what we can SAY about nature."
>
> Sorry I do not have at hand the source, so I cannot be sure of the exact
> wording.
>
> For others on this list -- the book is about $18 including shipping from
> CSS Publishing. See
Burgy - Thanks for your comments. As to the Bohr quote, I won't presume
either to say what he "really meant" or to refute him. But -
OK, science doesn't tell us the _Ding an sich_ of things, especially
in the sense of knowing where quantum entities are or how they're moving.
But instead of emphasizing that "physics concerns only what we can SAY about
nature" we might put a different spin on it with "physics concerns only what
we CAN say about nature." We can say certain things, & thereby preclude
certain other things. We can say that the ionization potential for a
hydrogen atom is ~13.6 volts, that the probability of scattering of an alpha
particle off a heavy nucleus is given by Rutherford's formula, & that
probabilities evolve in accord with the Schroedinger equation. & the fact
that we can say these things & can reject statements which contradict them
tells us something - though certainly not everything - about the real world.
& we can discount claims that quantum theory is just a "social construct" -
as if some culture which wanted to say that the ionization potential of
hydrogen was 32.9 volts would have an equal right to be heard. It's really
the latter sort of claim, & not simply a defence of naive realism, that I had
in mind.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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