lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (11/16/83)
Andy Tannenbaum stated: "I find it just as odd to hear a scientist tell me that the world is a few billion years old as it is to hear a rabbi tell me that the world is 5744 years old, if not more so. The scientist is trying to represent the truth, the rabbi is trying to tell me that this is what faith has him believe." This seems to me squarely backwards. The scientist is trying to tell you what physical evidence should lead you to believe. Andy's position, as I understand it, is that physical evidence cannot in principle be used to interpret past events. I think this attitude won't bear up under close inspection. It amounts to a sort of solipsism. I'm sure Andy would dismiss as silly the suggestion that the world was created yesterday, just as it is. His position is really no different, though. I don't think Andy appreciates the wealth and variety of the evidence which weaves the scientific view of the past. The faith of the scientist is just that when all the evidence SEEMS to make sense, it really does make sense. I would be content if I thought Andy realized how much he was throwing out the window when he equates the vast tapestry of Natural History with the codification of ancient intuition. As an aside, I remember being quite impressed when a professor who had built his very successful career on investigation of solid state defects drew a diagram of the diamond lattice on the blackboard, and then stated, "This is not diamond. Never think that I'm talking about diamond here." - meaning of course, don't confuse the model with reality. So I will agree with Andy that the belief that we are talking about reality when we discuss scientific models is a leap of faith, but I don't accept the notion that the scientific view dissolves when we look back into time a few thousand years. As I said, I feel that this notion is a reflection of Andy's ignorance of what's involved. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (11/18/83)
I think (or rather, hope) that Lew Mammel misinterpreted Andy's "I find it just as odd to hear a scientist tell me that the world is a few billion years old as it is to hear a rabbi tell me that the world is 5744 years old, if not more so. The scientist is trying to represent the truth, the rabbi is trying to tell me that this is what faith has him believe." Andy's comment strikes a strong chord in me, although I would not for a moment believe the "religious" statement. Science is the art of wonder. It is indeed odd that the facts have led to such a wonderful conclusion as that the world is 4 billion years old. Think of it! Four ... thousand ... million ... years. Science forces you to believe that this result is the current best interpretation of the facts we have at hand. It is a much more wonderful deduction than the mundane idea that it all happened because of a whim of some Creator a few thousand years ago. Anyone could dream up that idea; it isn't wonderful at all. But it is "odd" to hear somebody espouse it as a reasonable statement. Personally, I find it extremely odd that I can hear an orchestra when I know that the source of the sound is a vibrating membrane. It is even odder that someone could have predicted that it would happen. Martin Taylor