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Suggested reading list
Topic Started: Aug 4 2009, 12:07 AM (1,029 Views)
ngc1514
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The scientific illiteracy in the United States is frightening. Many people find science itself frightening while scientists themselves think it one of mankind's greatest accomplishments.

Things which were considered unknowable are now known.
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Of all objects, the planets are those which appear to us under the least varied aspect. We see how we may determine their forms, their distances, their bulk, and their motions, but we can never known anything of their chemical or mineralogical structure...

Auguste Comte, The Positive Philosophy, Book II, Chapter 1 (1842)

Soon after work came off the printing presses, Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen (of the burner fame) were putting together the laws of spectroscopy that allowed astronomers to study that chemical composition and changed astronomy from a descriptive science to astrophysics.

Scientific popularizers have allowed access to the inner workings of science for the layman. While there are lots of such works in print, here's a short list of those I think best fill the bill.

Cosmology is the study of the origins, composition and eventual end of the universe.

The Whole Shebang by Timothy Ferris is a wonderful introduction to what cosmologists think and why they do so.

The First Three Minutes by Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is dated, but still a deeper introduction to the standard Big Bang theory.

Stars and Clusters by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is the best explanation of how we know how old stars are and how stars evolve. It's a bit rougher reading than the first two, but still easily accessible to the average lay reader.

Quantum physics is, if you read the few posts Mike and I have shared about light, absolutely mind-blowing. The idea that the universe exists only because someone looks at is has bothered scientists from Einstein down.
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"Do you really believe that the moon exists only when you look at it?"

Some interpretations of quantum theory say that no, the moon does NOT exist if no one's looking at it.

Books to avoid are the ones that attempt to correlate quantum theory with eastern religions. The Dancing Wu-li Masters and The Tao of Physics head this list. Quantum theory is strange enough without going off the religious deep end.

Nick Herbert's Quantum Reality is about the best intro to the world of quantum weirdness I know. A first time reader might get hung up on his discussion of waves, but waves - probability waves - are the heart of quantum theory.

Right now I'm reading Louisa Gilder's The Age of Entanglement with a lot of pleasure. She not only tries to tell us what quantum theory says, but WHY scientists came to their conclusions over the period between 1909 and today. It's an interesting view of the interaction between the greats of 20th century physics and the problems they solved.

Geology tells us that no, the earth isn't 6,000 years old. Unlike much of cosmology and quantum theory, the interested reader can get out into the field and put his hands on the rocks and see the formations that created our view of an old earth.

Annals of the Former World by John McPhee put you by his side as he drives across the United States on I-40 and, approximately, the 40th parallel in the company of well-known geologists. Where did these rocks come from? How did these land forms evolve? Why is there a billion years of rocks missing between this formation and that? Absolutely fascinating view of the geology of America.

Evolution...

Stephen Jay Gould is the author of choice here and the collections of his essays from Natural History Magazine answer the big questions about how life evolved from the simplest of creatures. No need to read them chronologically. You can start with Ever Since Darwin or The Flamingo's Smile which represent the earliest and one of the latest collections. Endlessly delightful and illuminating, his "Reflection on Natural History" will go down as some of the best science writing ever.

If you really want to get into evolution as a scientific theory, Peter J. Bowler's Evolution: The History of an Idea is a good starting point. It goes a long way to answering WHY science so quickly embraced Darwin's theory.

Lots of great reading... if you're interested.
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Mike
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I may order some of these to see if I can grasp what the authors have to say. Exploration of scientific ideas can be fun, provided that a proper perspective be applied to the reasoning being used. If the author completely discounts creationism, then he or she leaves a big hole in their theories.

I think, like John Paul II and Benedict XVI have said, that one must consider matters of science from a Christain perspective, not simply a scientific viewpoint.

quote:

COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI has said that he sees no conflict between faith and science in the exploration of the universe's development, but he has criticized those who see evolution as an explanation for everything.

The remarks, made in a discussion he hosted at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, with some of his former students in September last year, have been published in a German book titled Schoepfung und Evolution (Creation and Evolution). The book was published April 11, 2007, by the Sankt Ulrich Verlag publishing house.

The students have met annually since 1978 with their former doctoral supervisor, but this is the first time they have published the lectures and discussions.

During the discussion, the pope said it was not a matter of "deciding either in favor of a creationism, which out of principle excludes science from its considerations, or in favor of a theory of evolution, which underplays its own gaps and refuses to see questions which go beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science."

What was important, he said, was "the interplay of different dimensions of reason, an interplay which opens up into the road to faith."

The pope argued that Christianity was a religion of reason, but a reason that was wider than the limited scope of modern science.

For the pope, science reaches its limits when its assumptions can no longer be tested.

"We can't bring 10,000 generations into the laboratory," he said. That leaves "gaps in the possibility of proving or disproving (the theory) by experiment."

However, Pope Benedict said, God cannot be used simply to explain away the problems.

"It's not as if I wanted to stuff dear God into these gaps," he said. "He's too big to fit into such gaps."

Pope Benedict also took a firm stand against science books' tendency to suggest that things came about by nature and evolution.

"The question has to be asked: What is nature or evolution as (an active) subject? It doesn't exist! If one says that nature does this or that, this can only be an attempt to summarize a series of events under one actor which, as such, doesn't exist," the pope said.

Nature and evolution are made up of many individual steps, and the pope insisted that one must look beyond nature and evolution for a guiding principle.

Pope Benedict said science had discovered large areas of rationality and had given people new understanding.

But, he said, "in its joy at the greatness of its discoveries, it has tended to take away from us dimensions of reason which we still need."

Questions raised have to be answered by reason and "can't just be left to religious feelings," said the pope.

Evolution, even if it includes irrational, chaotic and destructive processes, seems to have its own rationality, said the pope. It has adopted the few positive mutations which occurred and exploited the limited possibilities which evolution has offered.

"Where does this rationality come from? Is there a causative rationality?" the pope asked.

"Naturally there is rationality in nature, but that doesn't allow us to have complete insight into God's plan," said Pope Benedict.

He pointed to the "riddle of cruelty in nature" which remains unexplained, even by philosophy. That requires a further step, the step of faith in the Logos, the creative rationality of God himself "which unbelievably was able to become flesh, die and rise again," he said. end quote
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I think it would be rewarding to pick a topic and book, read it and then follow through with a discussion on what the author had to say, coupled with our own views.. Nothing dogmatic, simply discussing and sharing...
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ngc1514
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Science does not discuss creationism for the same reason it doesn't address astrology.

Neither ones fit the philosophical criteria necessary to express these ideas as theories. They are explanations - hypotheses, if you will - that are not verifiable or subject to disproof.

How would you go about disproving creationism? What evidence would suffice to convince you it's wrong?
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Mike
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For me, a question like that is moot. And I would think that for most scientists, the same would be true. Regardless if one accepted what I believe, I don't see how there is any other logical conclusion that the known universe didn't simply appear from nothing..
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ngc1514
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Creationism is not science. It is a non-quantifiable, descriptive tale of how it all came to be.

It can never be disproven nor is it predictive.

No one is claiming that the known universe appeared from nothing.
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Mike
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I know nobody is claiming the universe just popped up from nothing, and yet we live in an existence where everything has a beginning and an end. We witness it. From my experience, He that we call God is the creative force behind the universe. And I realize that not everybody accepts this. So rather than bump heads together, it makes more sense in a discussion forum such as this, to explore the wonders that are being discovered around us. It truly is amazing, the earth and universe we live in.
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ngc1514
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I agree about the wonders around us. But I also find it absolutely fascinating that our understanding of those wonders also lets us speak with a fair degree of accuracy of what the universe was like during the Grand Unification epoch - 10^-36 to 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang. Before that, the Planck Epoch remains cloudy and depends on the validity of Super String hypotheses.

Do you have any conception at how short a time that it?

The universe came into being about 4.1x10^17 seconds ago! We are talking about what the universe looked like at a time trillions of times shorter than the duration of the universe's existence!

What does creationism tell us about that point in the universe's life? My biggest gripe about creationism is that it's an intellectual dead end.

But, in the interest of conversation, we'll leave cosmology (which is the most interesting area of research!) alone.
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Mike
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Creationism is not complex or dependent on physics.You could say in one sentence what occurred. God created the universe. Where did the matter come from and if he decides to destroy this creation, where will the matter go? He reveals from time to time Himself so we can know Him in ways that he wants.

Consider time for a moment. What is it? Times has a different meaning for us than for God.
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ngc1514
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Which, of course, immediately presents the question of: which god and, after you've picked one, how do you know that's the correct one?

Arguing that everything has a beginning except for god doesn't make any logical sense. Either the first statement "everything has a beginning" is true or false. If it's true, then your second statement is invalid. If the first statement is false, then the whole creation argument collapses.

The basis of your argument is causality and quantum theory has done away with causality.

Things happen without a cause. Radioactive decay being a prime example.
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Mike
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But where did the radiation originate from? And why? LOL.

I realize that the perspective I take on this doesn't make sense to you, which is why we are better off agreeing to disagree on some matters we discuss.
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