- :: Atom & Cosmos
- :: Body & Brain
- :: Earth
- :: Environment
- :: Genes & Cells
- :: Humans
- :: Life
- :: Matter & Energy
- :: Molecules
- :: Science & Society
- :: Other Topics
- :: Science News For Kids
Text Size
Philosophers strike back
As someone who has taught philosophy of science and history of science for 30 years, I must take exception with Tom Siegfried’s editorial, “Philosophers don’t know what scientists can’t do” (SN: 7/18/09, p. 2). Of course, they don’t! But neither do scientists! Immanuel Kant and Auguste Comte were just as wrong about many things as their scientific contemporaries were. Categorical claims about the nature of the world and the nature of knowledge are risky and, as we know, often mistaken, but this is not the province of philosophers only.
David Boersema, Forest Grove, Ore.
Science News is my favorite journal of new observations and theories, and your weekly editorial is frequently my first stop. Your editorial, “Philosophers don’t know what scientists can’t do,” was exceptionally provocative. One might argue the subject ad nauseam.
Kant’s proclamation was disproved (according to current orthodox beliefs), yet Einstein could not have arrived at his conclusions without a philosophical outlook permitting him to think outside the box. Many forget Einstein’s struggle to be heard before his star ascended. The orthodox beliefs of the time categorically rejected his theories.
Today we face the same pigheadedness Einstein faced from those who now insist dark matter exists because galaxies would fly apart without its added gravitational attraction. In counterpoint to your editorial I suspect, “Scientists can’t progress without philosophers to question their reasoning.” Ignorance frequently dismisses empirical evidence, but it can also misinterpret it. Philosophers and scientists need each other, whether they like it or not.
Marc Kramis, Boise, Idaho
As a philosopher and a scientist, we were astonished and then appalled to read “Philosophers don’t know what scientists can’t do.” Leaving aside the gratuitous hostility of the opening sentence (“Among many scientists, philosophers are regarded with suspicion, or even disdain”), the examples Siegfried brings to support his position are misreadings of philosophical tracts.
Kant, for example, when stating that “space must of necessity observe the rules of Euclidean geometry” was not concerned with space independent of human perception. He distinguished between the phenomena (appearances) and the noumena (essentially reality). Kant was making a point about how we perceive the natural world and not a claim about reality itself.
Similarly, Siegfried did not understand Comte’s apparent claim that we shall never know the composition of stars. In fact, in the very next sentence Comte wrote, “Whatever knowledge is obtainable by means of the sense of Sight, we may hope to attain with regard to the stars, whether we at present see the method or not.” Clearly this covers the later discoveries through spectroscopy and much else. His point was the limit of the senses, not the limits of technology or knowledge.
Too often we forget that foundational questions in science have a philosophical component, and that philosophers of science help create that structure in discourse with scientists. Editorialists in a widely read and respected science magazine should know better than to publish naïve impressions of what philosophers do and how they do it.
We are gratified that some philosophers read Science News (including the editor’s letter) and welcome expressions of other viewpoints. Certainly some philosophers have provided insightful observations about science and scientific methodology, even if much of the value of philosophy is derided by some scientists. As for the ex post facto defenses of Kant and Comte, though, their claims have been widely interpreted to be erroneous. Kant’s claim about the necessity of Euclidean space was supposedly an example of synthetic a priori “knowledge” (presumably about reality). I confess that it had not occurred to me to interpret Comte’s second sentence as contradicting the previous one, or that he somehow predicted the development of spectroscopy. In any event I first encountered these examples in a philosophy course (taught by a philosopher) as examples of famous philosophical errors. — Tom Siegfried
Pedantic but curious
I’m not normally this pedantic (OK, yes I am), but a phrase in “The star that ate a Mars” (SN: 7/18/09, p. 22) startled me. The planet’s remains were said to be bobbing in the “thin but dense” atmosphere of the white dwarf. Is the atmosphere also “hot but cold” or “black but white”?
Thin refers in this case to dimension, not degree of density. A white dwarf’s gravity pulls its atmosphere into a very thin layer on its surface — some say if Earth-type skyscrapers could exist there, they would stick through the layer into the near-vacuum of space. But the atmosphere is very dense. Another way to think of it: No matter how thin you pound a lump of lead with a hammer, it is still lead — and dense. — Charles Petit
Please alert Science News to any inappropriate posts by clicking the REPORT SPAM link within the post. Comments will be reviewed before posting.
The Basic Implications Of E=Total[m(1 + D)]
[Link was removed] #3108
a recapitulation
A. Its essential statement
"Extrapolation of the expansion of the universe backwards in time to the early hot dense "Big Bang" phase, using general relativity, yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past. At age 10^-35 seconds the Universe begins with a cataclysm that generates space and time, as well as all the matter and energy the Universe will ever hold."
E = Energy content of the universe
m = mass content of the universe
D = distance, Total = in all spatial directions, from the point of Big-Bang, of singularity's energy-mass superposition
At D=0, E was = m and both E and m were, together, all the energy and matter the Universe will ever hold. Since the onset of the cataclysm, E remains constant and m diminishes as D increases.
The increase of D is the initial inflation, followed by the ongoing expansion, of what became the galactic clusters.
At 10^-35 seconds, D was already a fraction of a second above zero. This is when gravity starts. This is what started gravity. At this instance starts the energetic space texture, starts the straining of the space texture, and starts the space-texture-memory, gravity, that most probably will eventually overcome expansion and initiate re-impansion back to singularity.
B. Some of its further essential implications beyond Einstein-Hubble and re classical-quantum physics
And again and again : "On The Origin Of Origins"
[Link was removed] #2753
1. It promotes commonsensical scientific critical thinking beyond Einstein-Hubble.
The universe is the archetype of quantum within classical physics, which is the fractal oneness of the universe.
Astronomically there are two physics. A classical Newtonian physics behaviour of and between galactic clusters, and a quantum physics behaviour WITHIN the galactic clusters.
The onset of big-bang's inflation, the cataclysmic resolution of the Original Superposition, started gravity, with formation - BY DISPERSION - of galactic clusters that behave as classical Newtonian bodies and continuously reconvert their original pre-inflation masses back to energy, thus fueling the galactic clusters expansion, and with endless quantum-within-classical intertwined evolutions WITHIN the clusters in attempt to delay-resist this reconversion.
2. There is no call, no need, for any dark energy. The energy of the universe is conserved. The mass of the universe is conserved in the form of energy, the energy fueling the clusters expansion. At the next universal singularity, at the next D = 0, there will again be E = m for a small fraction of a second...just wait and see...
Following Newton (1) gravity is decreased when mass is decreased and (2) acceleration of a body is given by dividing the force acting upon it by its mass. By plain common sense the combination of those two 'laws' may explain the accelerating cosmic expansion of galaxy clusters and the laws that drive it, based on the E/ m/ D relationship suggested above..
3. There is no call, no need, for a Higgs Particle.
The resolution of energy-mass superposition is reverted when D = 0. Shockingly sad, but must be soberingly faced rationally.
C. Its implications re the origin and nature of life beyond Darwin, re selection for survival
For Nature, Earth's biosphere is one of the many ways of temporarily constraining an amount of energy within a galaxy within a galactic cluster, for thus avoiding, as long as possible, spending this particularly constrained amount as part of the fuel that maintains the clusters expansion.
Genes are THE Earth's organisms and ALL other organisms are their temporary take-offs.
For Nature genes are genes are genes. None are more or less important than the others. Genes and their take-offs, all Earth organisms, are temporary energy packages and the more of them there are the more enhanced is the biosphere, Earth's life, Earth's temporary storage of constrained energy. This is the origin, the archetype, of selected modes of survival.
The early genes came into being by solar energy and lived a very long period solely on direct solar energy. Metabolic energy, the indirect exploitation of solar energy, evolved at a much later phase in the evolution of Earth's biosphere.
Dov Henis
(Comments from 22nd century)
Updated Life's Manifest May 2009
[Link was removed] #entry412704
[Link was removed] #2321
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
[Link was removed]
You must register with Science News to add a comment. To log-in click here. To register as a new user, follow this link.