Letters to the Editor
droogoy
Published Letters: 590 Editor's Choice: 9
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More straw men
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Altaira99 wrote:
"lots of malarkey about having to accept science on faith"
However, most scientific claims, or evidence can be accepted without reliance on "belief" or "faith" once one has the appropriate scientific education.
At least if I am told that electrons can sometimes behave like waves, there is experimental evidence, namely electron diffraction patterns, which I can find for support. If I’m told that such electrons can exhibit instantaneous connections, I need go no further than Alain Aspect’s 1982 experiment – and other more recent ones, which disclose this.
If I am informed, from Einstein’s special relativity, that the time for a moving object slows, I need look no further than the well-documented data for muons to find the empirical support.
If I am told there are solar explosions that can engulf twenty Earths, I need only go to a Solar Observatory telescope, put on a special H-alpha filter and view such flares with a superimposed graticule fashioned with the scales of Earth –sized objects, for support.
In other words, most physical concepts have a wealth of consistent and coherent data which, together with deductively formulated mathematical arguments, lend support to their existence. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for theological ‘doctrines’.
Where is the data, or even just the historical support – never mind the science, to show that: a) a man such as Jesus Christ actually lived; and b) he did all the marvelous deeds ascribed to him?
Even the most devout Christian writers, who are intellectually honest enough to admit it, concede that no written records of the alleged historical personage Jesus date fro the time he lived. None appear on the scene until about 40 years after his death! The Rev. Thomas Bokenkotter, in his monograph A Concise History of the Catholic Church, notes (page 17):
“The Gospels were not meant to be a historical or biographical account of Jesus. They were written to convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, or God.”
This is a shattering admission indeed, and from a historian of Christendom’s largest Church. It is a de facto admission that no historical support exists for any of the accounts in the New Testament. Indeed, if they ‘were not meant to be historical’ (or accurate), then we cannot be sure if any are!
Lastly, let the theist get clear once and for all that the onus and burden of proof is on him to support his claims, not on the atheist to disprove them. In the same manner, if my neighbor insists alien ghosts are invading his attic and harvesting alien-human ova the onus is on HIM to prove it, not moi to disprove it.
Until he does, I am at liberty to regard him as either on drugs, alcohol - both, or not playing with a full deck.
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Heisenberg's Principle
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mike Sulzer wrote:
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle limits the accuracy the simultaneous measurement of certain observables, such as pairs of corresponding position and momenta components. It does not so limit any scientific conclusion
Indeed correct, and more importantly - Heisenberg's Principle only applies at the quantum level of observation - not the classical, macroscopic level.
Technically, the Heisenberg principle is actually a reflection of the Principle of Complementarity in Quantum physics. usually expressed via the Poisson brackets (say with non-commuting 1D variables x, p):
[x, p] = -i h/ 2 pi
where h is the Planck constant of action.
If two variables a, b commute, then one has:
[a, b] = (a*b - b*a) = 0
if not, then:
[a,b] = (a*b - b*a) = -1
and we say a and b are 'non-commuting'.
or that there is a "mutual interference" between a and b.
In the case of [x, p] this leads to muutal interference such that an uncertainty arises which cannot be expunged or arbitrarily reduced. (If one knows 'p' perfectly, then nothing can be known of x)
In term's of Bohr's (Complementarity) Principle, the variables x (position) and p(momentum) are regarded as "mutually interfering observables".
This is why only one can be obtained to precision, while you lose the other.
In another sense, one can think of approaching a particle in such way (or with such apparatus) that it suddenly gets 'wavy'. At that stage, as Bohm notes, the particle aspect vanishes and you have a wave.
But during some interim threshold one can regard it as a wavicle.
Of course, if Heisenberg's principle didn't apply - meaning we could know both the position and momentum to the same degree of accuracy, then:
[x, p] = 0
Alas, that isn't the case. Evidently nature resists too close instrumental scrutiny by being fundamentally 'fuzzy' at the sub-atomic and atomic levels. Hence, all the difficulties arising with cause and effect. (Why acausal determinism came into its own with Bohm and Hiley's Stochastic Quantum Interpretation).
The bottom line, again, is that the complementarity principle itself only applies at the sub-atomic level. At the macroscopic level, no one - at any measurement or in any experiment - has found evidence for interfering observables.
Breaking it all down, it means that in the observational limit of the principal quantum number n, such that n -> oo, Newtonian particulate dynamics apply.
Since human agglomerations (and a great number of their devices, instruments, tools etc.) are all macroscopic assemblies, not quantum, this holds equally for them.
It is good to know the domains wherein various principles, theories apply and where they don't. My experience in 35 years of debates with religionists, theists - is that most of them don't. As with the guy who tried to prove (in 1991) that "demons" exist using QM.
He argued: "The superposition principle allows demons to enter from their reality or parallel universe to ours and not be seen. So you can't demand 'evidence'".
Errr.....sorry, pallie. We sure can. But nice try on the desperation index!