No. Nobody violates the law of conservation of energy, just like nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. But it does seem like Christophe Hamel rises to a greater height than from where he jumped. [Read more…]
When I first started teaching at CWRU over twenty years ago, I recall giving a physics final exam in which students wrote their answers in the familiar blue books. When I started grading them later, I found one in which the student had made little or no attempt at answering the problems. Instead he had spent the entire time sketching quite elaborate drawings of guns firing and other violent images for page after page. At that time, there wasn’t the heightened sensitivity to violence on college campuses that there is now and no training to be alert to such warning signs, and so apart from giving the student a zero on the exam, I did not do anything. [Read more…]
There is never any shortage of people telling atheists how sensitive the feelings of religious people are and that we need to be careful about what we say to them. The reasoning behind these pleas is based on the belief that if we tell such people directly that science contradicts religion, they will retreat to religion and reject science. [Read more…]
The words faith and belief obviously have a natural home in religious discussions. Should scientists avoid using such words, as in statements like ‘”I believe in the theory of evolution” or “I have faith in the law of gravity”, since that seems to put them on a par with “I have faith/believe in god” and enables religionists to claim that scientific theories are similar to religious beliefs? In a recent comments section, a recurring suggestion came up that in order to avoid this misapprehension, we should avoid use of the words belief and faith altogether in scientific discussions. [Read more…]
My post yesterday on the coming death of free will generated some interesting comments, with some questioning what I meant by the term ‘free will’ and whether the descriptor of ‘free’ added anything to the discussion or merely confused it. So I thought I would clarify my stand and elaborate on what I think is going on. [Read more…]
The idea of human beings having free will is so powerful that it would seem to be impossible to dislodge. Having free will seems to be so essential to the way that we view ourselves that denying its existence seems like denying our very humanity, transforming ourselves into mindless automatons, and thus we are loathe to relinquish it. Isaac Beshevis Singer captured this struggle well when he said, “We must believe in free will. We have no choice.” [Read more…]
Watch this video of a cheetah running at full speed, taken with a high-speed camera. Note particularly how the head is held so rigidly fixed while the rest of the body goes up and down, no doubt as a result of the need to focus so intently on its prey. [Read more…]