From: markc@hydra.maths.unsw.EDU.AU ()
Subject: Re: God & Science
Organization: school of Mathematics UNSW
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 06:51:28 GMT

Paul Ng writes:

>In any society at any time in history, the intellectual freaks have had to 
>be sorted out from those who really know what they are on about.  The 
>process of peer review for scientific publications is the best 
>modern-day illustration of this mechanism.

What? Why do the intellectual freaks have to be sorted out? In a free
society a plurailty of ideas must be permissible. What do you mean by 
talking about intellectual freaks?

Peer review for scientific publications is not so simple as you are implying.
Anybody who has sent a paper off to a journal for review is well aware of 
this. It certainly is not a process for sorting out intellectual freaks.


>Today this "filter mechanism" tends to be secular - but that's only because 
>society and its governmental institutions have become secular.  IN the past 
>the Church was the filter because the Church -was- the government; 
>and because society was dominated to a larger extent by religious 
>institutions than they are today.  The filter criteria have changed in 
>tandem with the constitution, attitudes and store of knowledge held by 
>society; but the essential point is that there has always been and always 
>will be a need for such a "filter mechanism".

The reason why this filtering mechanism is "secular" is that modern science
deals with non religous issues by and large. If I were told that my papers
were being reviewed by a priest i would be appalled. (Unless the priest
happened to be a mathematician.)

The reason why the church acted as a filter mechanism in the past had nothing
to do with science and everything to do with the exercise of power. People
talk of Galileo, but Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for espousing
a belief that there are many worlds other than this one. The inquisition 
was not interested in whether he was right or wrong. They were concerned
only with what they percieved as a threat to their authority.

>Galileo and Copernicus and a few others were success stories; those who 
>ultimately passed the filter mechanism - and everybody seems to love to bash 
>the Church for suppressing what later turned out to be correct.  

Now why would that be do you think? The church, on no valid scientific 
grounds supresses a theory we know to be correct, and you wonder why people
criticise it?

>NOBODY cares or hears about the million and one freako theories postulated 
>by countless others - theories that were definitely wrong and were 
>consequently rejected by the Church - BECAUSE they were rejected as wrong, 
>and were ultimately wrong, and therefore they are not worth hearing about 
>today.

What freako theories? And what gives the church the right to supres any 
theory? Surely it is not for the church to do this. It must be for the 
greatest of all filters, time, to determine which theories deserve to be
studied and which supported?

>Now some hundred years down the line we are going to hear about some theory 
>that everybody thought was freako when it was first published, but was later 
>vindicated by research and evidence.  In fact, we are hearing about it 
>now.  There is a scientist at Monash whose astrophysical theories were 
>thought to be cracko by most of his contemporaries - until measurements made 
>using his theories turned out to be more accurate than any others.  Then 
>everybody shut their big mouths up.  He's made quite a few trips to NASA 
>to help the poor sods out.  

Your ignorance of the scientific process is astounding. The point of the Galileoaffair is that the evidence at the time was on Galileo's side. As Bronowski
remarked, the leaders of the inquistion refused to look through Galileo's
telescope for fear of seeing something which contradicted what they wanted
to believe. Rather than listen to the evidence they branded his theories as
heresy. With the case of the mathematician you cite (his name escapes me 
at the moment), his theories were not thought to be "cracko". It was simply
the case that many astrophysicists believed them to be wrong. Not crazy,
simply not correct. He was however never forced to recant on threat of
torture. As is proper, the evidence decided the issue. This is a far cry 
from the attitude of the church to Galileo who would not even listen.

>What I'm trying to say is this: Suppression of ideas subsequently proven 
>correct has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION AND CERTAINLY NOTHING TO 
>DO WITH CHRISTIANITY OR THE CHURCH.  The Church was just doing its job as an 
>important element of government.  It tried to carry out its function as a 
>"filter" as best as it could, just like modern scientists function today as 
>checks on their colleagues' competency, via peer review.

This is utter rubbish. The church was doing what was necessary to protect 
its power and position. The church set itself upo as the sole source of 
truth. People like galileo and Copernicus threatened that. That is why they 
were supressed. It has everything to do with religous persecution and
nothing to do with an honest evaluation of Galileo's competnce as a scientist.

>It seems to me to be the height of arrogance on the part of non-historians 
>who don't know what they are talking about, to bash the Church and religion 
>generally for suppressing Galileo (among others); if the Church wasn't 
>there to do it somebody else would come along and do it - otherwise society 
>would be flooded with useless ideas.

yeah well a lot of people who do know what they are talking about have savagely
criticised the church for supressing ideas for centuries. To me it is the 
height of arrogance to even presume that the church has a role to play in
deciding which ideas get heard and taught and which do not.
 
>People should instead be thankful (partially) for the fact that some 
>institution was around for the better part of European history after 
>.Christ, to manage the flow of information in that society.  It wasn't 
>.perfect but at least it was there.  So stop bashing religion for Galileo; if 
>you (whoever you are - atheists included) were alive then, you'd press for a 
>public examination of Galileo's ideas too.  And if you were alive then, 
>you'd look at Galileo's ideas through mediaeval eyes.  So you'd probably 
>reject Galileo's theories like the Church did.  

Now this is garbage. Do you even know what you are saying? At the TIME the
evidence supported Galileo. That is what matters. Mediavel eyes is a complete
furphy. The facts are what matter in any age.

Also what on earth leads you to believe there needs to be an instrument to 
manage the flow of ideas? That way lies totalitarianism and Auschwitz. The
inquisition murdered millions in its attempt to manage the flow of ideas.
Do you seriously believe that this was a good thing?

>So to all the anti-Church and anti-religionists out there, put up and shut 
>up.

Put up what? Surely the onus is on people such as yourself to prove your
claims? You have done a very poor job so far.

Yours in atheism,
Mark.



 


Newsgroups: aus.religion