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The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.
The Magic of Reality
for the iPad
Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
This is the sort of science I like. Stuff I can understand. But what I find increasingly worrying is stuff like Quantum Physics, which we don't understand.
I think science needs to be explanatory as well as a body of knowledge. If someone can't explain to me what's going on, but hides behind the esoteric claims of mathematical certainty, then I find that somewhat problematic.
Einstein's theory of Relativity is also difficult, but just about understandable when explained well. But we acknowledge that Einstein's theory and Quantum Theory seem to conflict.
Another problem I have is the story of the big bang theory. It's a great theory and it is just about explainable to people like me, but there is an awful lot of stuff we still don't know. Like the 96% of unknown matter.
Too many physicists are making enormous claims based on speculation, like string theory and what happened before the big bang. All this is fascinating stuff, but what's being left behind is the need for explanation, and rooting science in experiment and reality.
Permalink Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:46:46 UTC | #586009