Common Sense isn’t so Common…
I went to the D programming conference back in August this year, and I ran into several interesting people. One was a former researcher of supergravity; I told him “Honestly I think supergravity is bullshit” he smiled and said “Yes, it pretty much is…”. He had a fantastically dry sense of humor (e.g. when giving his presentation he said “When you are programming, you don’t want to write harmful code…” I thought, yeah something that would harm the hardware; the speaker continues “…Like launching missiles.”). Another was an interesting software programmer that recommended me to the site “Common Sense Science“. It’s basically a pseudoscience site.
I looked through the links and noted that a number of them are to Creationist websites, which immediately told me this was as pseudoscientific as Lubos Motl and the Easter Bunny combined. Looking at, e.g., the “Contradictions” page here are some of the problems:
“It is only a mathematical model consisting of equations and does not usually specify physical structure for elementary particles.”
I don’t know how well hidden this is, but historically science has always been described by mathematical models!
It’s complaining about the language that the theory is formulated in. Well, there’s a problem with this argument that Wittgenstein points out long ago: what can be said in one language can be said in any language, or languages are isomorphic (for the mathematicians out there ;)).
Their criticism that quantum mechanics does not specify the structure of subatomic particles is somewhat justified…since quantum mechanics explicitly assumes that we are dealing with point particles! I myself have entertained the view personally that subatomic particles could possibly have an “atomic” structure to them. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, maybe we’ll never know!
But quantum theory works despite this “catastrophic contradiction” and even makes some of the best damn predictions in Human History! The Dirac Equation, Quantum Electrodynamics, the Hydrogen atom…need I continue?
“It frequently contradicts itself.”
It contradicts itself…because it contradicts itself.
Ah, well, it’s hard to argue against a tautology but this is a meaningless proposition. Old Wittgenstein should be rolling in his grave at a frequency that could generate power for all of Western Europe from this argument alone.
“It provides no mechanism for such fundamental processes as the exchange of energy.”
Actually, this is an interesting argument because I’ve dealt with dialecticians…philosophers obsessed with pseudoscience, holism, and “change”.
A thermodynamic process specifies the initial conditions of the process, then the final conditions when the process ends. Quantum theory does the same thing. So therefore, logically, thermodynamics is wrong! Despite being the one of most important things coming from the 19th Century (the other being the Stanley Steamer ;)).
The mechanism for exchanging energy, etc. is actually done through photons (Feynman diagrams anyone?). There is a sound explanation of what’s going on…and it dates back to the hydrogen atom quantization. Apparently these people never learned quantum theory, so “common sense” dictates they criticize it.
“Assumed properties of elementary particles.”
This argument is based on the previous argument, which is a considerably weak argument.
As I mentioned earlier, these people have links to Creationist websites…it turns out these people are Creationist philistines. For example, explaining life can only be done in the Judeo-Christian blah blah blah. After reading “can only be done with…Judeo-Christian” I stopped reading.
I refuse to part one pretty penny to purchase (yes, purchase) their technical papers since they appear to be crackpots already. (Nothing personal, dear Common Sense pseudo-Scientists, but I actually first derived the Lorentz factor by hand, geometrically from the two principles of Galilean relativity and the constancy of the speed of light back in high school…you mean to tell me that this is wrong because “there are contradictions” doesn’t jive with me.)
27 October 2007 at 11:35 pm
Does quantum mechanics contradict itself? Very well, then, it contradicts itself! It is large; it contains multitudes.
27 October 2007 at 11:44 pm
Ah, but it both contradicts and does not contradict itself, and all linear combinations thereof provided that probability is normalized
31 October 2007 at 8:59 pm
Old Wittgenstein should be rolling in his grave at a frequency that could generate power for all of Western Europe from this argument alone.
glad you’re back. How do you justify criticizing philosophers for arguing philosophically while you use the authority of the Old Wittgenstein as your authority? Doesn’t make sense.
2 November 2007 at 11:47 am
“How do you justify criticizing philosophers for arguing philosophically while you use the authority of the Old Wittgenstein as your authority? Doesn’t make sense.”
Simple: I’m merely pointing out that Wittgenstein spent his life talking about where we can and cannot speak, and from there what is a proper argument and where philosophy simply misuses language. I don’t really want to reiterate what Wittgenstein took a lifetime to do.
I could understand the confusion if you take the point of view “1. Wittgenstein is a philosopher, 2. I’m using Wittgenstein to argue against philosophers, thus there is a contradiction” but Wittgenstein was a philosopher who really did rail against philosophy. Is that “contradictory”? I think paradoxical would be a better choice of words.
2 November 2007 at 2:23 pm
s/paradoxical/counterintuitive/
4 November 2007 at 5:58 am
Angryphysicist,
Ok, no problem, I understand your point. But the main idea I believe you are presenting relentlessly is that some people misuse language, and Wittgenstein noticed that some people misuse language, and then wrote big volumes telling us how people misuse language. Am I correct?
According to Wikipedia, Wittgenstein lived in relatively innocent times when there was no television and internet was still in its infancy so, he basically wrote with quill pen and ink on parchment paper. Therefore, we process more information in a day than Wittgenstein did in a lifetime.
In other words, I don’t need Wittgenstein to tell me that there is a group of people who misuse language. I know that politicians do. I know that lawyers too misuse language. If you argue with a lawyer the letter of the law he will argue the spirit of the law. If you argue the spirit of the law he will argue the letter. You cannot win. I know that medical doctors misuse language too. I know that theological doctors make a living misusing and abusing language. What do these misusers of language have in common? They are professional doctors. So circumstantial evidence suggests that professionals doctors misuse language. Physicists are professional doctors, and therefore… they will misuse language.
But we don’t need the above reasoning to see that physicists are collosal misusers of languages, not philosophers as you claim. Unless, of course, if you mean that physicists are philosophers, to that I say amen. Physicists make their careers by corrupting language. In physics every symbol is context sensitive. This is what misusing language means. So a physicist will say that there is only one universe with one exception and that exception is that there are more than one universe. So if you tell the physicist there is one universe he will tell you there are many, if you say there are many, he will say there is only one universe. And he can prove both with legal mathematics. Hereditary authority to define is a powerful thing to have. Do we need the wit of Wittgenstein to realize that academic physics is scholastic polemics and physicists are polemical philosophers and corrupters of languages?