I saw the following article in Wired Magazine and thought that a Secular Web writer might want to respond to it, maybe as a SW feature article. It can be found here:

<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/convergence.html" target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/convergence.html</A>


As usual with these articles it vastly overstates the supposed convergence of science and religion, rather than depicting these views as being those held by some scientists and theologians, while many other disagree. It also suggests that biologists are less likely to believe in God than physicists, when a recent survey showed 33% of physicists believe compared to 39% of biologists. It also didn't do justice to non-theistic interpretations. It gave the impression that the multi-universe idea is completely in response to the fine tuning argument, when they are in fact predicted by Superstring theories of cosmology. BTW, Superstring is the leading candidate for the Theory of Everything, the holy grail of physics. (See String theorist Dr. Michio Kaku's book "Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the Tenth Dimension".)

-DM-

[Copied here from Feedback. -Don-]

fando

One thing that caught my attention is the author's claim that that the scientific hypothesis and theories du jour are nothing more than "supernaturalism dressed up." To back this up, he asserts that things like the Higgs field and dark matter are mystery forces that "seem to function based on nothing" and that this coincides with the Judeo-Christian theology of a universe created ex nihilo -- out of nothing. The author clearly doesn't understand the science involved. It is also one of numerous instances where the author twists things around to make the findings of Science sound like strange, mysterious and otherworldly stuff, and, therefore, a candidate for his blanket description of "supernaturalism dressed up."

This, among other things, convinces me that the whole article is attempting to force the topic -- making news on a slow day so to speak. It is almost tabloid material.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: fando ]</p>

lpetrich

I've seen that a lot about quantum mechanics, which admittedly has odd and anti-common-sensical features. The conclusion often drawn is some sort of "mystic physics" view, which I believe to be unjustified. This is because, under familiar circumstances, quantum-mechanical effects are insignificant above atomic scales.