A response to Paul Davies’ sloppy NYT op-ed.

I am a physicist, and I don’t take it on faith that “nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way.” It is manifestly otherwise.

The relevant definition of rational here is consistent with or based on reason; logical. If only it were! Ever heard of quantum mechanics? It’s clear by now that nature does not conform itself to our feeble mental capabilities. We are forced to invent new, counterintuitive logics at every turn.

Rather than intelligible, I’ll consider the stronger statement that nature is lawful. It can’t be intelligible if there isn’t a structure to understand, but assuming there is a lawful structure doesn’t mean we’re capable of understanding it. I take lawful to mean that there exist some local physical invariants, which can be expressed in terms of equations of motion, continuity, or extremum conditions. This does not preclude there being unlawful, or random processes as well.

Do we physicists take lawfulness on faith? Some might, but I don’t. It can be considered a hypothesis, just like any other statement. It just happens to receive overwhelming support from experiment. It is difficult to conceive what it would mean for there to be no lawfulness, or how life or cognition would be possible in such a universe, but that doesn’t matter. If you want to ponder necessary conditions for reason and disappear into a solipsistic hole of Kantian metaphysics be my guest. Davies appears to be blind to the difference between a belief, or a working hypothesis, and faith. But he has bigger issues.

One of our two pillars of theoretical physics, quantum field theory, is non-deterministic and unlawful (the part Von Neumann called the R-process). We don’t like it, but have been, for now, forced to accept it. One would think Davies would be aware of this fact, but it contradicts his assertion about the nature of science. So is he stupid, dishonest, ignorant, or some combination of the three? Can we design an experiment to find out?

More importantly, can the press stop paying attention to that embarrassment?

Later: I was too hard on Davies. I’ve been asking myself why, why would Davies send such a silly, sloppy piece to be published by the NYT. What purpose does it serve? It undermines science, by telling faith-heads like ID proponents that science is just another religion. He may have more subtle points (not very), but that’s the message most people will take away from the piece and he knows it. Then it occurred to me: he did it to sell his book. That’s tapping into a huge market. Perhaps he’ll cash in on the church lecture circuit like the Discovery Institute hacks? Brilliant, nicely done!

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AP) — A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals in the belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

The war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of George W. Bush. What do you have to do to get impeached around here? (Oh yeah, you need to get a blowjob.)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

I think we need to get to the root cause of bullying and intimidation at our schools, and that is children. We must ban children. It’s the only way to keep our schools safe.

Yes!

(CNN) — The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television minister whose 1979 founding of the Moral Majority galvanized American religious conservatives into a political force, died Tuesday at age 73.

That’s one person to scratch off the “people I will assassinate if I get diagnosed with a terminal disease” list. Now there’s room for another name… hmmm…

I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson promised to kill me.

But now I am eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick, and Colon. -Kurt Vonnegut

R.I.P. So it goes.

FORT IRWIN, Calif. - President Bush said Wednesday he knows the nation is weary of war and wondering if the U.S. can win. Still, he said efforts to pull troops home from Iraq only make the U.S. more vulnerable to attack from an enemy that is “pure evil.”

Thats it. Why didn’t I realize it before? How could I have been so stupid? I now know what we need to win in Iraq. The only thing that can defeat pure evil. We need: The Fifth Element.

Woohoo!

My third time in a Super Bowl winning locale.

Peyton was good, but not great. It’s kind of like the goalie in the NHL. If no one else really stands out, they get the MVP by default. The real MVP: Prince.

Seriously. The only other half time show I could even stand to be in the same room with was the ’stones, and they were barely ok. Prince rocked the fucking house.

Seriously, the offensive line should have been co-MVP’s. One sack, effective (dominant?) running, and the only hurries resulted in completions (and a TD). If they can’t stomach naming 5 co-MVP’s, then go with Jeff Saturday.

Or Terrell Davis. He deserves a few more.

Actually, what they should do is name a playoff mvp (like in hockey), not a game mvp. In that case, it goes to Vinatieri.

(CNN) — A powerful cold front headed for the South on Thursday, bringing the coldest temperatures of the season to many parts of the United States.

The front packed strong winds as well as cold temperatures, and “feels-like,” or wind chill, temperatures were expected to plummet by 50 degrees in some places.

Is “wind chill” really too sophisticated for today’s news consumer? Please kill me.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — As many as 60,000 people a year die from too much sun, mostly from malignant skin cancer, the World Health Organization has reported.

It’s clear what we must do… destroy the sun. Start loading the toilet seats.

KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal’s enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

“The man shouted ‘God will save me, if he exists’, lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.

“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

Hehehe. If only everyone else would put their faith to the test…