Science or Superstition?
Stone Age tribes had their willful chiefs, wily sorcerers, and crafty medicine men. I n order for the first to maintain his totalitarian rule, the second insured the ignorance and superstition of the populace, and the third made tribesmen dependent on his arts and worldviews. By Galileo's time, the ruling and confusing were done by the Grand Dukes, the Inquisitors, and the professors of alchemy and Aristotelian philosophy. Since 1927, following three centuries of Galilean science and objective causality, the chancy "civilized" world has had its dictators, humanists, and physical scientists-many of whom have been professors of the quantum "mechanics" dogma and the subjective anticausality philosophy. By 1970, astrology and witchcraft and various kinds of occult societies have returned in force, along with Flat Earth worldviews and anthropocentric viewpoints. The "mod" Age of Aquarius and Superstit,ion is quite evident to any TV-viewer, reader of newspapers and magazines, or patron of the arts. Is it all just a narcotic or psychotic "happening" of supernatural fate? Or, is it an effect that has a knowable cause? Galileo, Darwin, Pasteur, Freud, Einstein, and other Old Giants, being causalists, would undoubtedly have said that all effects have causes. On the other hand, most prominent, modern theorists, being devout anticausalist,~,are bound to decree that all effects are merely "happenings" or chance occurrences. In 1970, many t,rustful scient,ist,sand engineers agree; at least a few do not agree, because they do not share mankind's million-year-old beliefs in magic, mysticism, chance, or ghost,lysupernaturalisms. Webst,erls defines superstition as follows: "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the nnknown, or trust in magic or chance; an irrational abject. attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstitious beliefs or fears" ( I ) . Weaver defines the position of modern physicists regarding science's modern worldview: it "is simply this: t,hat all t,he individual events. . .are ruled only by probability laws.. .. This isn't a fancy detail. This is it. The whole physical universe, a u f o n d , obeys the laws of chance" (9). Since it is not just a fancy detail that our prominent and most-esteemed modern scientists trust in chance, Webster's would logically judge t,hat modern science means modern superstition! This judgment is borne out by t,heghostly hosts of "strangenesses" that pervade t,hc modern theorists' dogmas; indeed, Empedocles' "fire" element and Stahl's "phlogiston" essence were tame by comparison. For instance, one finds irrat,ionally obsessive preoccupations with modern occult t,ranscendentalismssuch as: particles with zero masses 794
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Journol of Chemicol Education
opinion and infinite masses; probabilistic foamlike holes in the empty nothingness of curved absolute space; psychobiologic Gemini "trips" into the fourth-dimensional anti-worlds of absolute time; immaterial waves; spirited quarks; the bewitching charms of magnetic fluxes, electric charges, and magic numbers; jumping quanta of pure massless energy; and the motionless inertia or stationary states of otherwise jiggling and wiggling electrons, nucleons, mesons, and hyperons. Warnings
l\largaret Mead warned that the abstruseness of such modern ghost,s has caused a deepening schism whereby "small groups of specialists elaborate esoteric knowledge that becomes progressively more inaccessible to the rest of societ,y. . . " (3). In 1927, Albert Einstein gave similar warnings about the abstruseness of Werner Heisenberg's uncertain, malicious, dice playing god of chance; then, in 1953, he warned again that ". . .relinquishing the possibility of an objective description.. .cannot but cause one's pict,ure of the physical world t,o dissolve into a fog" (4). He could well have called it a fog of modern superstition, of modern astrology and witchcraft, or, of mental and environmental pollutions. Evelyn Wilson pointed out that "the present situation in which science antagonizes and loses many of our most talented youth is likely to continue," and she exclaimed: "Should we then anticipat,e soon teaching quantum mechanics to children yet in kindergarten!" (5). It is indeed in prospect,, with probabilistic "new math" having now quite thoroughly displaced the oldfashioned and presumably useless arithmetic-like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. One might wonder if the youth will be properly "set" for the mundane but essent,ial adult activities like budget,ing, banking, paying taxes, and so on. Weaver envisions much progress for modern science (or modern superstition?) in the fact that probability math and theory can now be taught in the grades of elementary school. The school can t,each the young about randomness and how to play games of chance, if not how to maliciously cause uon-random effects at will -by "fixing"; o r , i t can tteach them to shoot craps, if not how to purposefully load the dice. Despite this evident cause-and-effect aspect of chance, Weaver judges that probability mat,hematics or "reasoning" is the "only type of logical thinking" and is the kind that "governs all the basic phenomena of the living and thephysical world" (6). Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Erwin Schrodinger disagreed entirely with t,his peculiar judgment in 1927
when the rest of the world's leading physicists initially made plans for installing probability math throughout t,he world's graduate schools, colleges, high schools, and elementary schools. Einstein saw how these plans, along with their overall plans for indoctrinations into the dogmas of quantum "mechanics" and the uncertainty "principle," would eventually strangle "the holy curiosity of inquiry." Causality Versus Anti-Causality
Such inquiry, and not wanting to relinquish the possibility of an objective description, caused the writer in 1953 to search for causal physical explanations of various ninteenth century "ghosts" such as electrical charge, magnetic pole, intensity of magnetization, magnetizing force, ad infiniturn. A note of encouragement from Albert Einstein during early April of 1955 then caused a similar search with regard to abstruse dimensionless quantities such as the atomic or electronic "fine structure constant" and the large-valued "cosmological constant(s)." Maxwell's criticisms of the accepted theories of gyroscopic motion (7) were helpful and, by late 1956, the search for causal and objective descriptions was quite successful (8). Such objective and non-chancy descriptions were helpful in gaining a deeper appreciation for the worldview of causality that Einstein, Planck, and Schrodinger had tried so hard to protect during the post-1927 years, and, that had been carefully protected since Galilee's time by Old Giants like Kepler, Newton, Franklin, Faraday, Maxwell, Thomson, and others (9). Those descriptions, along with others disclosed since 1966, were also particularly helpful in comprehending why modern science and its metaphysical anticausality philosophy antagonized and "lost" Albert Einstein in the same sense, and for some of the same reasons. that it "antaeonizes and loses manv of our most talented youth" (5) of today. It can hebelieved that Wehster's definitions of superstition (I), and the fact that chance is an antonym of "law" and "order," briefly summarizes the reasons for those antagonisms. Talented youth, like Dr. Einstein, can logically equate lawlessness and superst,ition with primitive ignorance. Chance Cannot Predict
Indeed, a million years of anthropological history have amply proven that superstitious trust in chance, magic, and supernatural spirits (e.g., anthropomorphic gods in the image of Dice Players, Higher Mathematicians, or Pure Geometers) cannot be expected to lead to a rational picture of Nature, to natural certainties, or to predictabilities of any naturally meaningful kinds. Failure of atom-oriented quantum "mechanics" and the man-centered uncertainty "principle" to predict or "explain" mesons and hyperons (disclosed since 1947), as well as quasars and pulsars (disclosed since 1967), has caused some modern mathematical physicists "to dwell a hit on the difficulties in the ohvsics of the present day" (10). However, still not &shing to grant that the post-1927 arguments by Einstein, I'lanck, and Schrodinger were valid and potent,, they hold on doggedly t,o t,he ant,onymous dogma that Chance is Law and
to the superstitious anthropocentric faith that "God is a mathematician. . ." (11). Some still claim a kind of pseudo-predictiveness and make all-encompassing declarations such as "quantum electrodynamics is the theory of all chemistry, and of life" (I$), or view "electricity as lines of force trapped in the topology of space" (IS). Such declarations and views are not characteristic of all chemists, chemical technologists, biologists, electricians and electrical engineers; however, some of the "antagonized" and talented young students of today are not likely to be completely aware of such a significant fact. Much of what the student sees is likely to convince him that courses in the physical sciences are more or less synonymous with older courses like religion or philosophy, or the newer ones like witchcraft, numerology, astrology, seance sitting, and what-have-you. He is even likely to spot popular new magazines that declare: "During the months prior to the flight of Apollo XI, the astrologer worked side by side with the more conventional scientists. . . " (14). We are very obviously in a magic and mystical Age of Aquarius, Gemini, and Apollo, so the "mod" student of 1970 would perhaps readily believe that modern physical scientists and engineers commonly consult astrologers, oracles, seers, voodoos, gurus, and gamblers-and especially the latter. After all, he might have been taught even in elementary school (if not in kindergarten) that: science depends exclusively on the new math of magic "sevens" and Monte Carlo Methods; all scientists picture Nature as a mystically random, disordered, and disharmonious "happening"; and, that the most prominent scientists believe Kature is subservient to gods having images of gamblers or prohabilistic mathematicians. Thus, one can hardly blame him if he personally adopts science's modern superstition-that is, an irrational belief resulting from trust in magical chance, mystical happenikgs, and supernatural deities. For the good of mankind's fut,ure peace and freedom, it can he hoped that our most talented youth will conh u e to be antagonized by such chancy supcrstitions. Literature Cited (1) W s n a ~ ~ N., n , "\V&ster's Seventh New Colle~~iate Dictionary." 1963. ( 2 ) \VeAvEn. W., "Soisnoe and Imapinatian." liaaio ilooka, Inc.. New York. 1967. o. 153. (3) M m n , M., 1j&dalur, 88, 141 (1959). (4) EINSTBIN, A,, "Sdentifi~ Papers Presented to Max liorn," Hslncr P u b l i s i h ~Company, Ino., New York. 1953,p. 40. Oriainal in German. (5) WILSON.E. 11.. J. CXEI.BDUC..16, 480 (1909). (6) WeAvsn. W., on. r i l . , p. 150. (7) Nmon.. W. D.,. "The Scientific Papers oi James Clerk Marwll." I h v e r Publications, Ine.. 1890, pp. 248-9, (8) Gnmxr. A . T.,3. Pvnnk. In% 269. 105 (1900). (9). G n ~ x n l .A. T.."Nev L a w of Nature." Vantage Press. N e n York. 1964. p. 71. (10) Dznnc. P. A. M., Sci. Amrr., 208, 151 48 (1963). (11) Dnnkc, P. A. M., op. eit.. p. 53. (12) I'EINMAN.R. P., LEIOMTON. R. 13.. A N U S I N ~ X , nf.. ' ' ~ l > I'eynman e Lectures on Physics:' Addison-Weeley Pul,lisl~ingComilanp, Inc., Readinc. Massaclmaetta. 1963, P. 2. (13) DE\%'ITT, C. M . , A N D \%'REELxII. J. A,. "llattelle Reneontrm, Ill07 Leotures in Matltemstics and I'l8ysiea." W. A. Ilenjamin. Ine.. New York, 1968, p. 208. (14) W n m m ~ o n T., ~ ~Bevond. , Fel,.. 15 (1970).
Alan T. Gresky 113 Kingsley Road Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
Volume 47, Number 12, December 1970
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