ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

Myticism? Colored by language? This is beginning to sound a bit like the 
"Quantum" movie from several years ago, which was shot down by many 
physicists as nonsense, and panned as gobbledygook.  A bit more serious 
attempt at tying physics into religion was made in The Tao of Physics. 
Leon Lederman in his God Particle tore into that idea in his chapter 
titled The Dancing Moo-Shu Masters. Lederman ends the chapter with, 
"Physics is not religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time 
raising money."

Here's something more to think about concerning reality and science. In 
1962 Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions rejected the 
notion that science was value neutral,  impersonal, and a true 
representation of reality. The claim was that science was a social 
construct, dependent upon social and political views. You might recall 
the 60s as a time of cultural upheaval. A one-sided debate among 
supporters of that idea went on for decades that dampened science in the 
view of the public and many educators. In 1986, physicists Gingras and 
Schweber counter-attacked this idea, which had been ignored by 
scientists. By 1996 the debate was in full swing, known then as the 
Science Wars, with scientists on one side, and, on the other, 
historians, social scientists, science philosophers and some 
intellectuals who were challenging Western ideals and knowledge. By the 
end of the 1990s the debate had pretty much run its course. The 
so-called postmodernism view had pretty much run out of steam. See 
Steven Goodman's Science in the Twentieth Century: A Social Intellectual 
Survey, pub. The Teaching Co.

-- 
           Wayne Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)

             (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
              Obz Site:  39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet  

                "The zero is something that must be there 
                 in order to say that nothing is there."
                -- Karl Menninger, Number Words and Symbols
 

***********************************************************************
For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html.

To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the
message  SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to
[log in to unmask]