ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************
Wayne: The argument you make in the first paragraph supports the
Marin's article that is summaried - that our tendency to dismiss what
we presume to be unscientific is in great part due to our cultural
heritage. (Remember, we are talking about language here - not the
movie). I found the article interesting because it suggests that the
assumptions many of us have made about something we call "science vs.
religion,'" in the modern context, is more complex in its origins
than some dilettantes, like me, presumed.
Sorry if you took it to mean I was going all new-agey on the list-
serv. But I do buy Marin's argument that the translation of a
theoretical framework from one language to another can be complicated
by the constraints of language, that these initial complications can
lead to distortion and/or misappropriation.
On Jun 9, 2009, at 7:01 AM, Wayne Watson wrote:
> *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate
> (tm) Pro*
> 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]
***********************************************************************
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]
|