Estranged Notions: Why Modern Physics Does Not Refute Thomistic Philosophy

Yesterday's post:

Why Modern Physics Does Not Refute Thomistic Philosophy

Bonnette tries to defend his precious Thomism against modern science, without much success.

Blue Sky Nonsense: reviewing “Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity” pt. 1: The Quantum Sea of Light

Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity by Don MacGregor (book sources)

Zero Point Field

Zero point energy! We've had most of the other quantum-woo tropes, so I guess it's no surprise that we get this one too. Inexhaustible energy! Misunderstandings of what renormalization is! Invisible webs connecting everything to everything else!

A new wrinkle that I haven't seen before: the claim that the zero-point field contains a permanent record of everything that has ever happened in the universe. Huh, didn't see that one coming.

Our (or rather MacGregor's) sources for all this are once again Lynne McTaggart (who remember is just a journalist), Bernard Haisch, and Ervin László, though this time when referring to László's claimed nominations for the Nobel, MacGregor does at least mention that it's the Peace prize. (The nominations for Nobels are not made public for 50 years, and the nomination process for the Peace prize simply allows anyone from a long list of qualified positions to send in suggested names. Got a couple of friends in government or who are professors of social science or philosophy? You too could be nominated for the Peace prize!)

(An aside: several names in this chapter are misspelled, making it harder than usual to track down the actual researchers. Whether this is MacGregor's error or McTaggart's is not clear.)

Blue Sky Nonsense: reviewing “Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity” pt. 1: Morphic Fields and the Works of Christ

Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity by Don MacGregor (book sources)

Fields and Forms

Fields are all around us, yes. MacGregor again harps on about the possibility of unknown forces—while it might be too strong a statement to say these are ruled out, a good deal of effort has been expended by experimental physicists to measure the absence of such things in highly sensitive ways. The gambit of “we don't know that there aren't other forces, so it's totally OK to propose (without evidence) that such unknown forces exist and have major macroscopic effects” is a hallmark of pseudoscience.

Blue Sky Nonsense: reviewing “Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity” pt. 1: Epigenetics, Healing and Prayer

Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity by Don MacGregor (book sources)

“Epigenetics” is the new “quantum”.

— dozens of blog commenters

Biology and Energy Fields

If you ask an actual biologist about what “fascinating new insights” there have been in the field recently, you'll likely get a long and varied list; but one thing that won't be on it is “energy fields”. MacGregor, though, has swallowed the pseudoscience hook, line and sinker:

Blue Sky Nonsense: reviewing “Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity” pt. 1: Quantum Reality and God as Consciousness

Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity by Don MacGregor (book sources)

(Headings in italics are mine, rather than referring to the book.)

Quantum Science and Consciousness, and The Primacy of Consciousness

MacGregor jumps right in the deep end by claiming—before even getting more than 2 pages in—that a “new paradigm suggests that the prime mover in the universe is not matter, but consciousness”. He identifies quantum measurements—i.e. ‘wavefunction collapse’—as necessarily involving conscious minds and presents this as if it were the established and only interpretation of QM that exists. He quotes Max Planck (“This mind is the matrix of all matter”) but via a secondary source that seems to misplace the occasion of the statement. Otherwise the only scientist referenced is Goswami.

Blue Sky Nonsense: reviewing “Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity” pt. 1: Introduction

Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity by Don MacGregor (book sources)

To say that I am not the target audience for this book would be a massive understatement; I was lent it by a family member who wanted my opinion on the ‘Science’ parts. Theologically, this is a book in the much-parodied liberal Anglican tradition (Episcopalian for those in the US); people such as Karen Armstrong, John Selby Spong, Marcus Borg and J.A.T. Robinson feature notably in the bibliography. Obviously I do not propose to criticize it from a theological perspective; but I may have something to say about the ethical consequences of some parts.

Estranged Notions: Why Reality Includes More (Not Less) Than You May Think

Today's post:

Why Reality Includes More (Not Less) Than You May Think

Kreeft thinks he can refute reductionism by means of inane schoolboy logic ("it's a universal negative claim! there could be a counterexample anywhere in the universe!"). Needless to say this position would be laughed at by any sane philosopher.

However Kreeft doesn't stop digging there; he plunges headlong into vitalism by claiming that "souls" can "defy" gravity—a living person can jump, a dead one generally can't—which makes me wonder whether he thinks that jumping cheetah robots have souls.

Estranged Notions: Causality and Radioactive Decay

And here we get Feser's actual account of radioactive decay:

Causality and Radioactive Decay

Estranged Notions: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

First half of a blog post by Feser from a month or so back, in which he tries to account for radioactive decay using Aristotelian causation and doesn't notice that he destroys the argument from motion in the process. (Though that doesn't show up until the second half.)

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

Blatant Physics Errors

In the "everything requires a cause" thread especially, and also to some extent in other threads, there have been some rather egregious comments (many from Flynn, but he's far from the only offender) indicating complete ignorance of particle physics or nuclear physics. This post is for pointing them out in the comments, and supplying corrections (and/or appropriate mockery).

(Errors primarily caused by adherence to Aristotelian physics can go in the other thread.)