Krauss dissed again; and again (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, November 20, 2015, 18:27 (3082 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Friday, November 20, 2015, 18:36

Horgan on Krauss this time. Romansh should take note:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-lawrence-krauss-a-physicist-or-just-a-bad-philosopher/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20151120-"Thus what he is presenting is not tested science. It's a philosophical speculation, which he apparently believes is so compelling he does not have to give any specification of evidence that would confirm it is true. Well, you can't get any evidence about what existed before space and time came into being. Above all he believes that these mathematically based speculations solve thousand year old philosophical conundrums, without seriously engaging those philosophical issues. The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy. As pointed out so well by Eddington in his Gifford lectures, they are partial and incomplete representations of physical, biological, psychological, and social reality.-"And above all Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions. It's very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy.-"When I mentioned Ellis's critique to Krauss, he claimed that Ellis, although once a physicist, is now a “theologian.” Ellis, a Quaker, has indeed written about religion, among other topics, but he is renowned for his work as a physicist. He co-wrote with Stephen Hawking the classic work The Large-Scale Structure of Spacetime, published in 1973. Just in the past five years, Ellis, now 76, has edited one book on quantum gravity and co-written another on cosmology and has co-written more than a dozen papers on physics, according to his website."-Comment: Any clear-thinking person realizes we don't EVER get something from NOTHING. Quantum fluctuations ARE something. Romansh?