From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 11:04:22 MDT
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 03:07:18 EDT
From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Subject: Physicsweb Survey of Scientists
>I've often heard scientists call philosophical attention to their field
>irrelevant at best, and confusing and destructive at worst. Indeed, many
>scientists advise that philosophy should be avoided altogether. Steven
Weinberg, for example, named a chapter in his book Dreams of a Final Theory
>"Against the philosophers". Murray Gell-Mann, meanwhile, has remarked that
>philosophy "muddies the waters and obscures [the theoretical physicist's]
>principal task, which is to find a coherent structure that works". He then
>added that having a philosophical bias may cause a physicist "to reject a
>good idea".
I tend to agree that (academic) Philosophy is a form of intellectual
masturbation
that scientists would do well to avoid. One philosopher invents a word then
the rest of them sit around arguing what it means. Philosophical analysis is
so
sterile and long-winded that it sucks any energy out of a new idea or
concept.
On www.att.ac (academic reform) site I am starting a "Philosophers into the
Community" campaign to close Philosophy Dpts. and force their denizens into
the real world of pubs and shopping malls to give any "benefit" of their
knowledge
to the public, ala Socrates. Plato was a traitor to real Philosophical
debate by
ghettoising it and making the debate remote and pointless to everyone except
for
professional philosophers.
Steve Nichols
http://www.multisell.com/philosophy.htm
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