VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Administrator (Rev. Dr. Peter Hearty)|DATE|1382366955|CONTENT|[blockquote]Meanwhile this site waxed wrathful on “the extraordinary ignorance of the legendary Peter Higgs”.[/blockquote]

I stand by [url=http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php?entry=entry121227-145853]every single word[/url] of that posting.  Higgs [i]is[/i] extraordinarly ignorant of religion because he's never been a victim of it. He thinks only the fanatics are dangerous. As I pointed out in that post, many of the majority beliefs of the major religions hurt perfectly ordinary people. It doesn't affect Peter Higgs, so he doesn't think about it.

[blockquote]Higgs does what Dawkins does not – he points to the inconvenient fact that he knows that some of his colleagues are religious believers[/blockquote]

I can't speak for Dawkins, but I'd be surprised if he ever said that a religious believer can't be a scientist. However, religious scientists must compartmentalise two seperate worldviews that are completely inconsistent. Many do it quite happily.

[blockquote]The interviewer had named a female scientist I had never hear of [so what’s new?!!] Fabiola Gianotti, the director of the Atlas experiment in CERN, who declared that she was a believer and that for her there was no conflict between her scientific work and her Catholic faith.[/blockquote]

Again, religion doesn't hurt her or her field of expertise, so from her point of view it must be OK. Let's see how she gets on when she switches from particle physics to reproductive medicine. 

[blockquote]Abdus Salam won a Nobel prize for physics in 1979 in a field that contributed to the CERN-Higgs Bosun project. He regarded his brand of Islam as an inspiration behind his mathematical and scientific research. [/blockquote]

Abdus Salam is a hero of mine. He was a co-discoverer of the theory that unites electromagnetism with the weak nuclear force - a theory that is a central pillar of the standard model of particle physics. He was one of the towering geniuses of 20th century physics. Rather than being lauded and awarded every honour that his homeland in Pakistan had to offer, he was effectively exiled for being the wrong type of Muslim. Yes, he was a Muslim, but the bulk of Islamic society in Pakistan (note - NOT a tiny faction of fanatics) was incapable of appreciating his genius and punished him for it.

[blockquote]I know I have cognitive dissonances in my own life and thought; they just do not happen to cluster round science and religion. I would be suspicious of anybody who believes they have none. [/blockquote]

Off the top of my head, I really can't think of two contradictory beliefs that I'm unequivocally committed to. So I guess you'll have to be suspicious of me.

I'm not entirely sure what your point in all this is.

- If you think that I'm saying that you can't be a good scientist and religious then I challenge you to show where I've ever said that.
- If you think that I'm saying that you can't be a good person and religious then I challenge you to show where I've ever said that either.
- If you think that I'm saying that science and religion are incompatable world views: yes, guilty as charged.
|IP-ADDRESS|92.236.214.196|MODERATIONFLAG|
