James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
Actually, the report in question came on just shy of 11 p.m. Although my local Fox television network affiliate had been promoting its 10 o'clock news report, in which a scientist uses physics to prove the Christian god exists, for several days, the editors didn't think it newsworthy enough to slot it ahead of half a dozen car wrecks and other assorted crimes and offenses to decency. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, because news that someone had actually proved a god's existence would surely lead off any newscast I was directing. Also unsurprising was the discovery of the identity of the scientist in question.
It was none other than the irrepressible Frank J. Tipler, who has written a book that purports to find the evidence for his god's existence in the laws of physics and quantum theory. The Physics of Christianity is almost certainly not worth reading, if the Fox Carolina report is any indication, as Prof. Tipler was unable to even begin explaining what the heck he's talking about. And that snap judgment is confirmed in a review by Lawrence Krauss in New Scientist (subscription req.):
As a collection of half-truths and exaggerations, I am tempted to describe Tipler's new book as nonsense - but that would be unfair to the concept of nonsense. It is far more dangerous than mere nonsense, because Tipler's reasonable descriptions of various aspects of modern physics, combined with his respectable research pedigree, give the persuasive illusion that he is describing what the laws of physics imply. He is not.It gets better:
For example, he argues that the resurrection of Jesus occurred when the atoms in his body spontaneously decayed into neutrinos and antineutrinos, which later converted back into atoms to reconstitute him. Here Tipler invokes the fact that within the standard model of particle physics the decay of protons and neutrons is possible, although he recognises that such decay would likely take 50 to 100 orders of magnitude longer than the current age of the universe: thus, the probability of such an occurrence is essentially zero. However, using a strange "Christian" version of the anthropic principle, a subject he once co-authored a book about, he then claims that without Jesus's resurrection, our universe could not exist - therefore, when one convolves this requirement with the almost, but not exactly zero, a priori probability, the net result is a near certainty.The Fox Carolina report didn't delve into any of the details of course. In fact, the reporter mocked the very idea of being able to understand anything remotely related to physics, turning instead to a local preacher who, while praising Tipler's genius, noted that true faith requires something beyond logical deduction. You don't say.
I also wonder how hard it might have been for the reporter to come up with a scientist who doesn't buy Tipler's conjrceture to provide a little thing called balance. After all, 93 % of the NAS are atheists.
All of which goes to prove only that local news should stay off the god beat.
Email this entry to a friend
View the Technorati Link Cosmos for this entry
Comments
"...therefore, when one convolves this requirement with the almost, but not exactly zero, a priori probability, the net result is a near certainty."
When this hypothesis was tested, researchers discovered the existence of a rather large sperm whale suddenly plummeting from the sky, and what could conly be described as "a rather bewildered bowl of petunias." This was further complicated by the sudden appearance of sperm whale entrails over a 4 square block area. The principal investigator on the project commented, "Yuck."
Posted by: Mark C | May 22, 2007 12:31 PM
A local station in Nashville, TN ran the same story. Of course, the reporter did not interview any scientists, only local pastors - although, to his credit, he did manage to find and a nun with a doctorate in "mathematical logic." Transcript and video: http://www.wsmv.com/news/13358825/detail.html
This appears to be some sort of video news release to which local news hacks can tack on their ridiculous attempts at reporting. The Tipler "interview" is the same in both, as well as some of the B-roll. Lazy journalism.
Posted by: deskzombie | May 22, 2007 1:01 PM
Tipler is nuts, and getting worse. As best I can tell, the person he is most trying to convince with these extraordinary mental contortions is himself.
Posted by: Ardem | May 22, 2007 1:50 PM
Oh great... Somebody read Capra's "Tao of Physics" and thought "I could do that..."
Posted by: Dunc | May 23, 2007 7:44 AM
You may be right about his science being one-sided and frankly a little weird, but speaking of one-sided. I find it interesting that you quoted only a negative news report. Here are a few positive ones:
�A thrilling ride to the far edges of modern physics.� --New York Times Book Review
�A dazzling exercise in scientific speculation, as rigorously argued as it is boldly conceived.� --Wall Street Journal
�Tipler has written a masterpiece conferring much-craved scientific respectability on what we have always wanted to believe in.� --Science
�More readable than Roger Penrose�s The Emperor�s New Mind or Douglas Hofstadter�s G�del, Escher, Bach . . . an imaginative eschatological entertainment appropriate to the approaching end of the millennium.� --New Orleans Times-Picayune
�Undeniably fascinating�� --Seattle Times
�Tipler�s brash announcements are challenging�and entertaining. Although written from the viewpoint of a Ph.D., anyone should be able to get a kick out of the professor�s big-bang ideas.� --Publishers Weekly
�A book that proves the existence of the Almighty and inevitably of resurrection, without recourse to spiritual mumbo jumbo . . . Tipler does it all.� --Mirabella
Posted by: Grant | May 24, 2007 5:31 PM
I have one of those in my university (Bar-Ilan, Israel)...his name is Prof. Nathan Aviezer, and he wrote a book full of nonsense (which unfortunately I had to read for a Jewish philosophy course)
http://www.brow.on.ca/Articles/Genesis1.htm
Posted by: Lucy Wiggin | May 25, 2007 12:17 PM
L. Wiggin. You had the fortitude to endure it and discovered that your BS detector is working. I had a good sailing wind from Hillel to Yeshua to RamBam to Spinosa to Wise. Hmm-m; the BS detector is YOU.
Posted by: Skeptic8 | May 27, 2007 1:24 AM