Introductory Physics, by John D. Mays

[James William Hall]

I understand the reaction from the majority of those here in PF to John's reference to his faith in this book: however, if you set aside all such references for the moment and just look at the way Physics is presented in the book how would you who have read it rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 for high school students?

 

[hutchphd]

Caveat Emptor

If he would set apart all such references I would review his book as a science text.
Otherwise if I want a Christian perspective I will read CS Lewis.

 

[James William Hall]

Thank you Hutch for the video and your response. I am reading the book and am able to separate faith from the science and as there are only few faith comments and I can do that, mostly. I am not qualified to review the book on a science, or on a faith basis for that matter, only to judge how, to me, it communicates science in a confident and interesting way. My grandson is entering second year at Boston Latin and I'm thinking to give him this book.

 

[hutchphd]

Science is not a body of information. It is a conception of how humans can agree on a set of rules by which we adjudicate useful information. This does not involve sacred texts or super sentient beings.
Therefore tools to teach science cannot offer "a little religion on the side". It is antithetical. What are we trying to teach? The USA was founded by scientists (Jefferson Madison Franklin...) and because of that we have prospered, not because we are a "Christian nation" as the self righteous would have you believe.
Remember Hitler didn't like "Jewish" science. That, among other misconceptions, took him down. Religious Physics is not a good mix ever.

 

[andresB]

I once was shocked to see several religious reference in one of George Sudarshan article (Pramana Journal). The rest of the article was solid, but those religious lines where so weird.

 

[Frabjous]

I tried looking for information on the book, but could not find anything that would allow me to make a judgement.

In general, I would say
Physics asks how the universe works. Religion asks why.
Physics uses the scientific method. Religion uses faith.
It is hard to write a textbook. It is even harder to write a textbook on two different things.

 

[James William Hall]

Science is not a body of information. It is a conception of how humans can agree on a set of rules by which we adjudicate useful information. This does not involve sacred texts or super sentient beings.
Therefore tools to teach science cannot offer "a little religion on the side". It is antithetical. What are we trying to teach? The USA was founded by scientists (Jefferson Madison Franklin...) and because of that we have prospered, not because we are a "Christian nation" as the self righteous would have you believe.
Remember Hitler didn't like "Jewish" science. That, among other misconceptions, took him down. Religious Physics is not a good mix ever.

I agree Hutch. I thought to expose my grandson to the presence of smart, Godly, well-meaning scientists within the set of all scientists so that he will be able to see the obvious misfit between revealed “truth” and scientific truth. Awkward. To say “God made the world”, and that is that, now let’s move on to the physics of motion is to be knowingly misleading and confusing. I don’t mean to introduce religion to these pages so I’ll just end by saying there are many closet believers in God among those who frequent PF who are able to separate their faith from science. The best way to teach science in religious schools is to say on the first day of class that the reality of the universe is the truth of the universe, we believe God created the reality, and now there is no need to interject religion into science again as we stumble our way forward to the ultimate truth—so we won’t.

 

[vanhees71]

Well, one of the greatest general achievements of the western civilization is made during the era of "enlightenment" (18th century), an offspring of and I think majorly triggered by the paradigm change due to the development of modern natural science in the Renaissance starting with Kepler, Galilei et al.

This and the further development of the natural sciences lead to the notion that we can, to a certain extent, objectively observe phenomena in Nature in a precise quantitative and that there are some amazingly general principles, describable by concise mathematics. These socalled "natural laws" are independent of anybody's worldview or religious believes.

The good thing also is that there is no logical discrepancy between any kind of religious believe and the natural sciences, because science and religion refer to disjoint realms of human experience. There is no contradiction between doing science and being religious or non-religious. So to use the scientific method to gain an understanding about what objectively can be observed in Nature and described by mathematical theories is not in contradiction to believe or not to believe in any religious idea. It's only important to keep both realms clearly separated, because otherwise you don't get a good understanding of science.

 

[berkeman]

Good attempts at discussion so far, but honestly this discussion subject is outside of the PF mission. It will make a good discussion at a different website probably, but not here. Thread is closed.