Aired: December 4, 2007 on BBC 1
Gene pioneer Dr. J. Craig Venter gives the 32nd Richard Dimbleby Lecture. One of the principal scientists who decoded the human genome is about to create the first artificial life form on Earth. So what does the future hold in A DNA-Driven World?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Who Are We, (Part III) - Intellect vs. Biochemistry
What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture, that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool. By merely shifting our perspective, he argues, we can heal the Earth. Who's the more sophisticated species now?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Who Are We - (Part II)
(Part I is my post of October 6, 2007)
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
In an article in the New York Times of May 26, 2008, Leslie Kaufman writes of Dr. Taylor's experience as follows:
"On Dec. 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor, then 37, woke up in her apartment near Boston with a piercing pain behind her eye. A blood vessel in her brain had popped. Within minutes, her left lobe — the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context — began to fail her. Oddly, it felt great.
The incessant chatter that normally filled her mind disappeared. Her everyday worries — about a brother with schizophrenia and her high-powered job — untethered themselves from her and slid away.
Her perceptions changed, too. She could see that the atoms and molecules making up her body blended with the space around her; the whole world and the creatures in it were all part of the same magnificent field of shimmering energy.
“My perception of physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air,” she has written in her memoir, “My Stroke of Insight,” which was just published by Viking.
After experiencing intense pain, she said, her body disconnected from her mind. “I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle,” she wrote in her book. “The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.”
While her spirit soared, her body struggled to live. She had a clot the size of a golf ball in her head, and without the use of her left hemisphere she lost basic analytical functions like her ability to speak, to understand numbers or letters, and even, at first, to recognize her mother. A friend took her to the hospital. Surgery and eight years of recovery followed.
Her desire to teach others about nirvana, Dr. Taylor said, strongly motivated her to squeeze her spirit back into her body and to get well.
This story is not typical of stroke victims. Left-brain injuries don’t necessarily lead to blissful enlightenment; people sometimes sink into a helplessly moody state: their emotions run riot. Dr. Taylor was also helped because her left hemisphere was not destroyed, and that probably explains how she was able to recover fully.
Today, she says, she is a new person, one who “can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere” on command and be “one with all that is.”
To her it is not faith, but science. She brings a deep personal understanding to something she long studied: that the two lobes of the brain have very different personalities. Generally, the left brain gives us context, ego, time, logic. The right brain gives us creativity and empathy. For most English-speakers, the left brain, which processes language, is dominant. Dr. Taylor’s insight is that it doesn’t have to be so.
Her message, that people can choose to live a more peaceful, spiritual life by sidestepping their left brain, has resonated widely.
In February, Dr. Taylor spoke at the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference (known as TED), the annual forum for presenting innovative scientific ideas. The result was electric. After her 18-minute address was posted as a video on TED’s Web site, she become a mini-celebrity. More than two million viewers have watched her talk, and about 20,000 more a day continue to do so. An interview with her was also posted on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and she was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2008.
She also receives more than 100 e-mail messages a day from fans. Some are brain scientists, who are fascinated that one of their own has had a stroke and can now come back and translate the experience in terms they can use. Some are stroke victims or their caregivers who want to share their stories and thank her for her openness.
But many reaching out are spiritual seekers, particularly Buddhists and meditation practitioners, who say her experience confirms their belief that there is an attainable state of joy.
“People are so taken with it,” said Sharon Salzberg, a founder of the Insight Mediation Society in Barre, Mass. “I keep getting that video in e-mail. I must have 100 copies.”
She is excited by Dr. Taylor’s speech because it uses the language of science to describe an occurrence that is normally ethereal. Dr. Taylor shows the less mystically inclined, she said, that this experience of deep contentment “is part of the capacity of the human mind.”
Since the stroke, Dr. Taylor has moved to Bloomington, Ind., an hour from where she was raised in Terre Haute and where her mother, Gladys Gillman Taylor, who nursed her back to health, still lives."
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
In an article in the New York Times of May 26, 2008, Leslie Kaufman writes of Dr. Taylor's experience as follows:
"On Dec. 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor, then 37, woke up in her apartment near Boston with a piercing pain behind her eye. A blood vessel in her brain had popped. Within minutes, her left lobe — the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context — began to fail her. Oddly, it felt great.
The incessant chatter that normally filled her mind disappeared. Her everyday worries — about a brother with schizophrenia and her high-powered job — untethered themselves from her and slid away.
Her perceptions changed, too. She could see that the atoms and molecules making up her body blended with the space around her; the whole world and the creatures in it were all part of the same magnificent field of shimmering energy.
“My perception of physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air,” she has written in her memoir, “My Stroke of Insight,” which was just published by Viking.
After experiencing intense pain, she said, her body disconnected from her mind. “I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle,” she wrote in her book. “The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.”
While her spirit soared, her body struggled to live. She had a clot the size of a golf ball in her head, and without the use of her left hemisphere she lost basic analytical functions like her ability to speak, to understand numbers or letters, and even, at first, to recognize her mother. A friend took her to the hospital. Surgery and eight years of recovery followed.
Her desire to teach others about nirvana, Dr. Taylor said, strongly motivated her to squeeze her spirit back into her body and to get well.
This story is not typical of stroke victims. Left-brain injuries don’t necessarily lead to blissful enlightenment; people sometimes sink into a helplessly moody state: their emotions run riot. Dr. Taylor was also helped because her left hemisphere was not destroyed, and that probably explains how she was able to recover fully.
Today, she says, she is a new person, one who “can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere” on command and be “one with all that is.”
To her it is not faith, but science. She brings a deep personal understanding to something she long studied: that the two lobes of the brain have very different personalities. Generally, the left brain gives us context, ego, time, logic. The right brain gives us creativity and empathy. For most English-speakers, the left brain, which processes language, is dominant. Dr. Taylor’s insight is that it doesn’t have to be so.
Her message, that people can choose to live a more peaceful, spiritual life by sidestepping their left brain, has resonated widely.
In February, Dr. Taylor spoke at the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference (known as TED), the annual forum for presenting innovative scientific ideas. The result was electric. After her 18-minute address was posted as a video on TED’s Web site, she become a mini-celebrity. More than two million viewers have watched her talk, and about 20,000 more a day continue to do so. An interview with her was also posted on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and she was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2008.
She also receives more than 100 e-mail messages a day from fans. Some are brain scientists, who are fascinated that one of their own has had a stroke and can now come back and translate the experience in terms they can use. Some are stroke victims or their caregivers who want to share their stories and thank her for her openness.
But many reaching out are spiritual seekers, particularly Buddhists and meditation practitioners, who say her experience confirms their belief that there is an attainable state of joy.
“People are so taken with it,” said Sharon Salzberg, a founder of the Insight Mediation Society in Barre, Mass. “I keep getting that video in e-mail. I must have 100 copies.”
She is excited by Dr. Taylor’s speech because it uses the language of science to describe an occurrence that is normally ethereal. Dr. Taylor shows the less mystically inclined, she said, that this experience of deep contentment “is part of the capacity of the human mind.”
Since the stroke, Dr. Taylor has moved to Bloomington, Ind., an hour from where she was raised in Terre Haute and where her mother, Gladys Gillman Taylor, who nursed her back to health, still lives."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Bioenergy - Biology and Energy In The Future
The following three videos from TED present work towards the possibility of reversing global warming through applied biology:
Juan Enriquez offers a glimpse of some ground-breaking research to explore the potential of bioenergy. Our current energy sources -- coal, oil, gas -- are ultimately derived from ancient plants -- they're "concentrated sunlight." He asks, Can we learn from that process and accelerate it? Can we get to the point where we grow our own energy as efficiently as we grow wheat? (Less than a month after this talk, his company announced a process to do just that.)
"Can we create new life out of our digital universe?" asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels" -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. A fascinating Q&A with TED's Chris Anderson follows (two words: suicide genes).
J. Craig Venter, genome scientist and chairman of the J. Craig Venter Institute, discusses publishing the first diploid genome and his new project of creating synthetic life-forms. The Wall Street Journal's Jacob Goldstein has the interview.
Juan Enriquez offers a glimpse of some ground-breaking research to explore the potential of bioenergy. Our current energy sources -- coal, oil, gas -- are ultimately derived from ancient plants -- they're "concentrated sunlight." He asks, Can we learn from that process and accelerate it? Can we get to the point where we grow our own energy as efficiently as we grow wheat? (Less than a month after this talk, his company announced a process to do just that.)
"Can we create new life out of our digital universe?" asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels" -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. A fascinating Q&A with TED's Chris Anderson follows (two words: suicide genes).
J. Craig Venter, genome scientist and chairman of the J. Craig Venter Institute, discusses publishing the first diploid genome and his new project of creating synthetic life-forms. The Wall Street Journal's Jacob Goldstein has the interview.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Scientific Facts vs. Religious Beliefs
A video in two parts by the Richard Dawkins Foundation, entitled The Four Horsemen; this is a discussion of the intolerance, the antagonism and total lack of capacity for rational debate shown by members of religions towards atheism, evolution, science and scientists. The Four Horsemen of the title, who appear in the video, have all written and published books relating to the topics of the discussion. They are Richard Dawkins (seated center-right), author of "The God Delusion"; Daniel C. Dennet (center-left), who wrote "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"; Sam Harris (on the right) of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason"; and Christopher Hichens, author of "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything".
Part 1
Part 2
A stranglehold on Western thought and philosophy throughout the major part of the last two milennia originated when, in the year 313, Christianity was decreed by the emperor Constantine I in his "Edict of Milan" to be the official religion of the Roman empire and thus it became embedded in political power structures. When the Roman empire broke up, the subsequent national or state governments continued to follow to some extent the late Roman model, retaining Christianity's role of dictating what should and should not be believed. Philip Schaf, a 19th. century theologian, in Chapter 1 of his "History of the Christian Church" puts it thus:
" Constantine, the first Christian Caesar, the founder of Constantinople and the Byzantine empire, and one of the most gifted, energetic, and successful of the Roman emperors, was the first representative of the imposing idea of a Christian theocracy, or of that system of policy which assumes all subjects to be Christians, connects civil and religious rights, and regards church and state as the two arms of one and the same divine government on earth. This idea was more fully developed by his successors, it animated the whole middle age, and is yet working under various forms in these latest times; though it has never been fully realized, whether in the Byzantine, the German, or the Russian empire, the Roman church-state, the Calvinistic republic of Geneva, or the early Puritanic colonies of New England. At the same time, however, Constantine stands also as the type of an undiscriminating and harmful conjunction of Christianity with politics, of the holy symbol of peace with the horrors of war, of the spiritual interests of the kingdom of heaven with the earthly interests of the state."
From such a position of dominance Christianity has been able to dictate its "truth", to manipulate peoples into whatever forms of belief the religion required and to enforce compliance with all rigor. During the following seventeen hundred years or so, despite the occasional hiatuses of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, among others, and although split into variations of belief (each of which claiming to be the owners of the real "truth"), the pervasive observance of Christian beliefs, mores and ethos embedded in the different political power structures, has served as a useful tool for the political establishments of each succeeding age for manipulating and molding the beliefs and behavior of the general population.
The place of Christianity within political power was brought to the North American colonies by different Christian extremist groups seeking a place to establish their particular version of the "truth" without conflict with other similar claimants of the "real truth". When the United Sates was founded, the problem of which version of the Christian "truth" should prevail was solved by proclaiming a nominal separation between "church" and the state, thus neither version was officially recognized.
However, the omnipresent religious influence is evident even at the present time. A deity is officially acknowledged by law in the United States - some examples of this are: the oath of allegiance proclaiming "one Nation, under God"; "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency (occurred in the '50s); and in the U.S. judicial system all evidence is given under the oath "..So Help Me God". And, as an extreme example of such religious influence, even in supposedly "godless" Nazi Germany the oath of obedience to Adolf Hitler began with "I swear by God this sacred oath.....etc."
In trying to bring about recognition and acceptance by society in general of the validity of the evidence of scientific discoveries as opposed to irrational creationist belief, science is up against the all-pervading influence of Christianity that is present at all levels of human society in the Western world from the cradle to the grave.
Accumulated over so many centuries, that influence is woven into Western languages, customs, laws, dress, social organization, systems and content of education, etc. etc. Therefore when science questions the validity of Christianity it is no surprise that it causes unthinking, irrational reactions, even from people who have only a nominal, non-practicing religious belief. Others that have their own brand of deity, such as the Jewish and Islamic religions, are perhaps even more vehement in their irrationality and enmity towards scientific evidence and atheistic argument.
In my view, the discussion featured in the video - although useful as an exposure of the problems and attitudes that the participants as scientists and atheists have come up against in their efforts to counter religious beliefs with scientific facts - underlines the reality that efforts to convince believers in religions of the validity of the evidence from scientific discovery are quixotic, an unfruitful "tilting at windmills" to no avail. As the poet said "....East is East and West is West and ne'er the twain shall meet". Reason and irrational "belief" are irreconcilable.
It is probable that in the Western world only after several generations into the future will its several forms of religion have become as unimportant, disreputable and irrelevant, for example, as astrology is today. However, such a sea-change could only come about through a qualitative transformation of the teaching of science within all education systems. I think that if such changes in education occur and meanwhile the atheists "let sleeping dogs lie", the widening scope and accumulative weight of scientific discovery and evidence will overwhelm and convince, in the long run, the nominal believers in religion who at present are the majority of the population.
Another ray of hope is the possibility that the growing realization, at present trickling down to most levels of society, of the perils of global warming will open up for science a breach in the walls of creationism and blind religious faith that could lead to a greater realization of the validity of scientific facts regarding planet Earth and all life contained in it.
Part 1
Part 2
A stranglehold on Western thought and philosophy throughout the major part of the last two milennia originated when, in the year 313, Christianity was decreed by the emperor Constantine I in his "Edict of Milan" to be the official religion of the Roman empire and thus it became embedded in political power structures. When the Roman empire broke up, the subsequent national or state governments continued to follow to some extent the late Roman model, retaining Christianity's role of dictating what should and should not be believed. Philip Schaf, a 19th. century theologian, in Chapter 1 of his "History of the Christian Church" puts it thus:
" Constantine, the first Christian Caesar, the founder of Constantinople and the Byzantine empire, and one of the most gifted, energetic, and successful of the Roman emperors, was the first representative of the imposing idea of a Christian theocracy, or of that system of policy which assumes all subjects to be Christians, connects civil and religious rights, and regards church and state as the two arms of one and the same divine government on earth. This idea was more fully developed by his successors, it animated the whole middle age, and is yet working under various forms in these latest times; though it has never been fully realized, whether in the Byzantine, the German, or the Russian empire, the Roman church-state, the Calvinistic republic of Geneva, or the early Puritanic colonies of New England. At the same time, however, Constantine stands also as the type of an undiscriminating and harmful conjunction of Christianity with politics, of the holy symbol of peace with the horrors of war, of the spiritual interests of the kingdom of heaven with the earthly interests of the state."
From such a position of dominance Christianity has been able to dictate its "truth", to manipulate peoples into whatever forms of belief the religion required and to enforce compliance with all rigor. During the following seventeen hundred years or so, despite the occasional hiatuses of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, among others, and although split into variations of belief (each of which claiming to be the owners of the real "truth"), the pervasive observance of Christian beliefs, mores and ethos embedded in the different political power structures, has served as a useful tool for the political establishments of each succeeding age for manipulating and molding the beliefs and behavior of the general population.
The place of Christianity within political power was brought to the North American colonies by different Christian extremist groups seeking a place to establish their particular version of the "truth" without conflict with other similar claimants of the "real truth". When the United Sates was founded, the problem of which version of the Christian "truth" should prevail was solved by proclaiming a nominal separation between "church" and the state, thus neither version was officially recognized.
However, the omnipresent religious influence is evident even at the present time. A deity is officially acknowledged by law in the United States - some examples of this are: the oath of allegiance proclaiming "one Nation, under God"; "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency (occurred in the '50s); and in the U.S. judicial system all evidence is given under the oath "..So Help Me God". And, as an extreme example of such religious influence, even in supposedly "godless" Nazi Germany the oath of obedience to Adolf Hitler began with "I swear by God this sacred oath.....etc."
In trying to bring about recognition and acceptance by society in general of the validity of the evidence of scientific discoveries as opposed to irrational creationist belief, science is up against the all-pervading influence of Christianity that is present at all levels of human society in the Western world from the cradle to the grave.
Accumulated over so many centuries, that influence is woven into Western languages, customs, laws, dress, social organization, systems and content of education, etc. etc. Therefore when science questions the validity of Christianity it is no surprise that it causes unthinking, irrational reactions, even from people who have only a nominal, non-practicing religious belief. Others that have their own brand of deity, such as the Jewish and Islamic religions, are perhaps even more vehement in their irrationality and enmity towards scientific evidence and atheistic argument.
In my view, the discussion featured in the video - although useful as an exposure of the problems and attitudes that the participants as scientists and atheists have come up against in their efforts to counter religious beliefs with scientific facts - underlines the reality that efforts to convince believers in religions of the validity of the evidence from scientific discovery are quixotic, an unfruitful "tilting at windmills" to no avail. As the poet said "....East is East and West is West and ne'er the twain shall meet". Reason and irrational "belief" are irreconcilable.
It is probable that in the Western world only after several generations into the future will its several forms of religion have become as unimportant, disreputable and irrelevant, for example, as astrology is today. However, such a sea-change could only come about through a qualitative transformation of the teaching of science within all education systems. I think that if such changes in education occur and meanwhile the atheists "let sleeping dogs lie", the widening scope and accumulative weight of scientific discovery and evidence will overwhelm and convince, in the long run, the nominal believers in religion who at present are the majority of the population.
Another ray of hope is the possibility that the growing realization, at present trickling down to most levels of society, of the perils of global warming will open up for science a breach in the walls of creationism and blind religious faith that could lead to a greater realization of the validity of scientific facts regarding planet Earth and all life contained in it.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
"The Root Of All Evil?"
The Root of All Evil? is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be ... all » better off without religion.
The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45-minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks), on Channel 4 in the UK.
Dawkins has said that the title "The Root of All Evil?" was not his preferred choice, but that Channel 4 had insisted on it to create controversy.[1] His sole concession from the producers on the title was the addition of the question mark. Dawkins has stated that the notion of anything being the root of all evil is ridiculous.[2] Dawkins's book The God Delusion, released in September 2006, goes on to examine the topics raised in the documentary in greater detail.
The God Delusion explores the unproven beliefs that are treated as factual by many religions and the extremes to which some followers have taken them. Dawkins opens the programme by describing the "would-be murderers . . . who want to kill you and me, and themselves, because they're motivated by what they think is the highest ideal." Dawkins argues that "the process of non-thinking called faith" is not a way of understanding the world, but instead stands in fundamental opposition to modern science and the scientific method, and is divisive and dangerous. «
The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45-minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks), on Channel 4 in the UK.
Dawkins has said that the title "The Root of All Evil?" was not his preferred choice, but that Channel 4 had insisted on it to create controversy.[1] His sole concession from the producers on the title was the addition of the question mark. Dawkins has stated that the notion of anything being the root of all evil is ridiculous.[2] Dawkins's book The God Delusion, released in September 2006, goes on to examine the topics raised in the documentary in greater detail.
The God Delusion explores the unproven beliefs that are treated as factual by many religions and the extremes to which some followers have taken them. Dawkins opens the programme by describing the "would-be murderers . . . who want to kill you and me, and themselves, because they're motivated by what they think is the highest ideal." Dawkins argues that "the process of non-thinking called faith" is not a way of understanding the world, but instead stands in fundamental opposition to modern science and the scientific method, and is divisive and dangerous. «
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A Religious Sense Of The Natural vs. Supernatural Religion
This is a mind-expanding talk that probes the limits of human understanding: Why can't we see atoms? Why can't we hear color? How can we understand randomness? Dawkins suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us because the human mind has evolved mainly to understand other humans -- and to look for human motives even in natural processes. Thus, we create a humanlike God to explain phenomena we can't otherwise comprehend; right or wrong, we're simply wired for it.
Richard Dawkins is Oxford's Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, and the author of the landmark 1976 book The Selfish Gene and the 2006 bestseller The God Delusion. (The talk was recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK)
In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins examines the religious sense of the natural world of scientists in apposition to the supernatural religions:
“………Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don’t yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful.
Great scientists of our time who sound religious usually turn out not to be so when you examine their beliefs more deeply. This is certainly true of Einstein and Hawking……
….One of Einstein’s most eagerly quoted remarks is ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind’. But Einstein also said
See also: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m5G704L3D2SCM
Richard Dawkins is Oxford's Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, and the author of the landmark 1976 book The Selfish Gene and the 2006 bestseller The God Delusion. (The talk was recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK)
In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins examines the religious sense of the natural world of scientists in apposition to the supernatural religions:
“………Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don’t yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful.
Great scientists of our time who sound religious usually turn out not to be so when you examine their beliefs more deeply. This is certainly true of Einstein and Hawking……
….One of Einstein’s most eagerly quoted remarks is ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind’. But Einstein also said
'It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.'
'I am a deeply religious non-believer. This is somewhat a new kind of religion.
The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve'.............."
See also: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m5G704L3D2SCM
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