Atkins: I consider that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot elucidate.
Tag: Peter Atkins
Peter Atkins vs Jonathan McLatchie debate: “Is there a God?”
A friend writes to comment on Atkins’s “smarmy condescension.” Indeed. In an age when serious scientists wonder whether the universe itself is conscious—because they cannot otherwise account for intelligence in nature— it’s not clear what smarmy condescension would achieve.
Could AI understand the universe better than we do?
Better than we ever could? Recently, we discussed well-known chemist and atheist proponent Peter Atkins’s claim that science, not philosophy, answers the Big Questions: One class consists of invented questions that are often based on unwarranted extrapolations of human experience. They typically include questions of purpose and worries about the annihilation of the self, such Read More…
Renowned chemist on why only science can answer the Big Questions
Peter Atkins, author of Atkins’ Physical Chemistry (11th edition, 2017) and Conjuring the Universe (2018), divides the Big Questions into two classes: One class consists of invented questions that are often based on unwarranted extrapolations of human experience. They typically include questions of purpose and worries about the annihilation of the self, such as Why are we here? and Read More…
Debating Darwin and Design: A Dialogue Between Two Christians
A couple of months ago, I agreed to take part in a written debate with a good friend of mine, Francis Smallwood. Francis, like me, is a commited Christian. Unlike me though, he is also a neo-Darwinist. On his blog Musings Of A Scientific Nature he writes on many different scientific issues, although his primary Read More…