The Evangelist of Molecular Biology - or How an obsessive collector of oyster-shells preaches not just the uselessness but in-fact, the non-existence of the pearl itself - and advocates a total blindness toward anything but the brittle shell - which he plays with and everyday sees scores of them crumble between his fumbling fingers! But no, the pearl must not be sought. In the gospel of this fanatic shell-salesman - the affirmation of truth is to deny everything that even remotely hints toward the existence of the pearl - notwithstanding the perfectly tangible shell in one's hands. And there are millions who buy the shell-only story - but then, millions have been buying snake-oil since time immemorial. And experience tells us that the more some things change, the more they remain the same...
https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/winter12/columbia_forum “It is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room,” warns an old proverb. “Especially when there is no cat.” This strikes me as a particularly apt description of how science proceeds on a day-to-day basis. It is certainly more accurate than the more common metaphor of scientists patiently piecing together a giant puzzle. With a puzzle you see the manufacturer has guaranteed there is a solution. I know that this view of the scientific process — feeling around in dark rooms, bumping into unidentifiable things, looking for barely perceptible phantoms — is contrary to that held by many people, especially by nonscientists. When most people think of science, I suspect they imagine the nearly 500-year-long systematic pursuit of knowledge that, over 14 or so generations, has uncovered more information about the universe and everything in it than all that was known in the first 5,000 years of recorded human history. They imagine a brotherhood tied together by its golden rule,the Scientific Method, an immutable set of precepts for devising experiments that churn out the cold, hard facts. And these solid facts form the edifice of science, an unbroken record of advances and insights embodied in our modern views and unprecedented standard of living. Science, with a capital S. That’s all very nice, but I’m afraid it’s mostly a tale woven by newspaper reports, television documentaries, and high school lesson plans. Let me tell you my somewhat different perspective. It’s not facts and rules. It’s black cats in dark rooms. As the Princeton mathematician Andrew Wiles describes it: It’s groping and probing and poking, and some bumbling and bungling, and then a switch is discovered, often by accident, and the light is lit, and everyone says, “Oh, wow, so that’s how it looks,” and then it’s off into the next dark room, looking for the next mysterious black feline. If this all sounds depressing, perhaps some bleak Beckett-like scenario of existential endlessness, it’s not. In fact, it’s somehow exhilarating.
the world would have been a safer place without Quantum Mechanics. --------- The reality of this world is like a city enclosed in a fortress made of glass. The glass is covered with a beautiful mural of intricate and bewildering patterns that give illusions of both depth and elevation though the glass surface itself is flat. The scientists (real ones not the ideologically motivated fakes) are like children who are entranced by the mural's patterns, making great efforts in deciphering and describing them. They are satisfied with just this much and they think that through their efforts they are unravelling the mysteries of this world. They have not the eyes that can look past the mural and so know not of the presence of an entire city which is the actual reality. So for all their knowledge and learning they are ignorant of truth. The Sufiya on the other hand are the wise men with sharp visions. They see beyond the glass walls and know the city and its details and they are therefore the true learned ones and their descriptions of the reality of this world is therefore the only correct description. They do not waste their time in marvelling at the mural for they know that the owner of the city deliberately put it their to challenge the faithless who arrogantly deny the presence of the city and so make no efforts to look past the glass. Their eyesight is dim for they see not we the light of hidayah but the sufiya, for their faith and piety, have penetrated it's depths and are as intimately familiar with it as any of us is with his own neighbourhood. Therefore let the mu'min take his lessons from where the sufiya took it, that is the Qur'an and the Sunnah, being guided in this effort by the sufyia themselves, in person or through their books. And let the mu'min not get engrossed and confused by the scientists version of reality for though they may speak the truth that truth is valueless in as much as it describes a thing worthy of neither attention nor study. ------------- caveat emptor: an analogy does not fit the truth in all it's aspects it is only used to explain those aspects of truth which it is analogous to.
i am just awe struck by the simplicty of Dirac here at Cambridge, yet he was against Islam. The old times were so straightforward, simple, and a bit more genuine than today.... yet Dirac never accepted Islam, even though he knew about Islam. He died as kafir. They even played with the Islamic Shahadah to corroborate his denial of Islam. Now, this person, who set the final steps to Quantum Mechanics, will burn in hell-fire forever and ever
