Nobel Laureate Townes: “Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real”
| May 15, 2007 | Posted by scordova under Intelligent Design |
Charles Townes was the co-inventor of the laser and winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics. Jason Rennie of the SciPhi Show had an absolutely marvelous interview with Townes recently. This interview had many quotable gems from Townes.
Here is the link:
Do you have CD player or other optical device which uses a laser? You can credit Townes for that!
Science Daily  SAN FRANCISCO  As part of its participation in the world’s largest technical conference on lasers and electro-optics, here this week, Lucent Technologies is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the publication of the scientific paper that described the concept and design for one of the century’s greatest inventions – the laser
Lasers today are used in communications, medicine, manufacturing, consumer electronics, scientific research and other areas. Telephone conversations, video, Internet traffic and other data are transmitted as beams of laser light through glass fibers, and the capacity of optical networks doubles every 18 months
There is a parallel interview with PZ Myers on the SciPhi show here. This is what PZ said of Townes in Townes and the Templeton Prize:
PZ writes:
Pious frauds are a dime a dozen, but pious frauds who have won a Nobel prize [i.e. Charles Townes]? They’re worth a million and a half dollars.
PZ calls Townes a fraud?
PZ appears to suffer from physics envy. Townes outshines PZ as a scientist and PZ doesn’t hold a candle to him. For that matter Townes towers over PZ, Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Charles Darwin combined. I guess it must get under PZ’s skin that Townes is a greater scientist than PZ. Not just greater, far greater.
PS
[The quote in the title was from Charles Townes on evolution, intelligent design, and the meaning of life ]
34 Responses to Nobel Laureate Townes: “Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real”
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It would also be interesting to see this brokendown by field.
After all hard sciences like physics/mathematics tend to be more theism friendly than the soft sciences like biology or sociology.
I think it is better to say that there are atleast ~10% enthusiastic about religion.
He said a book of 50, not a book of every theist that won a nobel- Wikipedia has a list of some nobel laurettes by religion- Though I don’t know if I honestly trust wikipedia for it’s trustworthiness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L....._laureates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L....._laureates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L....._laureates
I am not sure about the jewish list, I know many Jewish people are secular yet retain a jewish identity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L....._laureates
Jason,
I guess I didn’t remember the Towne’s quote correctly. So ~10% are Christians. Are you the one who interviewed him? If so, you would know better than me. Anyway, it would be interesting to see how the numbers break down by field. I’m guessing hard sciences would see more theists. In my own field of physics, I see more christians than other fields like biology.
Two points:
First, Jason, your question to Dr. Townes asked, IIRC, for his opinion about the large percentage of scientists who did not profess religious belief. This distribution of religious belief/nonbelief is an interesting feature of the community of scientists, and pointing to a number of distinguished scientists who do profess Christianity, without indicating the size of the whole population, is nonresponsive to a question about the significance of the apparent predominance of scientists who do not.
Second, I have a particular problem with Townes’ use of the word “fraction.” I think that a scientist has a particular obligation to promote careful thinking, and that obligation is neglected by using a mathematical term in the absence of information that is crucial to its definition.
A similar transgression (although its perpetrators are not at the level of esteem due to Dr. Townes) is the touting of the 700-or-so PhD “Dissenters from Darwinism.” How many science PhD’s are there in America?