Nothing (General)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 18:39 (5275 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by unknown, Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 18:58

Both McCabe and Scharf criticise Stenger for being "a retired physicist". I don't recall anyone ever criticising Bertrand Russell for being "a retired mathematical logician".-McCabe begins his piece with a far worse outright ad hominem insult: "One could be forgiven for assuming, from name alone, that 'Victor Stenger' is either a science-fiction writer from the 1950s, or a porn-star."-Anyone who says that, on the basis solely of someone's name, doesn't deserve any further consideration in my view.-Scharf (who, like all pseuds, emphasises that he has a Ph.D.) has some position, unspecified, in the "Department of Physics, Maharishi University of Management." Not likely that he's going to take any criticism of Transcendental Meditation lying down then!-In his response he writes: "We set the record straight on the teachings and achievements of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and quantum physicist John Hagelin, especially the theory and research behind the Maharishi-Hagelin identity principle, identifying Transcendental Consciousness with the unified field."-He's an out and out "Quantum Spiritualist", which is exactly what Stenger's book is against.-If you are trying tp discredit Stenger, you're going to have to find better witnesses than these.-Edit: I just looked at the reference Mc Cabe gives where he writes: "Stenger's paper demonstrates an ignorance of the relevant literature in the philosophy of physics, some of which is somewhat less enthusiastic about the Hartle-Hawking ansatz..." The link is (surprise, surprise) to a paper by one Gordon McCabe (on the non-peer-reviewed arxiv site)!

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GPJ