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On the road again — back July 6!

Back July 6!  My husband and I are taking a road trip through Utah. We're going to Zion National Park, Brice Canyon and eventually we...

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Quite Possibly the Most Perfect Comeback Ever to Richard Dawkins

When Selfish Gene author Richard Dawkins challenged physicist John Barrow on his formulation of the constants of nature at last summer’s Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship lectures, Barrow laughed and said, “You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you’re not really a scientist. You’re a biologist.”

For Barrow, biology is little more than a branch of natural history. “Biologists have a limited, intuitive understanding of complexity. They’re stuck with an inherited conflict from the 19th century, and are only interested in outcomes, in what wins out over others,” he adds. “But outcomes tell you almost nothing about the laws that govern the universe.” For physicists it is the laws of nature themselves that capture and structure the universe—and put brakes on it as well.
Is anyone else laughing as hard as I did over that first paragraph? I can't remember where I saw the link to the article (apologies ...) but I enjoyed it immensely.