Myrrh wrote to me:
> You know nothing about science from your response, let alone the physics of matter and energy.
Well…let’s see. I had a 4.0 GPA when I got my bachelor’s in physics from Caltech; I then went on to get my Ph.D. in physics from Stanford (1983). I of course did all the requisite hands-on lab work as a student. I’ve also worked for pay on some very large-scale, real-world experiments. I’ve earned various patents on computer and satellite-communication systems. I have worked with forms of electromagnetic radiation ranging from microwaves through UV and on to gamma rays.
And your own experience in physics consists of…?
Does the fact that I truly am an expert in physics and you most certainly are not prove that I and other physicists are necessarily correct and you are wrong?
Well… there certainly are academic disciplines – I have in mind theology and post-modern literary theory – in which being an expert consists mainly of studying other experts and getting their approval and certification, without any necessary validation by external reality.
But, physics is not like that. We create, design, and *build* stuff based on our knowledge of the physical world, amazingly useful stuff that actually works. You use a great deal of that stuff in your daily life – just to give one small example, the lasers used in CD and DVD players are based on physicists’ understanding of the interaction of radiation and matter, knowledge towards which you have expressed the utmost contempt.
Now, I know that you are articulate enough to respond with another eruption of verbiage about how you are still right and we physicists are all nincompoops.
But, have you considered the possibility, just the possibility, that just maybe we really do know something you do not know, that just maybe we have proven this through very practical, empirical successes, and that, before you treat our hard-won knowledge with such contempt, you might actually consider learning some of what we know about the physical world?
Just a thought.
And, by the way, if you want people who actually have real, verifiable scientific knowledge to take you seriously, you might try being polite to them.
Just a suggestion.
David H. Miller, Ph.D. (Physics, Stanford, 1983)
