Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg Discuss Science and Religion
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Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg discuss religion and science in a historical and modern context. Steven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. A populariser of science in his own right and a legendary educator of physics, Weinberg is most famous for formulating the Electroweak Interaction in the Standard Model of Particle Physics, earning him the 1979 Nobel prize in Physics. The 3 volumes of his textbook, "The Quantum Theory of Fields" are standard material for anyone studying theoretical particle physics, and his "Cosmology" textbook is probably the best book available for anyone seriously studying astrophysics in senior undergraduate and graduate years. He also wrote the transcript of Richard Feynman's famous talk "Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics" for The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lecture. He is also the author of "The First 3 minutes", a popular science book discussing how the first 3 minutes in the history of the universe were, due to the fine tunings of the electroweak interaction, responsible for shaping our universe today and making it even remotely habitable. His famous textbook "Cosmology" is the standard textbook for anyone doing senior undergraduate to postdoctoral research in the field of Cosmology and Particle Physics of The Big Bang. Richard Dawkins is another, more well known, scientist and populariser of science. Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. His most famous wroks are The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion and have made him a household name wherever evolutionary biology is concerned. Dawkins, along with Christopher Hitchens, have been outspoken about their atheism where Steven Weinberg has been relatively silent about it with exceptions on only a few private conversations. Here is one of those conversations and is probably one of the best examples of quiet discussion on matters of science and religion from a broad perspective. Steven Weinberg, raised Jewish and having won the Nobel Prize with his friend and colleague Abdus Salam, a famous intellectual in the Islamic world and a practicing Muslim, is probably the the most broad minded Atheist in terms of seeing the differences in religious reasoning among Islam, Judaism and Christianity. His discussion with Richard Dawkins is a very reasonable discussion and should be watched by Atheist and Theists in order to reconcile that a law for one group does not have to be a law for all.
Comments
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is it just me or there are other people who wanted this interview to go on for ever ? im a muslim btw
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Weinberg says something weird about cosmological inflation. He says it were a "pre-big-bang" phenomenon. However, all sources I know of place the inflationary period 10^-36 to 10^-32 s AFTER the big bang.
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Two of my heroes and favorite people. May they both continue these conversations, and share them with us, for many years to come
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at 44:00 they talk about dna. what alternative chromosome they mention?
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There can't be a Heaven without some sort of a multiverse, right? If our universe were the only reality, then there would be no heaven. Therefore, Christians must believe in some sort of a multiverse, even if there is only one other place besides our observable universe. Yes, No?
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51:44
Wrong. Science is only eating the lunch of Christianity. not all religions are paranoid about science. -
36:08
he definitely didn't like the word "benevolent" -
Humanity needs moe ppl like Weinberg and Dawkins
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So... Physics points to fine tuning and the best get out of jail card they have is a multiverse... A faith based concept that can't be investigated, let alone proved.
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I didn't hear a single new idea in this particular exchange. On the other hand both these famous contributors to our culture are the antithesis of the mad scientist. Each seems to have sufficient common sense that he wouldn't commit fanatically to any harebrained theory as so many public scientists these days unfortunately do.
I don't understand Dawkins' deference to physicists; surely biology is at least as great a study as is physics. -
''dont play with fire dawkins may you get hurt'' if this all what you have i really feel sorry for what happened to you with this physicist Mr wild atheist . .
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science is good,I'm glad these scientists spent there time to figure things out, now if they could figure out how to be forever young.
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good conversation ,smart men still wondering
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Two great scientists.. may God increase their knowledge.
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10:50 Gödel
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Simply two fantastic Minds
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This is fantastic material, two brilliant minds. I wish I could copy on DVD and show my children
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Two monumental minds of our human primate species.
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Of course he' will say christians and Islam is similar, separate Judaism and draw similarties to the oldest religion in the world Hinduism.
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Lol Weinberg is a Jew....
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