"Happy Dog" <happydog@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<bs2lb.3367$7t3.134136@news20.bellglobal.com>...
"Tracy Hamilton" <t_p_hamilton@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:
"I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that
could be understood as anthropomorphic." What is a watchmaker image
EXCEPT anthropomorphic? Same goes for "design".
Thanks for this. It's from a letter written in response to a query about
Einstein's use of the word "mystical". He wished to clarify that he did NOT
mean to suggest intelligent design.
That's a common misreading of some popular quotes. Einstein was
simply
waxing romantic about the seemingly imcomprehensible beauty of of
the
laws of nature. He did not believe that there was a watchmaker.
There
are many quotes that explicitly state this.
An excellent summary of Einstein's philosophy. Which David Ford
would understand if he tried to get a comprehensive picture of what
Einstein thought (something hard to express), rather than appropriate
it for Ford's rather limited box of "philosophy".
Don't expect him to change his position. We regularly see skeptics and
atheists misquoted by people who wish to make it appear that the quotes
actually support the claim that these people were actually defenders of
things they weren't. For example, Sagan's assertion that extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence is, ad nauseam, twisted into a
challenge to skeptics to "prove" the null hypothesis.
I also wish to point out that Einstein was equally against people
taking what he believed as support for atheism also.
Tracy P. Hamilton
.
