The following essay has been reprinted here with permission from W. Teed Rockwell.

 

Response to the New York Times Book Review (September 18, 2005)

“The Universe in a Single Atom': Reason and Faith” by George Johnson

 

I enjoyed your basically sympathetic review of the Dalai Lama’s new book,

but I’m afraid your science writer doesn’t understand the science as well as

the Dalai Lama does. The ‘scientific errors”  attributed to the Dalai Lama

are actually metaphysical claims, not scientific facts. Firstly, there is no

scientific evidence that mutations occur by chance, in the sense we

ordinarily understand the term. To show that genetic variation follow the

same kind of statistical laws as coins flips or roulette wheels would

require data gathering abilities way beyond those of any scientific

laboratory or organization. Secondly, Mind-Body dualism has never been

rejected by mainstream science. There are plenty of scientists, including

Noble Prize winning neuroscientist sir John Eccles and some of the founders

of Quantum Mechanics, who are dualists. Those of us who reject dualism do so

because of philosophical considerations, such as Occam’s razor. There has

been no scientific experiment that has proven materialist monism, and it

seems unlikely there ever could be.

 

The claim that religious leaders should be excluded from scientific

discussions is itself an intolerant religious claim by a sect of devout

atheists, and their particular faith---that science has somehow proven that

religion is false—is not only factually wrong, but dangerous to the health

of both science and religion.

 

W. Teed Rockwell

Sonoma, California