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Physics World

Reality check

Pater Gill, Neville H. Fletcher

Published Jun 1, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

I enjoyed reading the article by Robert Crease in which he revealed the results of his poll on how physicists think philosophically (April pp15–17). The poll invited physicists to classify certain items as "real things" or not (October 2001 p18). However, I find myself disagreeing with Crease's conclusion that the data cast doubt on claims made by physicist-turned-priest John Polkinghorne that "virtually all scientists are critical realists".

DOI
10.1088/2058-7058/15/6/31

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I enjoyed reading the article by Robert Crease in which he revealed the results of his poll on how physicists think philosophically (April pp15–17). The poll invited physicists to classify certain items as "real things" or not (October 2001 p18). However, I find myself disagreeing with Crease's conclusion that the data cast doubt on claims made by physicist-turned-priest John Polkinghorne that "virtually all scientists are critical realists".
ENERAL philosophy claims to be the critical subject which lays down for all of us what we may be allowed to think, and yet it has played no part whatever in the great revolutions of human thought of the present century-those connected with relativity and the quantum theory. It might have been expected that the scientists would have been constantly consulting the philosophers as to the legitimacy of their various speculations, but nothing of the kind has happened. Since no one can dispense with some sort of metaphysic, each scientist has made one for himself, and no doubt they contain many crudities, but it would seem that a deep interest in metaphysic is a disadvantage rather than an advantage to the physicist-at least I have the impression that those of my friends who are most inclined to speculate on the ultimate things appear to be the ones whose scientific work is most hampered by doing so. Now I propose to risk a similar indiscretion. I want to embody in it the practical philosophy of a physicist, and I do not mean it as an attack on the pure philosophers, who are very reasonable people, only chargeable with the minor offence of not having made me want to read their books! I had better begin by stating shortly the ideas I intend to discuss. There is a notable contrast between the way we think about things and the way we think we ought to think about them.