From James Ward
What Steven Weinberg disparagingly describes as “metaphysics” (Forum, 26 November) turns out, on close examination, to be nothing more than the attempts made by interested and intelligent people to understand the significance of an important branch of science.
The alternative to doing this is that we are left with a physics which is devoid of any meaning for lay people – since explanation inevitably involves interpretation, which involves “metaphysics” or “philosophy”. The result of Weinberg’s “physics not metaphysics” would ultimately be a caste system of scientists and lay people, with no possibility of communication between them.
The so-called “anthropic principle” was not formulated by desperate and craven “philosophers and theologians” in the face of honest-to-goodness “scientists” eager to get on with their jobs. On the contrary, scientists have been as responsible as anyone else for its formulation. The best known exponent of the anthropic principle in Britain is undoubtedly Paul Davies – a physicist at the very forefront of his discipline.
