Discerning Fact from Fantasy

My goal is to examine beliefs that claim to be scientific and see if they hold up to scrutiny.

[featheredskeptic]

My first video is up!

[featheredskeptic]

If you'd like to discuss and debate about things like religion and psuedoscience, then feel free to join my Discord!

[featheredskeptic]

Are science and spirituality mutually exclusive?

My answer would be...yes. I’ll explain why in a second. 

However, there are some people who would disagree. I’ll be analyzing an argument by one of these people today.

This is an article by Kalee Brown from collectiveevolution.com claiming that spirituality should be married with science. Let’s see what Brown has to say.

“Quantum physics is verifying what Buddhists and other spiritual practitioners have been saying for years, helping people to accept their inherent spiritual nature all around the world. We are fundamentally connected to everything around us, and science is finally proving that.”

Do you have any peer reviewed studies to back up your claim? No? It would really help prove your case...oh well. I guess they haven’t published the study that proved Nirvana and reincarnation yet. What a shame! It’d be an interesting thing to read!

The next part of the article relies heavily on the Dalai Lama’s opinions. It strikes me as an Appeal to Authority. “Look! The Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader and he says that spirituality can be scientific! You should believe it too!” 

I’ll skip ahead to the next notable thing in the article. Long story short, the Dalai Lama has an interest in science that had started when he was a young adult and he studied it quite a bit. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t seem to have a college degree in the field of physics or quantum physics. 

“About 15-20 years ago at some meeting, the Indian physicist Raja Ramanna told me that he had been reading Nagarjuna and that he’d been amazed to find that much of what he had to say corresponded to what he understood of quantum physics. A year ago at Presidency College in Kolkata the Vice-Chancellor Prof S Bhattacharya mentioned that according to quantum physics nothing exists objectively, which again struck me as corresponding to Chittamatrin and Madhyamaka views, particularly Nagarjuna’s contention that things only exist by way of designation.”

Nothing exists objectively? Let me find more about this quote.

The first results I see are all about the Dalai Lama and spirituality. I don’t have a good feeling about this. Who is this Vice-Chancellor anyway?

I’m seeing a lot of economics and not a whole lot about physics. It’s almost as if someone wanted to use the words of a person with credibility in another subject to mislead people into believing something...

“What the Dalai Lama is recognizing is that the ancient knowledge within these Buddhist texts is now being proven by quantum physics. Physicists are actually catching up to what these texts revealed centuries ago, but only now can it be verified by more modern science.”

I looked through Google Scholar to see if any peer reviewed studies confirming science proves knowledge found in ancient Buddists texts, but most of the articles I found don’t seem too relevant.

One article requires me to pay money to see the rest of it. Darn.

I’ll go ahead and take a look at its references to see if I can get more information.

So far, this is starting to look biased. Most of the other references are based on philosophy and religion. You can take a look for yourself if you’d like. I should have expected that from an article by the Journal of Religion and Science. 

The next one I found is an excerpt from a book talking about the war between psuedoscience and science.

Nothing about proof for Buddhism here. 

Maybe I’m not searching hard enough. Or maybe spirituality through quantum physics is pseudoscience that doesn’t fully understand quantum mechanics at all.

Sorry. I shouldn’t attack this ideology just yet. After all, I haven’t even gotten to the lesson on quantum physics! Let’s learn more about quantum physics as explained by Kalee Brown.

“Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature. Therefore, if we really want to observe ourselves and find out what we are, we must recognize we are really beings of energy and vibration, radiating our own unique energy signature.”

Unique energy signature? 

Hmmm...

“If you focused in closer on the structure of the atom, you would see nothing, a literal void. The atom has no physical structure, thus we have no physical structure, and physical things really don’t have any physical structure! Atoms are made out of invisible energy, not tangible matter.”

Classic composition/division fallacy. This would be as logical as a child believing they were invisible because atoms are invisible. Just because things are made of atoms doesn’t mean every physical thing has all of the qualities of atoms. Nice try though.

“Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” “

Here is the rest of the paragraph- and the article, if you’re interested.

The 1925 discovery of quantum mechanics solved the problem of the Universe’s nature. Bright physicists were again led to believe the unbelievable — this time, that the Universe is mental. According to Sir James Jeans: “the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter... we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” But physicists have not yet followed Galileo’s example, and convinced everyone of the wonders of quantum mechanics. As Sir Arthur Eddington explained: “It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character.”

I wonder why that part in particular was left out. What a predicament!

“Quantum physics has also shown that the present can change the past, that time is an illusion, and that an after-life exists. Quantum mechanics is essentially the science of consciousness and spirituality, proving just how connected we are to everything in existence, which is all an illusion.”

I’m not a physicist, but I’m PRETTY SURE there’s no scientific proof that a person can literally change the past and an afterlife exists. From my research, quantum physics has nothing to do with spirituality or consciousness and you’re just making things up to sound smart to the people who don’t cross reference or evaluate bogus claims. 

I’m getting a little bitter again. Sorry about that!

The article ends with a link to Collective Evolution’s take on quantum physics and a quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson that was probably taken out of context.

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

The only source they give is goodreads.com , which I’m guessing isn’t the original source. I can’t find the quote in context, but here’s an article where Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about how science and faith are compatible. Whoops.

TLDR; spirituality through quantum physics falls apart once someone does their research and evaluates claims that seem too good to be true. There’s no science backing up this belief system and filling the gaps in our knowledge with spiritual beliefs isn’t scientific at all.