On Sat, 09 Feb 2002 15:18:12 +0100 Scott MARTENS <sm at kiera.com> writes:
> Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> > It is interesting to note that for a long time, the Big Bang
> theory
> > was proscribed in the Soviet Union, on the grounds that
> > it was not consistent with Engels' philosophy of nature.
> > Engels after all spoke of the universe as being infinite
> > in both size and duration, and so the Big Bang was taken
> > as being contrary to Engels. Nevertheless, I think that if
> > Engels had the oppurtunity to have lived to see the emergence
> > of this theory, he might have found much to approve of.
>
>
> I may be misremembering things, but it seems to me there is a
> passage in
> "Dialectics of Nature" where Engels advances a dialectical account
> of
> the universe _despite_ the then universal acceptance of something
> like
> the steady-state theory. I've always had the impression that Engels
> saw
> the steady-state universe as someting his philosophy had a bit of
> difficulty explaining.
>
> Now, I also seem to recall that "Dialectics of Nature" wasn't
> available
> until at least the 1930's, so it's hardly surprising that some
> enterprising scientist cum party hack (a Lysenko for physicists
> maybe),
> could just decide what was really Marxist science and what was
> heresy
> without reading it.
You are probably right. Engels' *Anti-Durhing* was the main text that was available by him, on the philosophy of nature, during that period of Soviet history. Also, during that same period, Soviet authorities also attempted to proscribe both relativity theory, and quantum mechanics. Unlike, the biologists though, Soviet physicists (primarily because of the state's need for them to develop nuclear weapons) were able to launch a successful counterattack, and so Soviet physics never suffered the sort of damage that biology did under Lysenko. Both proscriptions were based on crude interpetations of both theories. The theory of relativity had been condemned on the grounds that it was subjectivist and idealist. Quantum mechanics was condemned also on the grounds of it being idealist & subjectivist, and because quantum indeterminism was seen as incompatible with the postulates of materialism (which was seen as being committed to a fullblooded determinism).
In the case of relativity, Soviet physicists were able to make a compelling case, that not only was it not idealist but that it's proposals for unifying space with time, and mass with energy were quite consistent with Engels' own speculations on these matters. In the case of quantum mechanics, Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation was eventually widely embraced because of its dialectical character. (Nevertheless, I would argue that there were some serious problems with it, that have should given pause to the Soviet physicists, and which indeed have continued to bedevil physicists and philosophers of science down to the present day).
Jim F.
>
> Scott Martens
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