A Timely Repost: Do You Know Why Albert Einstein Left The Berlin Academy of Sciences ???

[WillyT]

Because all of his former "heroes" (scientists he used to respect) could not wait to develop more efficient killing machines when WWI was about to break out.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

― Albert Einstein

[jakeXT]

1. He resigned from the Prussian Academy of Science in 1933 after Hitler came to power

Last edited Mon Jan 6, 2014, 04:04 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.einstein-bern.ch/index.php?lang=en&show=bern

This documentary claims Fritz Haber and Einstein remained friends on a personal level during their work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute

[NYtoBush-Drop Dead]

18. and he was Jewish.

[Festivito]

2. If imagination > knowledge, is then, religion > science?

Might make a few heads explode around here.

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. No. Logical fallacies are run-of-the-mill here, just like what you wrote. n/t

[Festivito]

5. How is it a fallacy?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. No. Scientific imagination is more powerful than religious "knowledge".

Imagination is at the root of all scientific discoveries and new theories. That makes it extremely powerful.

Religious "knowledge" is just faith and not knowledge at all.

[Festivito]

11. But yes for religious imagination over scientific knowledge then?

You reversed the parallel drawn without explanation. You seem to agree with the OP tenant. So, I reassembled the reversal to what I had originally intended the order to be and said it to be and place it again for your comment.

I have seen several posters here hold that religion comes of imagination. That it is a myth, etc. And, those same hold that science is better than religion -- far better. And, I suspect they like this quote which seems to reflect an inconsistency of thought.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. No, and no to your disruptive red herring.

You wrote:

If imagination > knowledge, is then, religion > science? Might make a few heads explode around here.

Your post misses Einstein's point.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." ― Albert Einstein

Einstein was talking about scientific imagination and scientific knowledge, which should be expected since he is a scientist and does not mention religion in the quote.

You introduced a red herring by introducing religion. So I reversed the expectation that your post engendered and posted as I did. Here is a fuller quote which shows the context, to make clear (should be clear enough) that it was nothing about religion:

I believe in intuition and inspiration. … At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

Yes, scientific imagination trumps religious "knowledge", which is only faith and voices and is not knowledge at all.

No, religious imagination does not trump scientific knowledge. Religious imagination imagines that man was created magically 6000 years ago. Religious imagination holds women in subjegation and oppression -- not all religious imagination, just most of it.

Scientific imagination subjects itself to the testing and invites being disproved. If it is possible to disprove a theory or show how an observation was mistaken, then it should be done. Religious imagination permits no questioning, wraps itself in robes, and demands respect where little or none is due.

Things that religionists believe such as talking snakes, 76 virgins for each male warrior in heaven, reincarnation, walking on water, and the morality of sacrificing children are myths. Science is far better than religion. Nobody launched crusades on Rome because they believed in Greek earth-centric astronomy. People are not beating up gays around the world because of some scientific belief. The 8 year old girl in Afghanistan sent with a suicide vest by her Taliban brother was sent for religious bigotry, not by science.

[The Wizard]

27. Immagination is the source of greater knowledge(NT)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Yes, imagination too. That was the point of Einstein's quote. nt

[demwing]

28. disruptive??

Someone must not appreciate being questioned

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. Religion is disruptive. It doesn't appreciate being questioned. It has nothing to do with the OP.

Scientists love having their theories questioned. The more a theory withstands questioning, the stronger it is.

[demwing]

39. Science is rational

Scientists are very bit as vain and egotistical as any other group

[Festivito]

42. I think the post boils down to the idea that religion has nothing to do with imagination.

.. which is true for some religions and not for others, therefore the post fails to make its point.

The concept of scientific imagination is interesting, but lacks definition and certainly does not come from the quote nor the elongated quote you nicely offered.

There was no ongoing discussion from which my post detracted qualifying my post for red herring status. Although, ironically, calling out that it was a red herring itself exemplifies the fallacy of red herring.

The remains of the post simply attempts to paint all religions as alike to some hated religions to which I must say, that ain't right.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

47. No. It boils down to the OP has nothing to do with religion.

You write:

The concept of scientific imagination is interesting, but lacks definition and certainly does not come from the quote nor the elongated quote you nicely offered.

Wow. When Einstein writes "I believe in intuition and inspiration. … It is ... a real factor in scientific research" what part of that do you think does not refer to scientific imagination?

It is clear to most readers that Einstein is explicitly referring to scientific imagination. I am tired of dealing with posts such as yours that miss such a basic point and I do not expect to continue.

[Orrex]

12. You're misstating the actual concept

Einstein didn't mean that any kind of imaginary system is superior to any other kind of knowledge-based system. He meant that, in the quest for understanding, the use of one's imagination (to explore new concepts) is superior to exclusive reliance on one's pre-existing knowledge.

Your choice to cast it as "religion>science" is intellectually dishonest and is, at the very least, a false dichotomy.

[Festivito]

14. The "actual concept" is what Einstein stated. And it was the OP that stated that, not me.

The post alludes to know more about Einstein than Einstein needed to tell us. Not that there is evidence presented of intimate knowledge of Einstein, rather, someone doesn't like what I've said. It's fine that someone doesn't like what I said. No need for smoke screens like "actual concept," what "He meant" as though there is some inside information, and then a falsely painting a SINGLE statement as a false DIchotomy. Really now!

[Orrex]

17. If you think Einstein meant religion>science, then show your source

I claim no intimate knowledge of Einstein, though I have read of his views on religion, and they don't match your interpretation.

If you maintain that he was really arguing that religion is "greater than" science, then you'll need to provide further info before anyone accepts your interpretation.

Alternatively, if you're simply making up your own "religion>science" slogan, then you shouldn't try to ride on Einstein's coattails.

[Festivito]

37. I posed it as a question, not as a fact.

My certainly questionable statement was an application of the quote POSED AS A QUESTION.

No english reader should get that I was writing about Einstein's religion, let alone trying to match it somehow.

[Orrex]

38. Well, that's disingenuous of you

In posing the question where and how you did, it was clearly a riff on Einstein's famous statement.

I accept that perhaps you did mean it that way, but any reader of English would understand the implication.

[Festivito]

44. Wrong. I like the OP quote. eom.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. No. You miss the concept by missing the boat. You bring the real smoke screen.

No thanks to you for throwing a smoke bomb into the discussion by clouding the picture with the concept (religion) that has nothing to do with what Einstein was saying and meaning.

You talk about evidence without any evidence. Here is the evidence:

Here is the fuller quote and it clearly shows Einstein was only writing about science:

I believe in intuition and inspiration. … At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

[GeorgeGist]

34. The most imaginative religion never cured anything ...

[Nuclear Unicorn]

41. Tell that to Pasteur. n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

49. No. You tell us how Pasteur relates to religion curing anything (which it does not). nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

50. If you're waiting for some description of Pasteur's religion

compelling him to perform some shamanistic ritual then you don't know much about Pasteur's religion. But Pasteur -- and a good number of other "healers" -- were motivated by their religion.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

55. Every bit of motivation from religion for "healers" can be done without religion.

Religion is not necessary and frequently is counterproductive.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

56. Are you concerned that religion engenders bigotry and tribalism?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

58. Yes, and many other nasty things. Of course it is not the only source but is a huge source.

Read my posts in this thread.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

59. If you don't like bigotry and tribalism then don't be a source of them.

This guy once said it was futile to decry the mote in someone else's eye while ignoring the beam in your own eye.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

60. Festivito introduced religion into this discussion, needlessly.

In Einstein's quote he was writing about scientific imagination and scientific inspiration.

I am sure that people like Pasteur would have pursued the germ theory with or without a background of religion.

You were the one who introduced the terms "bigotry and tribalism" into this discussion. Religion is rightly identified as one of the greatest sources of bigotry and tribalism, in response to your question. If you don't like the obvious answer, don't ask the question.

Further, if you are trying to make this personal, nobody is fautlless or flawless (certainly not me or you), so let's not go where trolls go. Let's keep discussions about facts and concepts.

Finally, I don't think this particular subthread is going anywhere useful and I have lost interest in it.

[truedelphi]

13. Religion has to do with belief.

And to a great scientist, belief is very important.

Without belief in certain speculative ideas, many inventions and key concepts that we take for granted would have never come about. Scientists who had faith in their notions brought about these key scientific and technological breakthroughs. Of course, belief regarding scientific speculations involves hard work and discipline, in order to "prove" the reality.

Madam Curie and her spouse Pierre would not have spent four long years in a drafty damp shed working on isolating radium unless they believed it was an important new element.

[Festivito]

22. .. and what that belief, that faith can do for imagination.

Sometimes all it takes is an apple falling on ones head. Focus .. may come from the ouch! Imagination still comes from the background, a set of beliefs honed throughout life imaginatively applied to a new concept from old concepts ligatured to several old and stronger concepts in which there is faith. For example, a faith in math, a faith in algebra while in a world that questions the validity of simple numbers.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

32. No. Imagination most usefully works by going outside of beliefs & old backgrounds.

You don't understand faith or math. Mathematicians do not have faith in math. What they have is experience of mathematics being extremely useful and descriptive in countless ways.

[Festivito]

45. When 2+2=5, can faith in math be relative? eom.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

46. That post is nonsensical.

1. 2+2 = 5 under some very strange formulations, so perhaps you better clarify what you are referring to and provide an example of when this occurs, since you assert that it does occur.

2. Only non-scientists put faith in mathematics, as explained above.

3. Relative? Relative to what? Or are you trying to be cute and make a pun about Einstein's theories?

4. I get tired of dealing with meaningless nonsensical posts such as the one I am responding to and may not respond further.

[Festivito]

48. Einsteins theory of relativity is flawed. He realized it.

The theory showed that 2+2=5, so he knew it was flawed. The transfer of matter and energy is correct, some corrections for speed relative to speed of light need to be included. We've progressed a long way since then.

I was just being cute.

I also have to go back out and shovel more snow ... in the dark. And, I'm hungry.

Be well and happy ye of the peace.

[hunter]

3. I hope I'll always know when to walk away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas

[Progressive dog]

6. He left because of Hitler and

began work in Princeton as a Physicist. He did not give up science but was not part of the Manhattan project because he was a "Security Risk". He did work for the US Navy during WWII as an adviser on highly explosive materials.

[WillyT]

7. He Was In The U.S. And Did Not Return Because Of Hitler, But He Was Repulsed At The Glee He Saw...

in his former heroes eyes as they dicussed the endless possibilites of chemical and biological warfare.

After a while he did not want to be associated with them any longer.

[Progressive dog]

8. You had him leaving in WW1, you do know that

he was Jewish, right?
He also was in Europe on a planned trip, not in the USA.

[WillyT]

10. I May Have Got The Timeline Screwed Up (Remembering From A Great Documentary On Him, But...

In February 1933 while on a visit to the United States, Einstein decided not to return to Germany due to the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler.[59][60] He visited American universities in early 1933 where he undertook his third two-month visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He and his wife Elsa returned by ship to Belgium at the end of March. During the voyage they were informed that their cottage was raided by the Nazis and his personal sailboat had been confiscated. Upon landing in Antwerp on 28 March, he immediately went to the German consulate where he turned in his passport and formally renounced his German citizenship.[58] A few years later, the Nazis sold his boat and turned his cottage into an Aryan youth camp.[61

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Travels_abroad

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. So shouldn't you edit your OP?

You just seem to have shown you were thinking about something else entirely. As does post #1. Or this, showing he was attending meetings at the Academy all the way through WW1, and right up to 1932:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1bxYPMHPhGcC&lpg=PA50&ots=PbNmfAvwhy&dq=%22Berlin%20Academy%20of%20Sciences%20%22%20%22einstein%22&pg=PA237#v=onepage&q=%22Berlin%20Academy%20of%20Sciences%20%22%20&f=false

[Kaleva]

16. Was it the woo wars?

[JI7]

20. so it had nothing to do with Hitler getting power and him being Jewish ?

[WillyT]

23. See Post #10...

[JI7]

21. didn't Einstein support the US developing weapons ?

[WillyT]

24. Not Really... But...

World War II and the Manhattan Project

In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included emigre physicist Leó Szilárd attempted to alert Washington of ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted.[69] Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon."[57]:630[70] On July 12, 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner visited Einstein[71] and they explained the possibility of atomic bombs, to which pacifist Einstein replied: Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht (I had not thought of that).[72] Einstein was persuaded to lend his prestige by writing a letter with Szilárd to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility. The letter also recommended that the U.S. government pay attention to and become directly involved in uranium research and associated chain reaction research.

The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II".[73] In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family[74] and the Belgian queen mother[69] to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office.[69] President Roosevelt could not take the risk of allowing Hitler to possess atomic bombs first. As a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the U.S. entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. It became the only country to successfully develop an atomic bomb during World War II.

For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt he went against his pacifist principles.[75] In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life — when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification — the danger that the Germans would make them ..."

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Travels_abroad

[JI7]

25. so in the midst of WWII he was supportive of it an understood the threat

and like many people he also realized the horror it can cause so he knew there had to be limits on it after the end of WWII .

[Donald Ian Rankin]

26. I'm afraid I think this is completely wrong in just about all particulars

Einstein left Germany because of the rise of Nazism, not because of scientists working on weapons.

Moreover, he himself went on to work on the Manhattan project.

So I think your characterisation of him is more or less completely backwards.

[WillyT]

33. LOL !!!

Moreover, he himself went on to work on the Manhattan project.

Please... be sure to check your own particulars.

[truedelphi]

35. About Einstein:

If i am remembering the particulars of various TV biographies of Einstein, he left the world of weapons' work on account of the blood thirst he saw in other pro-Germany scientists, before and during WWI. So his opinion of weaponry was definitely formed by the late Nineteen Teens.

He was particularly horrified by the fact that during The Great War, one or two major German scientists were eager to have toxic gas used to kill of entire battalions of the "enemy."

However, despite his hatred of working on weaponry, I believe that years later, when he left Europe for the USA, he knew his work would end up being used for the Manhattan project. I don't know if he did or didn't directly participate in the Manhattan project.

The belief among scientists in the world community is that if the Allies didn't get the bomb made, then Germany would!

I do know after the bombs were exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that he commented "I wish I had been a plumber."

If I have any of this wrong, let me know. (Nyquill has been a major part of my diet these past three days.)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. Touche, I admit.

However, while it's true that Einstein was turned down from working on the Manhattan project because he was considered a security risk, he did personally write to Roosevelt advocating beginning it (although he later regretted having done so).

[arely staircase]

40. because he was a Jew? nt

[Glassunion]

43. He was owed beer and travel expenses. Yet they did not want to pay up.

[LAGC]

53. I miss RandomThoughts' word salads.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

51. You can't solve problems without a new model.

That's an approximation of something Einstein said about scientific problems.

Read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. He explains that you have to come up with a new paradigm to go further in science. I had to read it in my Philosophy of Science class in college.

[MisterP]

52. this caused an enormous crisis of conscience in the US scientific world after Trinity and WWII

mostly Oppenheimer vs. Teller: the winning position was Bethe's pretty close to that Iago

a bigger crisis was actually Operation Ranch Hand: the most idealistic Best and Brightest in science and democracy were doing their hardest hand in hand to completely scour Vietnam of anything green; that's when we got innovative critiques that sorta continue to today, with some spottiness

[Omnith]

54. So he left due to the development of more efficient killing machines...

Then recommends to FDR the BOMB, hmm just a little hypocritical.

[LeftishBrit]

57. I really can't imagine why a Jew might have chosen to leave Berlin in 1933....