Abstract

Lord Rayleigh comments on crude views about nature at the 54th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Many first rate scientists, true pioneers of physics, chemistry, astronomy etc. have opposed materialism and philosophical relativism. Both religion and science can claim objectivity if there is a world independent of human thought. Planck and Einstein affirm it unmistakably. Historically there have been some outstanding scientists leaning to agnosticism or materialism, like Mach, Poincaré and Bohr, but they are rather exceptions to the general rule.