Could a person earn a PhD in Physics but have little faith and/or belief in the material?

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Using language is a cultural act.

Sleeping on a bed is a cultural act.

Running for President of the United States of America is a cultural act.

Physics is a cultural act.

Earning a PhD in Physics is a cultural act.

Does carrying out the cultural act of earning a PhD in Physics require a person to agree with and/or believe in anything in Physics? It might require that one axiomatically / logically assume certain premises; imagine certain concepts; etc. But no evidence has been given that shows that agreeing with or believing in the material is a requirement.

Just like agreeing with or believing in sleeping in a bed is not required to sleep in a bed. Being physically able to lay down is the only requirement, really.

 

[KCfromNC]

Look up Sir Isaak Newton on wikipedia and you'll see what a wide knowledge of the universe he acquired.

Including "knowledge" that the trinitarian ideas were wrong...

 

[paul becke]

Could a person earn a PhD in Physics but have little faith and/or belief in the material?

Surely somebody could have the intellectual / cognitive tools to master all of the material while at the same time saying that he/she takes all of it with a grain of salt.

Or has a person mastered the material only if he/she believes that it reflects reality and that it must be taken seriously?

 

[paul becke]

Actually, strictly-speaking, it is mandatory, since it has been proven that at the quantum level matter does not exist as such.

• As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.
  • Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797) (from Wikiquote)

'Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.' - Niels Bohr

“The concept of the objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated…”; “the idea of an objective real world whose smallest parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist, independently of whether or not we observe them … is impossible - Heisenberg

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2007/apr/20/quantum-physics-says-goodbye-to-reality