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Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

32 points by scoreponok 8y ago

sorokod 8y ago
" honestly think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It’s a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief. “I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe.” Period. It’s a declaration. But in science we don’t really do declarations. We say, “Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that.” " Oh dear, he should have checked out "Russell's teapot"* * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
- asark 8y ago
  This seems easy to reducio to "you can't disbelieve anything you're not empirically measuring right this second!" without even going too far down the epistemological rabbit hole. "Dude the sun just disappeared! I know you still see light but it's coming from a different source entirely, that appeared so seamlessly that you didn't notice the shift!". No. No, I don't believe you. No, I don't feel compelled to check just this second. Or ever, really.
mindcrime 8y ago
OK, he's obviously a brilliant guy, but I find his argument about atheism pretty weak... or rather, I should say that it only makes sense at a pretty abstract level. And that, IMO, is basically the same level of abstraction where one can make a compelling argument that science rests on (a form of) faith just like religion does (but possibly not the same form). Anyway, "belief" in the supernatural makes, as far as I can tell, no testable predictions, or where it does, those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles. I would say that non-belief, rather than being some "affirmative assertion" like he posits, is just the null hypothesis, and that all of the onus is on believer to show a way to invalidate that null hypothesis. He is also ignoring the distinction between "weak atheist" and "strong atheist" where the former very specifically do not make an affirmative declaration that "there is no god." Admittedly one can argue about the (apparently subtle) distinction between "weak atheist" and "agnostic" but whatever. Me personally? I go with this point of view: I don't need a special word to signify my non-belief in Santa Claus, and likewise I don't need a special word to signify my non-belief in "god". To me, those things occupy the same conceptual category. shrug
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles." ... Well our current flavour of Science is effectively materialist and it starts effectively with the assumption that 'the universe is made up of a bunch of laws' as we try to discover them. It postulates a priori a specific metaphysical position that immediately negates anything else ... so it's going to be impossible to test what has been ruled out as an assumption. The first order problem that materialism brings us is the inherent nihilism in the 'we are just a random bag of particles problem' - i.e. taken to it's extreme, not only is there no 'supernatural' - there is effectively not even 'intelligence' or 'life' or possibly 'consciousness'. Just the appearance of those things. So logic, reason and science, i.e. tools which we 'the observers' developed to facilitate our understanding of ourselves, has come to negate our very existence? Or is it more likely we are caught up in our own bad thinking? It's funny that we ignore the biggest problem staring us the mirror: 'what are we' / 'what is life' - in lieu of somewhat more tangible things like 'Dark Matter' as we stare off into space, because the 'what are we' problem does not fit well into our materialist equations. In fact, speculation about 'life' may undermine just a little bit the very premise of science, in a much worse way than string theory (assuming it ends up really being actually wrong) ever will. The headline is a little click-baitey, and Gleisers comments I don't think are much more insightful than a decent HN comment ... but I think the underlying problem is the straight jacket that materialism has imposed upon many of our best thinkers. The argument he presents is essentially that of someone at an intellectual dead-end, as materialism seems to be on this issue. Emergence [1] and Bio-Centrism [2] may offer us some hints at how to rethink our perspectives to accommodate for the very nature of life itself, the expression of which I think is what inspires our spiritual inquisition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence [2] http://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and-consciousness-are-the-keys-to-understanding-the-true-nature-of-the-universe/ http://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and-consciou...
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    That's a fair point, but where do we cross the line from "science" to metaphysics and epistemology? I admit, I do come at science from a somewhat materialistic viewpoint, and Popperian viewpoint... but that's mainly because I don't see any other approach being as valid as a way to establish knowledge about our world. That said, I'm open to being convinced of something else...
LinuxBender 8y ago
The author left out us militant agnostics.
- V-eHGsd_ 8y ago
  there are dozens of us, dozens!
  - rdruxn 8y ago
    I wouldn't know
hota_mazi 8y ago
> it does inform my position against atheism. I consider myself an agnostic. Surprising for someone with his background to not understand the difference between atheism and agnosticism, and obviously not understanding that these two are not mutually exclusive. > "I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe.” That's absolutely not what atheism is. Atheism is a single position on a single claim. The claim is "There is a god", and the position is "I don't accept that claim". How can this be even remotely against the scientific method? It's not even a claim, let alone a hypothesis. This person seems to be so confused about basic epistemological definitions.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  My understanding from theology classes a long, long time ago is as follows: - Atheist: Believes there is no God. - Agnostic: Doesn't know/isn't sure/doesn't care if there is a God. - Anti-theist: Is against the mere idea that there is a God. That may have changed in the intervening decades, and with the rise of the internet, the term "atheist" seems to have changed in popular culture, often to suit a particular person's views or vocabulary. A lot of internet atheists strike me as anti-theists. But that's not a common term.
  - skissane 8y ago
    I was about to say more or less the same thing. The way people define the word "atheism" has changed. Traditionally, most people understood "atheism" to mean a positive disbelief in God – either, you are certain God doesn't exist, or at least you think the non-existence of God is significantly more likely than God's existence. People who are close to 50-50 on God's existence would call themselves "agnostics" not "atheists". In the last few decades, there has been an increasing tendency to define "atheism" as a mere absence of positive belief in God, so that the 50-50 folks get classified as "atheists" as well. To read Geisler's remarks charitably, I think we have to keep in mind that he is likely using the older definition of "atheism" rather than the newer one.
    - rgbrenner 8y ago
hota_mazi 8y ago
> And we know for a fact that there will be no other humans in the universe; You know that for a fact, really? With billions and billions of planets in the universe, you know that for a fact? That's a pretty rich position for someone claiming he's an agnostic, "someone who doesn't know". > like when you have scientists—Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss among them—claiming we have solved the problem of the origin of the universe Citation needed. These two brilliant men never thought anything remotely like that, they are/were way too humble to make this kind of claim. > or that string theory is correct and that the final “theory of everything” is at hand Same remark. The scientific community is pretty well aware that there are many more detractors of string theory, or the the M theory is just around the corner, than supporters. This guy is a theoretical physicist, really?
- asark 8y ago
  > That's a pretty rich position for someone claiming he's an agnostic, "someone who doesn't know". There might exist a being that defies everything we know about physical reality! But not other humans anywhere or anywhen. That's just highly improbable, not purely speculative and outside the bounds of what we understand to be reality, so I reject it as impossible. eyeroll
VikingCoder 8y ago
I hate the clickbait title. I hate how it will be misunderstood. I hate that the subtleties in his statement will be ignored. And to the people who care about this, his claim about atheism is pedantic. "I do not believe aliens abducted my dad." Sorry, but that's a perfectly rational thing to say, in all but the most academic of circles. In every-day life, I don't need to be so cautious as to say, "I have no evidence that aliens abducted my dad." Drawing a distinction between those two is a waste of time, and some in the theist crowd will point to this and say, "Scientific American says denying God is inconsistent with the Scientific Method!" This will do harm in the real world, and not any good in the academic world. You know what else I say? F=ma I know about quantum mechanics and relativity, thanks. I don't need a Scientific American article telling me, breathlessly, that "F=ma is false!" In context, F=ma is a perfectly valid thing to say. Imagine if Scientific American had a headline: "Earth Is Not Round". [1] Isn't that an awful clickbait title? Does the content of the article really inform anyone who actually cares about the subject? I'm not going to go to a GIS Conference and declare, "The world is ROUND." That would be moronic. I'm not going to get drawn in to a discussion, "Yes, it's possible the world actually IS flat, but has only appeared to be round so far to all of the experiments I'm aware of." F=ma. The world is round. I believe God doesn't exist. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-round/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-roun...
- rcthompson 8y ago
  I agree. His logic seems to be that any firm belief at all is inconsistent with the scientific method, which is ridiculous, as you say. I wonder what he thinks of priors in Bayesian statistics.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  It's not pedantic. One is a statement of belief. The other one is not. In the context of a discussion on belief systems, it's the difference between night and day. And he's correct: atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method, since it posits something that cannot be proven or disproven using existing scientific method.
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qntty 8y ago
> And by doing that, by understanding how science advances, science really becomes a deeply spiritual conversation with the mysterious, about all the things we don’t know. Seems like this might be the central point. You may or may not be able to rationally justify atheism, but that's besides the point. If you want to do science, you have to cultivate your feeling that the world is mysterious and that there's a lot left to discover. To so that, you need to be open to a variety of interpretations of the world. Atheism might be fine for a philosopher who wants to figure out what is rationally justified, but for a scientist, you need to keep your mind open to stay creative. For me, the best argument against atheism is that it's boring. I get to choose my attitude toward the stuff that we can never know. Why not choose the more interesting choice (i.e. agnosticism)?
lisper 8y ago
> The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence This is a common trope, but it's wrong in many cases. The absence of evidence for leprechauns/unicorns/bigfoot/etc. is in fact evidence of absence of these things. Likewise, the absence of evidence for gods is in fact evidence of absence of at least certain kinds of gods. In particular, it is evidence of the absence of gods that interact with the universe in certain meaningful ways. Evidence cannot rule out passive observer gods, like the deist deity, but that is generally not what is at issue when disputes of this sort arise.
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  >> The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence > This is a common trope, but it's wrong in many cases. When you're dealing with something of low intelligence or awareness, heuristically absence of evidence can be approximated as evidence of absence, if you've made so thorough a set of observations that the probability of absence can be estimated to be very high. However, that heuristic fails when you're dealing with something with intelligence and awareness, as that thing can choose to behave differently when you're observing it vs. when you're not. Doubly so when you're dealing with something that may not even be bound by the laws that bind your observations.
  - temac 8y ago
    That's always a possibility and there are others. Many people found that whole class of possibilities not especially interesting, because they are falling on the irrefutable slope; if there is a "god" that absolutely can not be detected, it is as-if there is "no" god for all practical purposes. It's very similar to asking if we are in a simulation that we can't detect: well, yeah, maybe, but then so what? this would be our universe, nothing more, nothing less.
  - lisper 8y ago
    You are confusing evidence with proof. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is evidence of absence even if the subject is intelligent. The absence of evidence for alien visitors to earth is in fact evidence of the absence of such visitors. Now, there are some adversarial situations where absence of evidence is only weak evidence of absence. Two examples of this are the game of hide-and-seek, and steganography. There is also the invisible pink unicorn. So you can't rule out a certain class of adversarial deity just as you cannot rule out a passive one. But again, the actual deities that are the generally the subject of dispute are not adversarial. (This, BTW, is one of the reasons that my favorite god is Loki.)
ElBarto 8y ago
I think we should further make a difference between the existence of a god and religion. Atheism is significantly driven by the rejection of religion. The existence of a god can be discussed and indeed we do not know. However religions are backward ideologies that should really be relegated to the history books.
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jmpman 8y ago
People who deny existence of the tooth fairy are inconsistent with the scientific method?
TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
How can someone so smart not even understand what atheism is? He may be trying to drum up some funding/interest in a book or project. This guy is unlikely to have accidentally misunderstood prominent atheists like Sam Harris.
kbuchanan 8y ago
Lots of comments quibbling about whether he understands the word atheism. His central point—despite the interview title, which he didn't write—is: humility. He argues that to practice science is to avoid adopting a position of certainty, but rather, to ask questions. That almost everyone on this thread missed that point suggests maybe he's on to something.
- Latty 8y ago
  Except they didn't, because every Atheist I have ever known would, given evidence, become a theist. They accept humility and that they don't know - they are simply stating their current position given the evidence they have. The author doesn't understand the argument of the people they are criticizing, and so attributes a lack of humility to them based on their strawman of their argument.
zelon88 8y ago
After a little (very little) digging the "prize" he won was the Templeton Prize for "affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works." On the topic of science v. religion he also says "Science does not kill God." In my opinion this mystical thinking begs the question if he can be trusted within his field. He obviously lacks the ability to remain impartial about his religion. He's playing out a personal crisis in the open for his entire field to witness. There's just too many things wrong with this that I can't adequately format them all for this post. I feel like I shouldn't have to teach him about things like Atheism. He should have the impartiality to learn about them, accurately, on his own before he goes around making an unsubstantiated ass out of himself. And who is this mystical fairy-tale Templeton organization who rewards whimsical fringe scientists? How is a "creationist scientist" (oxymoron in-and-of itself) getting an award from a creationist philanthropic organization for doing bad science to promote creationism newsworthy in the science community?
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  > In my opinion this mystical thinking begs the question if he can be trusted within his field. He obviously lacks the ability to remain impartial about his religion. He's playing out a personal crisis in the open for his entire field to witness. > There's just too many things wrong with this that I can't adequately format them all for this post. I feel like I shouldn't have to teach him about things like Atheism. He should have the impartiality to learn about them, accurately, on his own before he goes around making an unsubstantiated ass out of himself. > And who is this mystical fairy-tale Templeton organization who rewards whimsical fringe scientists? > How is a "creationist scientist" (oxymoron in-and-of itself) getting an award from a creationist philanthropic organization for doing bad science to promote creationism newsworthy in the science community? If you'd read the article, you'd have found that Marcelo Gleiser, the recipient of the award, self-identifies as an agnostic. And a tiny amount of digging shows he's also obviously not a creationist: https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-do-so-many-have-trouble-with-evolution https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-d.... Your comment consists of little but bomb-throwing falsehoods, and is really about a straw-man of your own invention. It's not really the kind of thing that should be posted in a flamewar-prone topic, or anywhere for that matter.
maxxxxx 8y ago
That's just about semantics. By that definition you pretty much have to be agnostic about everything where there is no direct proof, including elves, Santa Claus, dinosaurs in Congo, alien abductions and the tooth fairy. I can state the world will disappear in 10 years and nobody should be able to refute my claim but has to stay agnostic until 10 years have passed. I am sure believing in a god is even less consistent with the scientific method that atheism is.
- hota_mazi 8y ago
  Atheism is an answer to a question. It has exactly nothing to do with the scientific the method in much the same way that "What is your favorite ice cream?" has nothing to do with the scientific method. Belief in god, on the other hand, is making a claim, and as such, can be verified by the scientific method. It has been, actually, and belief in god is by definition disproven by the scientific method.
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erik14th 8y ago
atheism is dumb, whoever thought that opposing a metaphysical concept that lies way too close to the heart of those who believe in it was a good idea to curb religious influence wasn't on their brightest day. Determining the lack of evidence of connection between religious entities and a supposed god is possible, saying a concept as ill defined as "god" does not exist doesn't even make sense to me.
Grue3 8y ago
It's perfectly consistent with the scientific method. Atheism is falsifiable. If there's solid evidence of gods existing, an atheist will change their mind. Theism is non-falsifiable, and thus inconsistent with science. Also Templeton Foundation is a well-known collective of anti-science loons.
lorriman 8y ago
One of the interesting, teeth-gnashing ironies is that the father of modern genetics is a Catholic monk, Gregor Mendel, and the inventor of the Big Bang theory is a Catholic priest, George Lemaitre. George Lemaitre was given a papal award for his efforts. Odd that Hitchens and Dawkins never mention that fascinating fact that their audiences would have been fascinated to know. Nor mention that most of Christianity never had a dogma of a literal translation of the Bible. hmmmmm... Nor tell them that most monotheisms define their supreme beings identically, ie it's the same god. Nor that the Catholic Church, that rigid institution that will not be polite enough to die or bend, teaches that the supreme being has manifested in most other monotheisms. Indeed few of them are exclusivist as atheists like to wrongly assert. Meanwhile, it is a fact that something in the universe has the property of 'existence'. Logically, it exists of itself and could not have ever not existed. Existing of itself, it appears to be a logical feedback loop. Which leads straight to a possibility, the grandest of feedback loops: self-awareness. And Dawkins main objection "Who made God?" is answered since... The real question has never been "Is there a god?", but rather "Is the fundamental thing self-aware, and if it is, does it care?". Meanwhile, despite the objections of atheists and agnostics, especially in what they see as the otherwise incomprehensible suffering of the innocent and children, the answer has always been to ask. Ie, "If you exist, God being, please reveal yourself, and show me why it is that the innocent must suffer".
teknico 8y ago
Negative/weak atheism ("I do not believe there is a God") expresses the absence of a belief, and therefore is compatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism. Positive/strong atheism ("I believe there is no God") expresses an unproved and unprovable belief, and therefore is incompatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism. The above is true for any definition of God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism
- lorriman 8y ago
  But these are wikipedia's crazy mashup of definitions coming straight out of the authors' butts. The original definition, and defined by those that coined it, to be positively "there is no god" was "To deny the Gods/god". Ref Encyclopdia Brittannica which goes in to the history of this issue. Anything else is just atheists trying to get around the logical fallacy it represents, of an unprovable assertion. Wikipedia definitions better fit the Huxlien idea of an agnostic. The fact is that there are only three concrete states in terms of belief/certainty: Belief that there is no god. Lack of belief in a god. Belief in a god. And there are three words that cover these states (four if you include an impersonal god as a valid god, deist). Atheist Agnostic Theist Anything else is just confusing terms and definitions and causes unnecessary argument that is unhelpful to debate. Wikipedia needs to repent.
- insickness 8y ago
  > Positive/strong atheism ("I believe there is no God") expresses an unproved and unprovable belief, and therefore is incompatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism. 'Incompatible' is not an accurate word here. 'Incompatible' implies that Atheism conflicts with the scientific method, which it does not. It would be more accurate to say atheism is orthogonal to the scientific method. But even that isn't true. Saying that God exists is a claim in the positive and requires proof on your part to prove the claim, not proof on my part to disprove the claim. Anyone can make a claim about anything (pigs can fly) and we're not required to provide proof to the contrary in order to say with certainty that pigs cannot fly. Likewise, I can say, "There is no God" without having to prove that God doesn't exist.
lumberingjack 8y ago
This guy sounds exactly like I practiced pastor lots of BS too much assuming and a whole lot of nothing really important said.
hurryskurry 8y ago
Not forming a belief when you dont have evidence for the existence of something? Sounds like good metaphysics to me.
senectus1 8y ago
I'm amazed and more than a little disappointed at how many of us dont understand the difference between "I dont believe there is a god" and "I dont believe your claim of a god". Atheism is pure science. Its viewed a hypothesis, looked at the evidence, found it wanting and dismissed the Hypothesis. For every single claim. The moment an Atheist finds some evidence to be even slightly compelling they become agnostic until enough evidence compels them to believe (Theist) or they discover better evidence to dismiss the previously compelling evidence (back to Atheist). That's it. Its incorrect to claim an atheist claims that a god doesn't exist. they just analyse and accept or reject a claim that one does exist.

32 points by scoreponok 8y ago

" honestly think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It’s a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief. “I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe.” Period. It’s a declaration. But in science we don’t really do declarations. We say, “Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that.” " Oh dear, he should have checked out "Russell's teapot"* * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

asark 8y ago
This seems easy to reducio to "you can't disbelieve anything you're not empirically measuring right this second!" without even going too far down the epistemological rabbit hole. "Dude the sun just disappeared! I know you still see light but it's coming from a different source entirely, that appeared so seamlessly that you didn't notice the shift!". No. No, I don't believe you. No, I don't feel compelled to check just this second. Or ever, really.

mindcrime 8y ago

OK, he's obviously a brilliant guy, but I find his argument about atheism pretty weak... or rather, I should say that it only makes sense at a pretty abstract level. And that, IMO, is basically the same level of abstraction where one can make a compelling argument that science rests on (a form of) faith just like religion does (but possibly not the same form). Anyway, "belief" in the supernatural makes, as far as I can tell, no testable predictions, or where it does, those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles. I would say that non-belief, rather than being some "affirmative assertion" like he posits, is just the null hypothesis, and that all of the onus is on believer to show a way to invalidate that null hypothesis. He is also ignoring the distinction between "weak atheist" and "strong atheist" where the former very specifically do not make an affirmative declaration that "there is no god." Admittedly one can argue about the (apparently subtle) distinction between "weak atheist" and "agnostic" but whatever. Me personally? I go with this point of view: I don't need a special word to signify my non-belief in Santa Claus, and likewise I don't need a special word to signify my non-belief in "god". To me, those things occupy the same conceptual category. shrug

sonnyblarney 8y ago
"those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles." ... Well our current flavour of Science is effectively materialist and it starts effectively with the assumption that 'the universe is made up of a bunch of laws' as we try to discover them. It postulates a priori a specific metaphysical position that immediately negates anything else ... so it's going to be impossible to test what has been ruled out as an assumption. The first order problem that materialism brings us is the inherent nihilism in the 'we are just a random bag of particles problem' - i.e. taken to it's extreme, not only is there no 'supernatural' - there is effectively not even 'intelligence' or 'life' or possibly 'consciousness'. Just the appearance of those things. So logic, reason and science, i.e. tools which we 'the observers' developed to facilitate our understanding of ourselves, has come to negate our very existence? Or is it more likely we are caught up in our own bad thinking? It's funny that we ignore the biggest problem staring us the mirror: 'what are we' / 'what is life' - in lieu of somewhat more tangible things like 'Dark Matter' as we stare off into space, because the 'what are we' problem does not fit well into our materialist equations. In fact, speculation about 'life' may undermine just a little bit the very premise of science, in a much worse way than string theory (assuming it ends up really being actually wrong) ever will. The headline is a little click-baitey, and Gleisers comments I don't think are much more insightful than a decent HN comment ... but I think the underlying problem is the straight jacket that materialism has imposed upon many of our best thinkers. The argument he presents is essentially that of someone at an intellectual dead-end, as materialism seems to be on this issue. Emergence [1] and Bio-Centrism [2] may offer us some hints at how to rethink our perspectives to accommodate for the very nature of life itself, the expression of which I think is what inspires our spiritual inquisition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence [2] http://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and-consciousness-are-the-keys-to-understanding-the-true-nature-of-the-universe/ http://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and-consciou...
- mindcrime 8y ago
  That's a fair point, but where do we cross the line from "science" to metaphysics and epistemology? I admit, I do come at science from a somewhat materialistic viewpoint, and Popperian viewpoint... but that's mainly because I don't see any other approach being as valid as a way to establish knowledge about our world. That said, I'm open to being convinced of something else...

LinuxBender 8y ago

The author left out us militant agnostics.

V-eHGsd_ 8y ago
there are dozens of us, dozens!
- rdruxn 8y ago
  I wouldn't know

hota_mazi 8y ago

> it does inform my position against atheism. I consider myself an agnostic. Surprising for someone with his background to not understand the difference between atheism and agnosticism, and obviously not understanding that these two are not mutually exclusive. > "I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe.” That's absolutely not what atheism is. Atheism is a single position on a single claim. The claim is "There is a god", and the position is "I don't accept that claim". How can this be even remotely against the scientific method? It's not even a claim, let alone a hypothesis. This person seems to be so confused about basic epistemological definitions.

reaperducer 8y ago
My understanding from theology classes a long, long time ago is as follows: - Atheist: Believes there is no God. - Agnostic: Doesn't know/isn't sure/doesn't care if there is a God. - Anti-theist: Is against the mere idea that there is a God. That may have changed in the intervening decades, and with the rise of the internet, the term "atheist" seems to have changed in popular culture, often to suit a particular person's views or vocabulary. A lot of internet atheists strike me as anti-theists. But that's not a common term.
- skissane 8y ago
  I was about to say more or less the same thing. The way people define the word "atheism" has changed. Traditionally, most people understood "atheism" to mean a positive disbelief in God – either, you are certain God doesn't exist, or at least you think the non-existence of God is significantly more likely than God's existence. People who are close to 50-50 on God's existence would call themselves "agnostics" not "atheists". In the last few decades, there has been an increasing tendency to define "atheism" as a mere absence of positive belief in God, so that the 50-50 folks get classified as "atheists" as well. To read Geisler's remarks charitably, I think we have to keep in mind that he is likely using the older definition of "atheism" rather than the newer one.
  - rgbrenner 8y ago

hota_mazi 8y ago

> And we know for a fact that there will be no other humans in the universe; You know that for a fact, really? With billions and billions of planets in the universe, you know that for a fact? That's a pretty rich position for someone claiming he's an agnostic, "someone who doesn't know". > like when you have scientists—Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss among them—claiming we have solved the problem of the origin of the universe Citation needed. These two brilliant men never thought anything remotely like that, they are/were way too humble to make this kind of claim. > or that string theory is correct and that the final “theory of everything” is at hand Same remark. The scientific community is pretty well aware that there are many more detractors of string theory, or the the M theory is just around the corner, than supporters. This guy is a theoretical physicist, really?

asark 8y ago
> That's a pretty rich position for someone claiming he's an agnostic, "someone who doesn't know". There might exist a being that defies everything we know about physical reality! But not other humans anywhere or anywhen. That's just highly improbable, not purely speculative and outside the bounds of what we understand to be reality, so I reject it as impossible. eyeroll

VikingCoder 8y ago

I hate the clickbait title. I hate how it will be misunderstood. I hate that the subtleties in his statement will be ignored. And to the people who care about this, his claim about atheism is pedantic. "I do not believe aliens abducted my dad." Sorry, but that's a perfectly rational thing to say, in all but the most academic of circles. In every-day life, I don't need to be so cautious as to say, "I have no evidence that aliens abducted my dad." Drawing a distinction between those two is a waste of time, and some in the theist crowd will point to this and say, "Scientific American says denying God is inconsistent with the Scientific Method!" This will do harm in the real world, and not any good in the academic world. You know what else I say? F=ma I know about quantum mechanics and relativity, thanks. I don't need a Scientific American article telling me, breathlessly, that "F=ma is false!" In context, F=ma is a perfectly valid thing to say. Imagine if Scientific American had a headline: "Earth Is Not Round". [1] Isn't that an awful clickbait title? Does the content of the article really inform anyone who actually cares about the subject? I'm not going to go to a GIS Conference and declare, "The world is ROUND." That would be moronic. I'm not going to get drawn in to a discussion, "Yes, it's possible the world actually IS flat, but has only appeared to be round so far to all of the experiments I'm aware of." F=ma. The world is round. I believe God doesn't exist. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-round/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-roun...

rcthompson 8y ago
I agree. His logic seems to be that any firm belief at all is inconsistent with the scientific method, which is ridiculous, as you say. I wonder what he thinks of priors in Bayesian statistics.
gamblor956 8y ago
It's not pedantic. One is a statement of belief. The other one is not. In the context of a discussion on belief systems, it's the difference between night and day. And he's correct: atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method, since it posits something that cannot be proven or disproven using existing scientific method.
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qntty 8y ago

> And by doing that, by understanding how science advances, science really becomes a deeply spiritual conversation with the mysterious, about all the things we don’t know. Seems like this might be the central point. You may or may not be able to rationally justify atheism, but that's besides the point. If you want to do science, you have to cultivate your feeling that the world is mysterious and that there's a lot left to discover. To so that, you need to be open to a variety of interpretations of the world. Atheism might be fine for a philosopher who wants to figure out what is rationally justified, but for a scientist, you need to keep your mind open to stay creative. For me, the best argument against atheism is that it's boring. I get to choose my attitude toward the stuff that we can never know. Why not choose the more interesting choice (i.e. agnosticism)?

lisper 8y ago

> The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence This is a common trope, but it's wrong in many cases. The absence of evidence for leprechauns/unicorns/bigfoot/etc. is in fact evidence of absence of these things. Likewise, the absence of evidence for gods is in fact evidence of absence of at least certain kinds of gods. In particular, it is evidence of the absence of gods that interact with the universe in certain meaningful ways. Evidence cannot rule out passive observer gods, like the deist deity, but that is generally not what is at issue when disputes of this sort arise.

CharlesColeman 8y ago
>> The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence > This is a common trope, but it's wrong in many cases. When you're dealing with something of low intelligence or awareness, heuristically absence of evidence can be approximated as evidence of absence, if you've made so thorough a set of observations that the probability of absence can be estimated to be very high. However, that heuristic fails when you're dealing with something with intelligence and awareness, as that thing can choose to behave differently when you're observing it vs. when you're not. Doubly so when you're dealing with something that may not even be bound by the laws that bind your observations.
- temac 8y ago
  That's always a possibility and there are others. Many people found that whole class of possibilities not especially interesting, because they are falling on the irrefutable slope; if there is a "god" that absolutely can not be detected, it is as-if there is "no" god for all practical purposes. It's very similar to asking if we are in a simulation that we can't detect: well, yeah, maybe, but then so what? this would be our universe, nothing more, nothing less.
- lisper 8y ago
  You are confusing evidence with proof. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is evidence of absence even if the subject is intelligent. The absence of evidence for alien visitors to earth is in fact evidence of the absence of such visitors. Now, there are some adversarial situations where absence of evidence is only weak evidence of absence. Two examples of this are the game of hide-and-seek, and steganography. There is also the invisible pink unicorn. So you can't rule out a certain class of adversarial deity just as you cannot rule out a passive one. But again, the actual deities that are the generally the subject of dispute are not adversarial. (This, BTW, is one of the reasons that my favorite god is Loki.)

ElBarto 8y ago

I think we should further make a difference between the existence of a god and religion. Atheism is significantly driven by the rejection of religion. The existence of a god can be discussed and indeed we do not know. However religions are backward ideologies that should really be relegated to the history books.

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jmpman 8y ago

People who deny existence of the tooth fairy are inconsistent with the scientific method?

TheMagicHorsey 8y ago

How can someone so smart not even understand what atheism is? He may be trying to drum up some funding/interest in a book or project. This guy is unlikely to have accidentally misunderstood prominent atheists like Sam Harris.

kbuchanan 8y ago

Lots of comments quibbling about whether he understands the word atheism. His central point—despite the interview title, which he didn't write—is: humility. He argues that to practice science is to avoid adopting a position of certainty, but rather, to ask questions. That almost everyone on this thread missed that point suggests maybe he's on to something.

Latty 8y ago
Except they didn't, because every Atheist I have ever known would, given evidence, become a theist. They accept humility and that they don't know - they are simply stating their current position given the evidence they have. The author doesn't understand the argument of the people they are criticizing, and so attributes a lack of humility to them based on their strawman of their argument.

zelon88 8y ago

After a little (very little) digging the "prize" he won was the Templeton Prize for "affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works." On the topic of science v. religion he also says "Science does not kill God." In my opinion this mystical thinking begs the question if he can be trusted within his field. He obviously lacks the ability to remain impartial about his religion. He's playing out a personal crisis in the open for his entire field to witness. There's just too many things wrong with this that I can't adequately format them all for this post. I feel like I shouldn't have to teach him about things like Atheism. He should have the impartiality to learn about them, accurately, on his own before he goes around making an unsubstantiated ass out of himself. And who is this mystical fairy-tale Templeton organization who rewards whimsical fringe scientists? How is a "creationist scientist" (oxymoron in-and-of itself) getting an award from a creationist philanthropic organization for doing bad science to promote creationism newsworthy in the science community?

CharlesColeman 8y ago
> In my opinion this mystical thinking begs the question if he can be trusted within his field. He obviously lacks the ability to remain impartial about his religion. He's playing out a personal crisis in the open for his entire field to witness. > There's just too many things wrong with this that I can't adequately format them all for this post. I feel like I shouldn't have to teach him about things like Atheism. He should have the impartiality to learn about them, accurately, on his own before he goes around making an unsubstantiated ass out of himself. > And who is this mystical fairy-tale Templeton organization who rewards whimsical fringe scientists? > How is a "creationist scientist" (oxymoron in-and-of itself) getting an award from a creationist philanthropic organization for doing bad science to promote creationism newsworthy in the science community? If you'd read the article, you'd have found that Marcelo Gleiser, the recipient of the award, self-identifies as an agnostic. And a tiny amount of digging shows he's also obviously not a creationist: https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-do-so-many-have-trouble-with-evolution https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-d.... Your comment consists of little but bomb-throwing falsehoods, and is really about a straw-man of your own invention. It's not really the kind of thing that should be posted in a flamewar-prone topic, or anywhere for that matter.

maxxxxx 8y ago

That's just about semantics. By that definition you pretty much have to be agnostic about everything where there is no direct proof, including elves, Santa Claus, dinosaurs in Congo, alien abductions and the tooth fairy. I can state the world will disappear in 10 years and nobody should be able to refute my claim but has to stay agnostic until 10 years have passed. I am sure believing in a god is even less consistent with the scientific method that atheism is.

hota_mazi 8y ago
Atheism is an answer to a question. It has exactly nothing to do with the scientific the method in much the same way that "What is your favorite ice cream?" has nothing to do with the scientific method. Belief in god, on the other hand, is making a claim, and as such, can be verified by the scientific method. It has been, actually, and belief in god is by definition disproven by the scientific method.

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erik14th 8y ago

atheism is dumb, whoever thought that opposing a metaphysical concept that lies way too close to the heart of those who believe in it was a good idea to curb religious influence wasn't on their brightest day. Determining the lack of evidence of connection between religious entities and a supposed god is possible, saying a concept as ill defined as "god" does not exist doesn't even make sense to me.

Grue3 8y ago

It's perfectly consistent with the scientific method. Atheism is falsifiable. If there's solid evidence of gods existing, an atheist will change their mind. Theism is non-falsifiable, and thus inconsistent with science. Also Templeton Foundation is a well-known collective of anti-science loons.

lorriman 8y ago

One of the interesting, teeth-gnashing ironies is that the father of modern genetics is a Catholic monk, Gregor Mendel, and the inventor of the Big Bang theory is a Catholic priest, George Lemaitre. George Lemaitre was given a papal award for his efforts. Odd that Hitchens and Dawkins never mention that fascinating fact that their audiences would have been fascinated to know. Nor mention that most of Christianity never had a dogma of a literal translation of the Bible. hmmmmm... Nor tell them that most monotheisms define their supreme beings identically, ie it's the same god. Nor that the Catholic Church, that rigid institution that will not be polite enough to die or bend, teaches that the supreme being has manifested in most other monotheisms. Indeed few of them are exclusivist as atheists like to wrongly assert. Meanwhile, it is a fact that something in the universe has the property of 'existence'. Logically, it exists of itself and could not have ever not existed. Existing of itself, it appears to be a logical feedback loop. Which leads straight to a possibility, the grandest of feedback loops: self-awareness. And Dawkins main objection "Who made God?" is answered since... The real question has never been "Is there a god?", but rather "Is the fundamental thing self-aware, and if it is, does it care?". Meanwhile, despite the objections of atheists and agnostics, especially in what they see as the otherwise incomprehensible suffering of the innocent and children, the answer has always been to ask. Ie, "If you exist, God being, please reveal yourself, and show me why it is that the innocent must suffer".

teknico 8y ago

Negative/weak atheism ("I do not believe there is a God") expresses the absence of a belief, and therefore is compatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism. Positive/strong atheism ("I believe there is no God") expresses an unproved and unprovable belief, and therefore is incompatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism. The above is true for any definition of God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

lorriman 8y ago
But these are wikipedia's crazy mashup of definitions coming straight out of the authors' butts. The original definition, and defined by those that coined it, to be positively "there is no god" was "To deny the Gods/god". Ref Encyclopdia Brittannica which goes in to the history of this issue. Anything else is just atheists trying to get around the logical fallacy it represents, of an unprovable assertion. Wikipedia definitions better fit the Huxlien idea of an agnostic. The fact is that there are only three concrete states in terms of belief/certainty: Belief that there is no god. Lack of belief in a god. Belief in a god. And there are three words that cover these states (four if you include an impersonal god as a valid god, deist). Atheist Agnostic Theist Anything else is just confusing terms and definitions and causes unnecessary argument that is unhelpful to debate. Wikipedia needs to repent.
insickness 8y ago
> Positive/strong atheism ("I believe there is no God") expresses an unproved and unprovable belief, and therefore is incompatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism. 'Incompatible' is not an accurate word here. 'Incompatible' implies that Atheism conflicts with the scientific method, which it does not. It would be more accurate to say atheism is orthogonal to the scientific method. But even that isn't true. Saying that God exists is a claim in the positive and requires proof on your part to prove the claim, not proof on my part to disprove the claim. Anyone can make a claim about anything (pigs can fly) and we're not required to provide proof to the contrary in order to say with certainty that pigs cannot fly. Likewise, I can say, "There is no God" without having to prove that God doesn't exist.

lumberingjack 8y ago

This guy sounds exactly like I practiced pastor lots of BS too much assuming and a whole lot of nothing really important said.

hurryskurry 8y ago

Not forming a belief when you dont have evidence for the existence of something? Sounds like good metaphysics to me.

senectus1 8y ago

I'm amazed and more than a little disappointed at how many of us dont understand the difference between "I dont believe there is a god" and "I dont believe your claim of a god". Atheism is pure science. Its viewed a hypothesis, looked at the evidence, found it wanting and dismissed the Hypothesis. For every single claim. The moment an Atheist finds some evidence to be even slightly compelling they become agnostic until enough evidence compels them to believe (Theist) or they discover better evidence to dismiss the previously compelling evidence (back to Atheist). That's it. Its incorrect to claim an atheist claims that a god doesn't exist. they just analyse and accept or reject a claim that one does exist.