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Should employers be blind to private beliefs? (Richard Dawkins)
- dy 16y agoYes.
- iwwr 16y agoAs long as those beliefs don't interfere with the requirements of the job.
- mathogre 16y agoIf they support current Big Bang theory, they're all creationist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
- rbanffy 16y agoDo you have any idea how deeply flawed your reasoning is? By the same reasoning, if a schizophrenic claims the sky is blue and we all agree with him, that makes us schizophrenic too.
- JWLong 16y agoWhich is exactly why one shouldn't be barred from employment based on personal beliefs... It is Dawkins who makes the comparison between religion and disease or disorders, no?
- rbanffy 16y agoYou are aware, of course, you are questioning a completely different thing, right? The deeply flawed reasoning is implying that, because we agree with the observations of a creationist astronomer on the big bang, we are also creationists.
- lutorm 16y agoBelieving that the Universe did not exist before some time T does not make you a Creationist in the sense of the word that is employed in this discussion. It's believing that the value of time T is such that it conflicts with innumerable results from geology, physics, and astronomy that does.
- tjr 16y agoThe title of this HN submission doesn't match the title on the article. Dawkins doesn't seem to be arguing in favor of firing all creationist astronomers; rather, only those whose religious beliefs conflict with their astronomy work. Not all creationist views are identical. [Edit: HN submission title has been revised. Thanks!]
- mquander 16y agoYou must have read a completely different article than I did, because as far as I can tell you are entirely mistaken about the content. "A senior colleague at Oxford told me of an astronomer who, on religious grounds, believes the universe is less than ten thousand years old...He publishes mathematical papers in learned journals, taking it for granted that the universe is nearly fourteen billion years old and using this assumption in his calculations. He bottles up his personal beliefs so successfully that he is capable of performing calculations that assume an old universe and make a genuine contribution to science. My colleague takes the view that this YEC is entitled to a job as a professor of astronomy, because he keeps his private beliefs to himself while at work. I take the opposite view. I would object to employing him, on the grounds that his research papers, and his lectures to students, are filled with what he personally believes to be falsehoods. He is a fake, a fraud, a charlatan, drawing a salary for a job that could have gone to an honest astronomer. Moreover, I would regard his equanimity in holding two diametrically opposing views simultaneously in his head as a revealing indicator that there is something wrong with his head." That looks like a pretty straightforward argument in favor of firing creationist astronomers to me!
- tjr 16y agoNo, I read that. Not all creationists believe that the universe is less than ten thousand years old. Another quote: My own position would be that if a young earth creationist (YEC, the barking mad kind who believe the entire universe began after the domestication of the dog) is "breathtakingly above the other candidates", then the other candidates must be so bad that we should re-advertise and start afresh. He seems to be specifically addressing "young earth creationists", and possibly even a subset of those (the "barking mad" ones). Section 4 of the essay suggests that his guidance would not even be limited to religious beliefs: any beliefs, religious or otherwise, that pose a conflict to one's work position should be considered as grounds for non-employment. That's my reading of it, anyway.
- boneheadmed 16y agoI have been following astrophysicist Hugh Ross for some time. For a very intelligent exploration of creationist ideas (that very decidedly do not accept that the earth is only 10,000 years old) check out Reasons To Believe: http://www.reasons.org/ http://www.reasons.org/
- endtime 16y agoI'm reluctant to agree that a website with drivel like "does this synthetic life form point to intelligent agency at every step of the way?" proudly featured on its front page is intelligent.
- pjscott 16y agoWhat that web site does is start by assuming that the Bible is completely true, and then try to retrofit as much of science as they can onto their central Belief That Must Not Change. They may well be intelligent, but that doesn't make them sane.
- boneheadmed 16y agoIt is perhaps difficult to judge the material from a quick glance at the website. He has written many excellent books such as "The Creator and The Cosomos" which I would refer you to for a more in depth discussion.
- waterlesscloud 16y agoWhat if they believe non-mainstream cosmological theories? Where does orthodoxy enforcement stop?
- rewind 16y agoThey are most likely still going to use a scientific approach to trying to prove the non-mainstream theory, so it's not really a valid comparison.
- GrooveStomp 16y agoArguably, the whole article is in response to this very idea. The idea is succinctly rephrased in his article (as a third party quotation) here: "If Gaskell has produced sound, peer-reviewed literature of high quality then I see no reason for denying him the position, even if he believes Mars is the egg of a [giant purple Mongoose]"
- JWLong 16y agoThat's a very good question. If you haven't done so already, may I suggest reading the book Kicking the Sacred Cow by James Hogan. He deals with this question all throughout his book.
- iwwr 16y agoThe big bang is an extrapolated theory with possibly one piece of evidence: the cosmic microwave background. The CMB may be interpreted in other ways. Not believing in the Big Bang is far removed from being a young-Earth creationist. Many more things have to be wrong (perhaps logic itself) for young-Earthism to be proven right. The field of cosmology is still pretty young and the theories supporting it are much more likely to be changed. But the general idea that the Earth (and the universe) is old (billions of years at least) has many different and unrelated pieces of evidence supporting it.
- pjscott 16y agoI noticed that Dawkins didn't really discuss that point much; that's a matter for another, much longer, article. His thesis was simply that the orthodoxy enforcement should stop in the same place for religious beliefs as it does for non-religious ones.
- jimbokun 16y agoThis obsession with unearthing people's private beliefs and actively using them as grounds to discriminate against them, seems quite Orwellian to me. Why not just evaluate how well an employee does the job she is paid to do, and not worry about the ideas she expresses outside of work, or the activities she engages in? Dawkins simply seems to be looking for ways of making life more difficult for religious people. If the job involves some kind of proselytizing for Atheism, rejecting people based on religious views might make sense. Otherwise, I don't see how it's relevant.
- rewind 16y agoThere's too much grey to make this black and white. What would you say to a closeted gay politician pushing anti-gay legislation? Would you not consider that person a fraud, just like someone saying their research is based on the universe being 13 billion years old when they don't really believe that?
- endtime 16y agoHonestly, I don't think the politician's sexuality, open or not, really matters there. Either the legislation is good or (in this case) it isn't.
- JabavuAdams 16y agoIt is relevant because it speaks to their honesty and tolerance for hypocrisy. If I'm a person who habitually does certain things, but I publicly advocate denying those activities to others, that's very significant information.
- kldavis4 16y agoIf that politician is truly representing his constituency, then he is not a fraud and is doing what he is paid to do.
- jbooth 16y agoPoliticians are supposed to lead, not follow.
- lefstathiou 16y agoGoing back to the topic at hand, I am a little uncomfortable NOT being able to take into account someone's beliefs (and therefore values) when making a decision to employ them. Difficult to make the point without going to extremes, but the bottom line is that I believe organizations have (and should continue to have ) the right to direct their culture. If someone isnt a "cultural" fit because they believe in things that would aleniate them from their peers and clients, and therefore contribute to an unproductive work environment, why is it a bad to disqualify them on those grounds? I get the slippery slope of discrimination but that's not what this is about. I'm talking about the slippery slope of not allowing someone to making a hiring decision on the grounds that the way people live their lives and their values affect their ability to be productive members of your organization. Interested to hear what you guys think.
- GrooveStomp 16y agoI agree with you. I was laid off from my last company because I didn't like the direction of the company and wasn't happy with the work. At the same time, profits were down and the company needed to downsize. I still got all of my work done and was by any measure a successful, participatory employee, but my personal direction didn't mesh well with the direction and culture of the company. It seems reasonable to me.
- mseebach 16y agoIt's indeed very slippery, and it's the exact same arguments that have been used to keep blacks, gays and women out back in the day, and once they were in, keeping them from advancing on the career ladder. Unless someone has personal beliefs that are entirely orthogonal to their work, those beliefs are none of your business.
- noblethrasher 16y agoI get what you're saying, but I have a nitpick: Wouldn't you want someone's personal beliefs to be orthogonal to their work since it would imply that those beliefs don't affect the work?
- lukeschlather 16y agoA good scientist should be agnostic. In some ways, believing something accepted to be false in the scientific community is preferable to actually believing what is accepted to be true in the scientific community. If everyone starts with the same assumptions then the same assumptions are propagated through the literature without critical analysis. And sometimes, it may even be worthwhile to look at Mars with the eye of someone who believes it to be a giant purple mongoose. So long as in your work you recognize and promote the most likely possibilities, what you believe to be true regardless of evidence is, at worst, a tool that can aid one in thinking outside the box. Personally I believe the universe and the Earth are many times over older than 10000 years. The evidence is so overwhelming it's hard to understand anyone who thinks otherwise. But I feel like the person who believes the Earth is 10000 years old is a better scientist than the person who knows it to be an incontrovertible fact that the Earth is much older than 10000 years.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- geebee 16y agoThough I'm an atheist, I'd disagree that a good scientist should be agnostic. The reason is segmentation, along with a widespread belief that religious beliefs are beyond measurement in the physical world. That said, I disagree with your assertion that the burden is on science to prove the non-existence of the god(s). In fact, there's a distinction often drawn between "strict" and "soft" (or empirical) atheism. A lot of people confuse empirical atheism with agnosticism, since it does not contain a positive belief in the absence of a god, but israther a default position against the existence of got in the absence of compelling evidence. This second type seems to be what the OP is getting at. For instance, when medical researchers say "there is no evidence that silicon implants cause autoimmune disease", this often sounds to the public like equivocating. However, scientists will say things like this after tracking 8,000 women, half of whom have had implants, and discovering that they develop autoimmune disease at rates that are, statistically speaking, indistinguishable. "We found no evidence..." Prior to a study, I suppose a scientist might say "I don't know" if there is absolutely no literature on the subject and a very compelling hypothesis has been advanced. They might even say "I'm inclined to think this is true, research is underway." But obviously, scientists don't accept the hypothesis by default until someone disproves it, even when the hypothesis is very compelling. Religion can be different, I recognize this, in that to some people, the hypothesis (god exists) is extremely compelling (they feel this is true deep in their core, they've had a revelatory or mystical experience, or they believe that the universe simply couldn't exist without) and impossible to measure. So maybe they see this as a 50-50 proposition, with an equal burden of proof on both sides?
- jmillikin 16y agoEven if a doctor's belief in the stork theory of reproduction is technically irrelevant to his competence as an eye surgeon, it tells you something about him. It is revealing. It is relevant in a general way to whether we would wish him to treat us or teach us. A patient could reasonably shrink from entrusting her eyes to a doctor whose beliefs (admittedly in the apparently unrelated field of obstetrics) are so cataclysmically disconnected from reality. This statement seems to work when applied to something like "babies come from storks", but it generalizes poorly. There are simply too many incorrect beliefs floating around; it's difficult to find someone who has resisted all of them. Would you refuse treatment from an ophthalmologist who believed: 1. The seasons are caused by Earth approaching and receding from the Sun? 2. Fixed-wing aircraft fly because air moves over and under the wing at the same rate? 3. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb? All of these are just as wrong as stork-babies or creationism, and all are just as relevant (ie, not at all) to ophthalmology. I don't demand that my doctor rigorously examine every belief they hold, merely the ones related to surgery. Frankly, a creationist surgeon is much less worrying than a surgeon who believes wi-fi causes cancer. My colleague takes the view that this YEC is entitled to a job as a professor of astronomy, because he keeps his private beliefs to himself while at work. I take the opposite view. I would object to employing him, on the grounds that his research papers, and his lectures to students, are filled with what he personally believes to be falsehoods. He is a fake, a fraud, a charlatan, drawing a salary for a job that could have gone to an honest astronomer. Moreover, I would regard his equanimity in holding two diametrically opposing views simultaneously in his head as a revealing indicator that there is something wrong with his head. There's an idiom that goes something like "reality is what keeps happening even if you don't believe in it". If a creationist is able to perform correct science, I see no reason to dismiss it out of hand. Especially considering the wide variety of creationist beliefs now extant in the US -- even if he believes Earth was created six thousand years ago, he may be willing to concede that the Universe is roughly fourteen billion years old.
- kd0amg 16y agoWould you refuse treatment from an ophthalmologist who believed: 1. The seasons are caused by Earth approaching and receding from the Sun? 2. Fixed-wing aircraft fly because air moves over and under the wing at the same rate? 3. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb? People generally expect a physician of any specialty to have a solid grounding in biology. The first two are cases of ignorance of physics; the third is of history. As such, you'll likely find more people willing to accept a physician's ignorance of them (more so the third, which is a matter of history, than the first two, which are about physics).
- earnubs 16y agoDarwin would not have got very far with Dawkins in charge.
- wisty 16y agoAre you implying that Darwin wanted to be a creationist, but couldn't help but publish what he stumbled upon; or refering to his position in the Church?
- powrtoch 16y agoI simply don't understand how Dawkins can give a real life example of a person very successfully keeping his beliefs totally separate from his related work and still say that we should care what that person believes. If being an "honest astronomer" doesn't make you a better astronomer, then why concern ourselves with it, at all? What I find alarming is that nothing in this argument really conflicts with Dawkins. He accepts that these beliefs can make no measurable difference, and maintains that they're important anyway. He seems to think that it doesn't matter if an astronomer can advance our understanding of astronomy by leaps and bounds, if the astronomer doesn't update his own beliefs too, and that society should therefore refuse to let itself benefit from what he can offer. Why? Who wins in this scenario? FWIW, I do agree that religious beliefs should not be considered distinct from "non religious" beliefs (with obvious exceptions for e.g. clergymen).
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI find one of Dawkin's implicit assumptions very interesting. My colleague takes the view that this YEC is entitled to a job...because he keeps his private beliefs to himself while at work...I would object to employing him, on the grounds that his research papers, and his lectures to students, are filled with what he personally believes to be falsehoods. He is a fake, a fraud, a charlatan, drawing a salary for a job that could have gone to an honest astronomer. Moreover, I would regard his equanimity in holding two diametrically opposing views simultaneously in his head as a revealing indicator that there is something wrong with his head. Dawkins seems to believe that to be hired as a scientist, one must believe in the truth of the model one uses. I can't quite understand why he holds this view - at least in my experience, scientists study hypothesis they don't believe in all the time. I've done this (I don't believe in Copenhagen QM at all, and I'm skeptical of Bohmian mechanics). Does this make me a fraud? According to Dawkins, I guess it does. By his logic, Einstein (not to mention Podolsky and Rosen) was also a fraud. He used a theory he didn't believe was correct (quantum mechanics) to derive conclusions he didn't believe were true. (Sadly, he didn't live long enough to see experimental verification of what he believed was a reducto ad absurdum.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox I wonder if Dawkins truly believes all scientists who use theories they don't believe are frauds, or if he only thinks this about theistic (quasi-)theories [1]? If he holds the former belief, I think he really needs to devote a little bit of time to learning about metaphysics and the philosophy of science. [1] Many beliefs held by theists are "not even wrong", and are therefore not theories. Take, for example, the following flavor of young earth creationism: "God created the universe 6000 years ago, with the state psi(0) = U(-6000 years) psi(world today). psi is the wavefuntion, U is the propagator. It is true that U(-20 billion years ) psi(world today) yields the big bang, but that's just a mathematical curiosity rather than history." This belief is unfalsifiable, and completely consistent with all scientific theories that are governed by an initial value problem (pretty much all of them).
- roel_v 16y agoAs a side note and referring to the quoted email in the second paragraph, any idiot (in this case the idiot was apparently the chairman of the search committee) who puts such strong evidence that can later be used against the company/institution in writing, in email no less, should be fired on the spot.
- borism 16y agoHere's favorite story of mine on this topic. My favorite philosopher Slavoj Zizek quotes this often as well in his Reality of the Virtual themed lectures (it is disputed whether the story itself is true or not): An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that over Bohr’s desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, “Surely you don’t believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist –” Bohr chuckled. “I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not.” I guess Dawkins would fire Bohr. Truly an atheist on a crusade!
- pjscott 16y agoDo you actually believe that Dawkins would do anything other than chuckle amicably in that situation?
- 3am 16y agoWhy does this discussion always go one way? Do people care if a church discriminates against priests or reverends that do not believe in God, the virgin birth, transubstantiation, or the resurrection (where it applies)? I have never seen evidence of protests against that kind of discrimination. And considering the are a pseudo-public entity (tax exempt), it seems very similar. /me is disappointed with self for commenting on stupid flamebait link.
- jessriedel 16y agoPutting aside the question of the legal requirements (which can necessarily only approximate the ethical requirements), isn't it reasonable to just say that he should be hired if and only if the hiring committee thinks his beliefs will not unacceptably interfere with his job (including, for instance, the possibility that he is a "fraud")? Dawkins trots out all these extreme cases where we would be very worried in order about job performance to argue that religious beliefs should be fair game, but doesn't convince me at all that "if a young earth creationist is 'breathtakingly above the other candidates', then the other candidates must be so bad that we should re-advertise and start afresh." Rather, it just advertises a naivete about how flawed we humans are. If we rejected every candidate who has some self-contradictory beliefs because we take it "as a revealing indicator that there is something wrong with his head", we wouldn't be able to fill any jobs. Anyone who thinks they have reached some sort of platonic ideal of rationality---and that those who haven't should be ignored---is deluding themself, whether or not they may be more consistent.
- chegra 16y agoIn the past, a scientist religious belief didn't affect his contribution. I don't see how targeting them now will benefit the scientific community. Carl Gauss was a devote Christian; what are we suppose to do if he existed now, not recognize him? "I am convinced of the afterlife, independent of theology. If the world is rationally constructed, there must be an afterlife." - Godel Maybe Godel wasn't logical for his beliefs? "An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God." -Srinivasa Ramanujan Maybe they shouldn't have invite Ramanujan to work at Cambridge? I find these thoughts disturbing, to judge someone's potential to contribute based on his religion.
- JabavuAdams 16y agoTimes change. In the past you could be killed (in the West) for not being religious, or for adhering to the wrong sect. The way we're headed, religious belief is becoming more and more fringe. Basically, religion only "makes sense" if most people are raised in that tradition. From the outside (i.e. to people not raised in a religious tradition) it just sounds kind of silly at best, or crazy at worst. So, at a certain point, saying I believe in X religion becomes just as crazy as saying I believe that the earth was created by pink hummingbirds. It just has more pedigree. The game's up for organized religion as soon as people see that there's more than one, and that those other believers aren't evil. It'll just take some time for this to play out.
- shadowfox 16y ago> The way we're headed, religious belief is becoming more and more fringe Any references?
- JabavuAdams 16y agoIn any of the places I've worked, someone who enthusiastically affirmed that they believe in God would seem a bit weird. Contrast this to 100 years ago.
- JabavuAdams 16y agohttp://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2006001/c-g/4097586-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2006001/c-g/4097586-en...
- Semiapies 16y agoPreface: I'm an atheist, myself. The funny thing about this argument is that it's made within the same protection against religious discrimination that Dawkins would like to discard. Some of us might like to fantasize that laws against religious discrimination could be carefully disassembled so that atheists remain fully protected while all the theists get comeuppance for their objectionable views, but that isn't going to happen. If you get rid of laws against religious discrimination, it's not going to be open season on Christian creationists, it's going to be open season on atheists and Muslims (who poll almost as badly as atheists in the US).
- nice1 16y agoDawkins isn't what one might call a deep thinker ...
- hasenj 16y agoI don't believe in Darwinism, and you know what, if some one refused to employ me because of that, then to hell with them. I personally would prefer not to work with someone who would judge me for my beliefs. But that's just me. I'm the kind of person who wants his job to be more than "just a job". There are people who consider jobs to be just jobs and they do their jobs for a living, not to fulfill their life purpose. This is actually the majority of people, and when you start discriminating against them, well, you're kinda evil. Or how should I put it? You'd be no different from a religious zealot who thinks he knows the truth and must force everyone to adhere to the same truth that he adheres to. The root of most evil (often attributed to "religion") is when you believe you have the truth and that you must force others to see it. Discriminating against these people in their work and livelihood is just one tactic of oppressing people. The Soviet Union was such an evil government; they oppressed religious people in the name of liberating them from religion. Having said that, I can flip the argument around. Would I trust a doctor who believes that humans are nothing but a lump of material, and that morals are just lies that we fabricated? It depends, and you can argue for a long time why you should (or should not) trust such a doctor. But the point is, it's a double edged sword, if you're gonna use it to discriminate against others, then certain others can also use it to discriminate against you. When someone is an outspoken advocate for atheism, but is also a scientist, should I take his "science" seriously as if he's objective in his science? He obviously has a strong desire to fulfill his agenda, and is likely to bend backwards to support what he's advocating.
- pjscott 16y agoSince there's some overlap in membership, here's a link to the Less Wrong discussion of this same article: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/3ze/richard_dawkins_should_employers_be_blind_to/ http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/3ze/richard_dawkins_sho...
- nickolai 16y agoAs long as the beleifs do not obviously express a lack of common sense, yes beleifs should not be important. Sure we can get in a fight about how obvious should the obviousness be, and what exactly is common sense. However disregard for evidence or strong unfounded beleifs should be a warning sign. The candidate's views on the technology involved in his job should be more deeply screened. What I mean is that a candidate firmly beleiving that the earth was created 10k years ago because the scriptures say so, is (imho) more likely to lack the open-mindedness needed by most jobs in science/technology fields. OTOH, if you "just need a programmer", i'm sure you'll be fine even with a guy thinking bananas are in reality dropped by storks.
- Luc 16y agoI remember reading a story about an executive working for Warren Buffett, who cheated on his wife with a girlfriend in a different city. When Buffett found out, he fired the man, since he felt he couldn't trust this person in his business dealings, even if the error was made in a personal matter. This feels the same way. Does the university really want to check up on this astronomer all the time, in case his irrationality carries over to his professional life?
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoI personally don't care, but if I had to pick, I would want a scientist that was technically proficient, flexible in their thinking, and was able to explain the current way of thinking to a level acceptable to his peers. That'd be it. As far as personal beliefs, if I had to pick, I'd want a guy who had the craziest damn personal beliefs I could find. Perhaps involving the Great Pumpkin, or tiny elves that live in the forest and come out at night. Why? Because science is not orthodoxy. That is, science is always provisional and always open to change. Some jerk who "just knows" that string theory is right is the last guy I want looking at string theory. Give it to the guy who reads palms and is waiting for the Xanians to arrive in their spaceships after the eclipse. There is an assumption here, that having some sort of faith would preclude being able to do your job. It's not true -- or rather, it's being inflexible that prevents you from doing your job as a scientist. People are marvelous creatures. They can be hard-headed and inflexible in an infinite number of ways, most of which do not involve some formal belief system. As a for-instance, I imagine many people would think that believing in Intelligent Design would be a disqualifier for studying cosmology. And they would stubbornly resist changing their mind to the contrary. This is exactly the kind of inflexibility you need to watch out for. If you already know where you're going to end up, there's not much point in taking the journey. Very interesting that thinking of this problem in terms of flexibility and creative thinking (the key elements to move science forward) turns up a completely different answer than thinking about it in terms of "what's most likely correct?" which is an interesting question but not germane. All you're checking with that "does this guy believe what most of us do?" is whether or not most other scientists think this guy is a good guesser, ie, he agrees with them. That's a bit too much popularity contest and groupthink for me.
- nika 16y agoOrthodoxy, in all ways seems to plague people. Plus you get that employee who has the unorthodox beliefs and you know you've got someone whose had to think about them. Someone whose had to overcome the inertia and social pressure for conformity. In business, repeating what others have done is not nearly as profitable is discovering something new. This could be new technology, but it can also come from understanding the market in a way that others did not see. Groupon could have been done in 1998 or 2003. It is not technically all that complex, but the different perspective on the market created massive value.
- bigtech 16y agoI'm surprised to see Dawkins get this so wrong. I suspect holding opposing beliefs about a thing is quite common.
- detokaal 16y agoDawkins and most others here are missing the primary issue: evidence. What qualifies as [evidence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence) for scientific purposes is limited. It excludes (or minimizes) evidence the human beings accept in most other areas. You would no more cite your neighbor's belief in the shape of the earth for a scientific paper than cite the number of flowers you bought your wife as proof that you love her. There are many reasons people believe Bible accounts for rational reasons outside of scientific evidence. Also implicit in most of the posts here and Dawkin's piece is to assume there is zero scientific evidence for a young earth or any other Biblical story. As Feynman was fond of saying, it isn't up to science to determine truth all the time, but rather what is more or less likely based on what we currently know. It is most likely our universe is X years old based on what we know now, but even those ages have changed by wide margins in the last century. We don't know how much more it will change in the next century. But we are as sure about the current age as astronomers were 100 years ago. For the record, based on our present scientific knowledge, it is more likely our earth is 4.5 billions years old than 5000. But we don't know for sure, do we?
- alexophile 16y agoI think my real problem with all this really comes out when he mentions the Kurt Wise case: "Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand." The problem with this line of thinking is not with the conclusion - his conclusion is soundly derived from his body of evidence. But I take issue with what he chooses to admit into the corpus of evidence to be considered. If you read the Scripture as the word of God, I have no problem with that. If you take that as a guide for what determines a good life, that's totally groovy. But the Bible cannot and should not be used as a piece of evidence in determining scientific fact. A text that considers calling something a "miracle" adequate explanation is, by definition, non-scientific. If you believe in such miracles, that doesn't bother me one bit, but if you accept a miracle as evidence without explanation, you are not practicing science.
- bugsy 16y agoDefinitely a lot of eye surgeons out there that believe in the stork theory of reproduction, it's much more common than people are lead to believe. Good example. Last month we turned down a developer candidate because his weblog said he was a Discordian who believed in a flying spaghetti monster. He was the best candidate by far, but flying spaghetti is an irrational belief which indicates profound mental illness.
- Homunculiheaded 16y agoOne of my favorite video games as a child ended with the realization that the entire game took place inside the dream of sleeping whale (the game ends when you wake up the whale). I always think it’s important to consider (although not too seriously) that perhaps we are just acting in the dream of a giant, sleep whale. The point is that reason and logic always only exist within a specific framework of axioms and assumptions. There is no universal set of axioms and assumptions that apply to all situations, if there where we would have a set of truths that could describe the age of the earth accurately both in the case that the world is as it immediately appears to be and the case where we exist in the dream of a whale. We can only reason within contexts, and in all the examples given in Dawkin’s post, individuals are reasoning excellently within the specific context. The problem, whether it involves religion or not, is when people start to believe that they do have access to a universal set of axioms and assumptions, that they have presented themselves with an absolute truth. Which is why I always think it’s important to consider, at least for a moment, what if we are inside the dream of a giant, sleeping whale.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- CWuestefeld 16y agoDon't we all do such things all the time? I'll frequently to a friend and say "that movie would have been more interesting if they'd followed the subplot and showed how character X finally did Y". Here I'm starting with a model of the universe, projecting the givens that we were shown, and extrapolating a theory about something else that might happen in that model. And all of it is false. I'm just playing with a model of the world as it might be. And that's all the scientist in the OP was doing, in his mind. The only difference is that I'm saying that the model is fictional, whereas he believes it. But that doesn't make the projections he might make from his model any better or worse than mine.