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Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#31

Post by rcthompson »

VikingCoder wrote: post #9

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…

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.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#32

Post by wumms »

reaperducer wrote: post #8
hota_mazi wrote: post #5

> 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…

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 perso…

"Doesn't care" now seems to be considered Apatheism.

Said to be coined around 2003: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/489221/word-for-...

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#33

Post by rgbrenner »

skissane wrote: post #11
reaperducer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perso…

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 "ath…

No, atheism does not mean: I have proof of gods non-existence. This is a position put forward by theists who wish to push the burden of proof off of their side.

Theists put forth a claim: god exists. They need to prove that claim. It's not up to anyone else.

Atheism is simply looking at the evidence that has been provided for the claim. It is non-existent. Therefore it cannot be said that god exists. You need to prove the claims you put forward.

Note, it's not 50/50 (like agnosticism says). Atheism doesn't say: one side says a teapot exists out in space, and another side says it doesnt.. so it's 50/50. If there's no evidence of the teapot, there's no reason to believe it is there. That's atheism.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#35

Post by kbuchanan »

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.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#36

Post by DanBC »

hota_mazi wrote: post #18
reaperducer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perso…

Absolutely not. Atheism is about belief, agnosticism is about knowledge. They are complementary. You can be atheist/agnostic, theist/agnostic, atheist/gnostic, theist/gnostic. It's a matrix. Also there are two flavors of atheism: those that believe there is no god (a minority in my opinion, and that position requires a burden of proof). And there are atheists who simply reject the claim that there is a god. They say…

This doesn't match any dictionary I have.

Atheism: belief there is no god.

Agnosticism: we don't, we can't, know whether a god exists or not.

> They say there might be a god, or maybe not,

This by definition is not atheism, it's agnosticism.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#37

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

Latty wrote: post #28
rdruxn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I 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 e…

His point is bunk because it is fundamentally mischaracterising the argument of atheists. It isn't about there being literally proof of no god, it is about how we act in our daily setting. The classic counter is Russell's teapot. You can't prove to me that there is not a teapot, undetectable by our current tooling (tiny, invisible, etc...), orbiting the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars. That said, if…

Exactly. This whole atheism vs. agnosticism debate is about semantics. Ultimately the question to ask is, is it rational to act like there are gods. An atheist says no, a theist says yes, and an agnostic is neutral on the subject.

This is not the same thing as asking if there is a god or not, which is not answerable.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#38

Post by temac »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #30
lisper wrote: post #17

> 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 certai…

>> 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 dealin…

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.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#39

Post by DanBC »

Latty wrote: post #28
rdruxn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I 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 e…

His point is bunk because it is fundamentally mischaracterising the argument of atheists. It isn't about there being literally proof of no god, it is about how we act in our daily setting. The classic counter is Russell's teapot. You can't prove to me that there is not a teapot, undetectable by our current tooling (tiny, invisible, etc...), orbiting the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars. That said, if…

> An atheist is not saying that there absolutely is no god, but rather "there is no reason to believe in a god, given what we currently know", which remains a different position from "I, personally, don't know" which is the argument of an agnostic.

The dictionary definition of atheism (Chambers, 1990)

Atheism: The belief that there is no god.

Agnostic: Someone who believes one can only know about material things and so believes that nothing can be known about the existance of God.

The author seems to be using these definitions, so it's not surprising people are confused if they've invented their own definitions.

Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

#40

Post by krferriter »

rdruxn wrote: post #20
hota_mazi wrote: post #5

> 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…

> I 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 e…

No, an atheist is simply someone who does not affirmatively believe the claim that there are gods. This does not inherently entail the claim that there are no gods. If you do not accept the claim that there are gods, you are an atheist. Nothing about that breaches the Scientific Method. No evidence is required in order to neglect to accept a claim which was also not presented with scientific evidence.

The author says that atheists need evidence of absence to support their claim that gods don't exist, but atheism does not entail that claim, so the author has some pretty substantial misunderstandings about how the scientific method works and what claims are going on here and when evidence is needed.

I do not need evidence in order to reject a claim that the center of the earth is made out of Earl Grey tea. I can say "I don't believe that is correct" and then just continue on with my life as it was before someone told me that with no evidence.

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