Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
scientificamerican.com
Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#2LOL, as if anything at all from the mouths if the ilk of Templeton has any merit at all. We all know that religion is a false and coercive method of social control of people to get their money and wage your wars.
Prove me wrong!
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#3LOL, as if anything at all from the mouths if the ilk of Templeton has any merit at all. We all know that religion is a false and coercive method of social control of people to get their money and wage your wars. Prove me wrong!
Freeman Dyson won this prize too. Is he also now suspect?
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#4"Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that."
I view atheism as the null hypothesis, for which you don't need any evidence. It is the de-facto stance for when there is no evidence to suggest another hypothesis.
edit: "And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim God? Which god is that?) But on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn’t know about."
Is this person also agnostic when it comes to Russell's teapot? I'm pretty sure that they would make the statement that there is not in fact a teapot circling the earth, just like there is not a god in heaven. His argument about the agnostic person not being able to make a final decision is a slide into solipsism.
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#5LOL, as if anything at all from the mouths if the ilk of Templeton has any merit at all. We all know that religion is a false and coercive method of social control of people to get their money and wage your wars. Prove me wrong!
He appears to be talking (in this article at least) more about spirituality than religion.
I think it's hard to dispute his basic point: you cannot prove a negative (or as he phrased it, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence").
I do find it kinda odd to hear those who profess to a spiritual belief ragging on those who profess a belief in the contrary though. Neither of them has evidence.
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
Dawkins is known as an outspoken atheist. In interviews, he has called himself an agnostic about many matters of religious faith, instead endorsing reason.[citation needed] He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#7Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#8"Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." I view atheism as the null hypothesis, for which you don't need any evidence. It is the de-facto stance for when there is no evidence to suggest another hypothesis. edit: "And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim G…
I see it a bit differently, it's basically an undecidable problem (at least for now). Intelligent design == simulation hypothesis vs. pure accident and the anthropological principle. Which one of these is the null hypothesis is a matter of perspective / cultural background. What clearly does not hold are idiotic things like biblical literalism. But the big bang theory opens more questions than it answers.
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#9"Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." I view atheism as the null hypothesis, for which you don't need any evidence. It is the de-facto stance for when there is no evidence to suggest another hypothesis. edit: "And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim G…
I see it a bit differently, it's basically an undecidable problem (at least for now). Intelligent design == simulation hypothesis vs. pure accident and the anthropological principle. Which one of these is the null hypothesis is a matter of perspective / cultural background. What clearly does not hold are idiotic things like biblical literalism. But the big bang theory opens more questions than it answers.
Not to repeat the the entire previous thread about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445855) but this is just a semantic wordplay: on any other similar existence questions (is there a teapot orbiting the sun?) we'd gladly conflate "undecidable" with "false" as the difference between those cases is a negligible probability. But when you mix in such a culturally sensitive topic like religion, suddenly we have to carefully distinguish these two cases. It's an unfair inconsistency that is used to propagate religious thinking.
Re: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
#10"Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." I view atheism as the null hypothesis, for which you don't need any evidence. It is the de-facto stance for when there is no evidence to suggest another hypothesis. edit: "And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim G…
Re: Russell's teapot - this is just the classic Red Hering. If you argue for a bearded man in the sky you can put it as absurdum this way, but it has nothing to do with the intelligent design hypothesis, also called simulation hypothesis. Are we special because of the anthropological principle or is there some deeper underlying cause? Even finding intelligent alien life wouldn't fully answer the question - you can also apply it to the physical constants of our universe that are remarkably well chosen.
That's not to say that assuming natural processes as a principle doesn't have legs - so far Dr. Penrose's hypothesis of arbitrary scaled time convinces me most, which avoids any requirement of intelligent design, but so far there is not sufficient evidence to prove it, or any other origin theory, and as long as that is the case I think it is too quick to dispell intelligent design.