Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method

Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
scientificamerican.com

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

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.

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?

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-roun...