
All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists - mightybyte
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists
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sp332
You've never heard God mentioned at a conference because the religious people
are hiding from bigots like you. Plenty of scientists have seen a connection
between faith and science and if you can't, it's probably your own fault.

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deciplex
> _You 've never heard God mentioned at a conference because the religious
> people are hiding from bigots like you._

They probably should. Religious belief betrays at least a partial rejection of
what science even is. If you can apply one set of rules to determine, say, the
efficacy of some new drug undergoing testing, but another set of rules to how
you believe the universe works, then you don't really understand either.

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_nedR
What betrays the rejection of science even more, is making blanket statements
or taking strong standpoints, especially on controversial topics. It betrays a
propensity for scientists to ignore evidence, or to frame conclusions and
experiments to fit their preconceived notions. I would include strong support
of religious viewpoints, athiesm and even global warming under this rule.

Once politics or agendas get involved, then science takes a back seat to
convincing others that you are right.

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deciplex
> _What betrays the rejection of science even more, is making blanket
> statements or taking strong standpoints, especially on controversial
> topics._

The controversy-value of a statement has no bearing on its truth-value, and to
think so is _deeply_ unscientific. Belief in the supernatural is unscientific
_by definition_ : once something crosses into the natural realm it comes under
the dominion of science. In the meantime, God will not pop into existence if
enough people believe in him. Even if I am so persuasive that I can convince
every living physicist that I'm immune to the laws of gravity, when I jump off
a tall enough bridge I will still plummet to my death. If the fate of our
species should we continue on the path we're on, is the collapse of our
civilization and binding to this one planet until our eventual extinction,
then that is what will happen regardless of whatever clever arguments against
climate change you can conjure up. The combined willpower of every living
human being could not so much as change the spin of a single electron. The
universe is indifferent, and it is hard to overstate just how _dangerous_ it
is to ignore this basic fact.

Moreover, taking a strong standpoint is absolutely justified based on the
strength of the evidence. To do otherwise implies that the evidence is not so
strong. And again, controversy-value has no bearing on this, either.

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A_COMPUTER
His gay marriage example is instructive of the weakness of this type of
argument. Marriage is purely a social institution, so what does science have
to say on the subject, anyway? Well, he appeals to equality. If we have these
laws, they should be applied equally. Ok then, what's the scientific argument
for equality? He takes these things as axiomatic, which, presumably, means
that these are the types of things he should most militantly be examining.

What if self-described militant atheists like Krauss took their atheism
seriously and considered fundamental values, whether they come from a sincere
belief in a deity or not, to be essentially the same, since they basically are
if there's in fact no God? They would have to look closer at values and see if
there was perhaps a social or personal utility to having certain types of
values. Study them, and figure out what makes certain values work well and
which ones implode. Create some kind of explanatory model of values. If you
will, come up with a "scientific" way of analyzing values. One might even put
some effort into examining value systems for consistency, figure out if they
have side-effects or study what types of outcomes they optimize for, and make
a good one for the outcome you desire. Just don't tell Krauss that this is
what philosophy does, because he thinks philosophy is dumb and a waste of
time.

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PascLeRasc
This person seems like they are unwilling to accept a different idea of how
religion and science could be connected than the one he's come up with
(essentially, that our universe exists in a test tube and a God interfering is
bound to the same laws that we observe ourselves to be). This whole article
deserves a "citation needed" marking.

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deciplex
Can you offer up some examples where religious "reasoning" directly improved
our understanding of the world?

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anoncoder
To suggest that "Planned Parenthood provides fetal tissue samples from
abortions to scientific researchers" is even remotely true is, well, sad. I
saw the videos. That's some sick stuff. If this is one of your arguments for
objective science, then count me out.

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jdarais
True, he seems to be displaying the same characteristics he criticizes
religious folks for by assuming the values and beliefs he derives from his
culture are self-evident.

