From RICE UNIVERSITY and the “thank goodness we don’t have to ignore Newton’s laws of physics now” department:
Are all scientists atheists? Do they believe religion and science can co-exist? These questions and others were addressed in the first worldwide survey of how scientists view religion, released today by researchers at Rice University.
“No one today can deny that there is a popular ‘warfare’ framing between science and religion,” said the study’s principal investigator, Elaine Howard Ecklund, founding director of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program and the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences. “This is a war of words fueled by scientists, religious people and those in between.”
The study’s results challenge longstanding assumptions about the science-faith interface. While it is commonly assumed that most scientists are atheists, the global perspective resulting from the study shows that this is simply not the case.
“More than half of scientists in India, Italy, Taiwan and Turkey self-identify as religious,” Ecklund said. “And it’s striking that approximately twice as many ‘convinced atheists’ exist in the general population of Hong Kong, for example, (55 percent) compared with the scientific community in this region (26 percent).”
The researchers did find that scientists are generally less religious than a given general population. However, there were exceptions to this: 39 percent of scientists in Hong Kong identify as religious compared with 20 percent of the general population of Hong Kong, and 54 percent of scientists in Taiwan identify as religious compared with 44 percent of the general population of Taiwan. Ecklund noted that such patterns challenge longstanding assumptions about the irreligious character of scientists around the world.
When asked about terms of conflict between religion and science, Ecklund noted that only a minority of scientists in each regional context believe that science and religion are in conflict. In the U.K. – one of the most secular countries studied – only 32 percent of scientists characterized the science-faith interface as one of conflict. In the U.S., this number was only 29 percent. And 25 percent of Hong Kong scientists, 27 percent of Indian scientists and 23 percent of Taiwanese scientists believed science and religion can coexist and be used to help each other.
In addition to the survey’s quantitative findings, the researchers found nuanced views in scientists’ responses during interviews. For example, numerous scientists expressed how religion can provide a “check” in ethically gray areas.
“(Religion provides a) check on those occasions where you might be tempted to shortcut because you want to get something published and you think, ‘Oh, that experiment wasn’t really good enough, but if I portray it in this way, that will do,'” said a biology professor from the U.K.
Another scientist said that there are “multiple atheisms,” some of which include religious traditions.
“I have no problem going to church services because quite often, again that’s a cultural thing,” said a physics reader in the U.K. who said he sometimes attended services because his daughter sang in the church choir. “It’s like looking at another part of your culture, but I have no faith religiously. It doesn’t worry me that religion is still out there.”
Finally, many scientists mentioned ways that they would accommodate the religious views or practices of the public, whether those of students or colleagues.
“Religious issues (are) quite common here because everyone talks about which temple they go to, which church they go to. So it’s not really an issue we hide; we just talk about it. Because, in Taiwan, we have people [of] different religions,” said a Taiwanese professor of biology.
Ecklund and fellow Rice researchers Kirstin Matthews and Steven Lewis collected information from 9,422 respondents in eight regions around the world: France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S. They also traveled to these regions to conduct in-depth interviews with 609 scientists, the largest worldwide survey and interview study ever conducted of the intersection between faith and science.
By surveying and interviewing scientists at various career stages, in elite and nonelite institutions and in biology and physics, the researchers hoped to gain a representative look at scientists’ views on religion, ethics and how both intersect with their scientific work.
Ecklund said that the study has many important implications that can be applied to university hiring processes, how classrooms and labs are structured and general public policy.
“Science is a global endeavor,” Ecklund said. “And as long as science is global, then we need to recognize that the borders between science and religion are more permeable than most people think.”
###
The Templeton World Charity Foundation funded the study. The study also received support from Rice University and the Faraday Institute, housed at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge.
For more information, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, atdavid@rice.edu or 713-348-6327.
This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu/. An extensive report about the study can be found at http://rplp.rice.edu/.
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I don’t know why this authored-contribution exists. Religion is simply irrelevant…to anything. If we all died out tomorrow, religion would die with us…as would golf! It is man-made, purely, has no relevance on the world, it’s animals, its nature – absolutely none (don’t confuse effect with relevance). It’s abject nonsense. You could start a religion tomorrow – and that says everything about it.
Golf might be played on a rocky planet around a yellow star in the gigantic IC 1101 galaxy. But I can’t be sure, being agnostic.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Russell's_Teapot
Baz “You could start a religion tomorrow – and that says everything about it.”
Your vision seems a bit limited. Your not-religion IS a religion. No one escapes religion even if you simply make your own. Whatever you consider right and wrong, whoever is your authority, the person you trust (if anyone, even if only yourself), that’s your religion. No one escapes!
“The Templeton World Charity Foundation funded the study.”
The study was funded by Templeton, a charity with a very clear religious bent. They are quite open about it. I am not claiming that the source of funding influenced the outcome, but as in all human endeavors one should always keep the “cui bono” aspect in mind. We all do it on this site when we look at studies in climate science, as well as in other fields. Would the “wrong” result affect future funding?
Without seeing the structure of the study, the questions, the analysis, the raw data, what do we really know?
Just as politics and religion need to be separated, so too does religion and science. Each is poison to the other. They only co-exist with strenuous mental gymnastics.
I have little trust in ‘religious scientists.’ They are unable to falsify their own belief system. They are inherently blind and self-delusional.
Also, I think that articles like this damage the credibility of a science blog.
Kozlowski:
Yes, you are obviously right.
Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Friar Mendel and their ilk obviously damaged the credibility of a science. sarc off/
Richard
Kozlowski writes “I think that articles like this damage the credibility of a science blog.”
It isn’t a science blog; it is a knowledge blog. More exists than just science. Science is confined to atoms and energy because the instruments of science are made of atoms and energy and can measure nothing else.
I love science. But it is but one facet of the jewel of life.
Failed divinity student, Rev Al Gore travels the world giving thunderous sermons, demanding we repent for our carbon sins. His hundreds of acolyte MiniGore’s spread the faith. Paris must be infested with them this week.
To quote an indelibly famous individual, “What difference does it make?”
51% of all scientists believe there’s a god. Ah, so there must be a god.
51% of all scientists believe there’s not a god. Ah, so there isn’t a god.
And, in the end, we know with absolutely certainty that there is indeed a god. It’s unmistakable. It’s right before us. It’s Barack Obama. And, despite our beliefs to the contrary, what he has shown us is that gods do, indeed, make mistakes. Big mistakes. Whopper mistakes. Big, fat whopper mistakes. Stupid, big, fat, whopper mistakes. Massively stupid, big, fat, whopper mistakes.
So, if anybody ever asks how God could allow terrible things to happen; now you know.
It seems to me the athiest must also reject the idea of art, that (say an abstract) painting means this or that or is an expression of this or that thought, idea or mood. What evidence on the canvas can be used to support this. How can a melody be sad or happy, or grand, or profound. How can a design be pleasing or otherwise, or color combination, what could ‘in the eyes of the beholder’ possibly mean. There is much in our makeup that exists that cannot be given a reason for. There is much we value that can’t be quantitatively weighed and does not have universal singularity. Atheism may be a form of despair, bleakness, colorlessness. Hey, I’m in the “don’t know” category. I don’t want to rule out something that would be transcendent.
” Atheism may be a form of despair, bleakness, colorlessness.”
I think you fundamentally misunderstand atheism. I love art, with it’s possibilities for interpretation. I enjoy taking photographs of nature to freeze that moment and marvel at its incredible beauty.
There is no ‘despair, bleakness or colorlessness in atheism.’ Not in mine anyways :). Just a pragmatic admission that it is unlikely that the God of the bible exists. Ditto for all other beliefs and faiths. Very very unlikely. That doesn’t detract from the value of life, however. On the contrary, I think it increases the value of our lives, to be lived to the fullest as it is the only one we will ever get.
We are dead a lot longer than we are alive. So live this one life to the fullest.
Ditto the last sentence. But surely yours is the definition of an agnostic. Even ‘very unlikely’ is a “don’t know” position. My point is that certainty on the issue of a spiritual realm is a dogmatic position (theist or atheist), like “the debate is over” or “the consensus is correct” when really it is in the way of a belief. Go with “don’t know” as the scientific assessment. Some argue that all over the world, independently, all peoples had this spiritual thing and there are remarkable similarities among them, ergo….. From a darwinistic perspective, why would we be the only creatures on the planet that did anything that wasn’t simply for survival. What use biologically would it have? Is being delusional a trait that would serve the biological imperatives? Is creating big buildings, music, art etc. replete with survival or selectable traits for evolution? We do an excessive amount of unnecessary stuff. Giraffe’s have long necks to reach high foliage in savanna country – it is a defining part of their anatomy and their being. They don’t draw things in the sand with their hooves, although they could. We do. A thinking atheist would soon transform himself to an Agnostic “don’t know” type.
Gary,
I wonder how many atheists you have known. Your cartoonish picture of them is fundamentally wrong. Many great artists have been avowed atheists, and more still in prior centuries who couldn’t say so publicly.
Maybe it would help if you had read atheist literature or even listened to what they actually say about their beliefs and attitudes. Here is one of the most famous atheists on the distinction between agnostic and atheist. Sorry for the poor video quality:
I can see I have been digging too deeply into a subject that is really much lighter in weight.
Gloateus Maximus writes: “Maybe it would help if you had read atheist literature”
No such thing can exist. An atheist is not a thing to be, it is a thing to not-be. So what is an atheist? It is unpredictable! The word describes a single lack; not a thing itself.
Perhaps you are suggesting that atheist literature is ALL literature save only god-advocating literature. But it might even be that; cannot an atheist write a story about god just as easily as she writes about a dragon or unicorn?
For there to be an affirmative atheist literature, identifiable immediately as such, it cannot be merely atheist (not-theist) but anti-theist (rather a lot of Dawkins in other words).
Michael,
It might be fair to consider Dawkins and some other militant atheists as anti-theistical, but there is also a large body of less militant atheistic literature. For instance, among recent writers, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris are often lumped together with Dawkins and Hitchens, but their less aggressive approach is a softer sell. IMO, they’re not angry, but analytical.
Not much too add to Feynman:
***
“I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.”
― Richard Feynman
***
I became a Christian at university while reading physics. That was 40 years ago. Why would anyone think that “existence” can be completely defined just by what physics (science) investigates?
Physics is not trying to completely define “existence”. But science is a process by which ideas that pass certain empirical tests can be verified or disregarded. Christianity is a death cult based on an obviously false myth that can at best distort any inquiry into the questions that science can be used to answer.
Islam and any of the other religions that are professed by the worlds “believers” are just as worthless in answering these questions. The only utility the have, IMHO, is to convince the credulous that they are somehow part of a universe that somehow cares about their dreary daily problems.
The universe doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you or me. If you need the revelations of ancient Neolithic goat herders to guide you through life’s choices and moral predicaments you are practicing a completely irrational, yet eminently popular, form of self-deception.
Entire cultures have been built around these obviously contradictory religions, yet people cheerfully denigrate the foolish religious delusions of adherents of other religions while tenaciously and often violently clinging to their own idiotic fables and rituals.
“But science is a process by which ideas that pass certain empirical tests can be verified or disregarded.”
Lancifer: so science can confirm truth?
That’s a new one.
Some may be interested in:
http://www.reasons.org/about/our-mission
They say:
RTB’s mission is to spread the Christian Gospel by demonstrating that sound reason and scientific research—including the very latest discoveries—consistently support, rather than erode, confidence in the truth of the Bible and faith in the personal, transcendent God revealed in both Scripture and nature.
As well, Stephen Hawking has this to say:
“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Hawking has been persuaded to be an atheist by his further study of the universe.
Stephen Hawking> Now this guy DOES dig deeply into the question, whereas self appointed atheists adopt the position, probably starting as a naughty intellectual thing to do in university as I did briefly. Disclaimer, I am not a member of any formalized religious group. I am a scientist (and engineer) though, and can see no reason in being sure of something that is or isn’t without evidence – such certainty is a matter of belief or faith. Being sure one way or the other seems a failing in logic. Hey, I’m happy to be in the company of Stephen Hawking, for sure.
Having eggheads discuss the differences between atheists and agnostics is of no help. They arrived at evolved forms of the original meaning of atheist (pretty starkly obvious in the word itself) precisely because of the kinds of criticisms I have elaborated on here. Celebrity atheists probably quickly effected the shift in position when debate showed them that they were really dogmatic believers. They of course couldn’t save face and abandon the ‘category’ so they clipped a few bits off agnosticism to emend a weak idea. It’s done all the time. The venerable historical idea of agnosticism needed some repositioning, too. It’s done all the time, too.
Gary,
You are mistaken. Whatever connotation the term “agnostic” may have picked up since its first use in 1869, Dawkins applies correctly in its original meaning.
It was coined by “Darwin’s Bulldog”, T. H. Huxley. Twenty years later, Huxley elaborated on what he meant by “agnosticism”. He used the word in order to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not. Huxley wrote, “Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the (rigorous) application of a single principle…the fundamental axiom of modern science…In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration…In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable”.
Well Gloateus, you have just described by understanding of agnosticism it – it is really related to scientific principle whereas athiest is a stern religious-type belief. You show yourself to be actually an agnostic as Huxley would have understood it. Don’t be unhappy about this, it is a good thing.
Gary,
You seem to be missing the point, which is that the relationship between agnosticism, properly understood, and atheism is as I described it. All atheists are agnostics. There are some, but not many 50/50 agnostics, or 4s on Dawkins’ seven point scale, who really aren’t sure either way or just don’t care enough about religion to come to a conclusion. But there are lots of people in the 6 to 7 range, for whom continuing to go “meh” is not a rational choice. Even some in the 5-6 range might consider themselves non-militant atheists.
Atheism is not, as you and some other commenters here suppose, a religion requiring a faith-based belief. It is however a choice, based upon one’s being sufficiently convinced by the lack of evidence for a god and preponderance of evidence against the supposition that there is a god or gods, however defined, to conclude that he, she, it or they don’t exist.
Gloateus Maximus “Atheism is not, as you and some other commenters here suppose, a religion requiring a faith-based belief.”
Indeed, it requires faith-based non-belief!
There is no evidence (1) proving god, there is also no evidence proving the non-existence of god (2).
1. Plenty of evidence exists which a person may conclude, or not, that it reveals the existence of god. But what you would accept as proof another might not and if a readily available proof existed then it would be readily available to all from the beginning of human history and thus not usually perceived as anything special.
2. The only way to prove the non-existence of God is to define it in such a way that a proof is possible. Suppose you declare that “God” is a being that never allows children to die. If you observe children dying, then you have proven the non-existence of “God” — at least of that particular kind. But that’s a “straw-god”.
Gary,
In an earlier comment you used the term “scientifically agnostic.” I like it. I would guess that most scientists and engineers are more scientifically agnostic than they are believers. I personally think that scientists and engineers that accepts anything with the probability of one are just kidding themselves and severely limiting the useful scope of their work. Just because something (i.e., a ‘fact’, ‘formula’, ‘theory’, or even a ‘first principle’) has been correct in the past does not mean it will remain so in the future. Expecting otherwise defines nothing more than a personal ‘belief’, which has no place in either science or engineering.
Michael 2,
I like straw god.
Again, atheism is not faith-based because, whatever your experience tells you, there is no objective evidence even of a creator, let alone a deity which intervenes in history and counts falling sparrows and hairs on heads. Besides which, as noted, positing a creator explains nothing. Why worship such a vapid concept? Especially when, if omnipotent, the supposed being is sadistic beyond measure.
Your experiences convince you, but others might chalk them up to accident or some subconscious sense processing.
As science advances, there is ever less space in which the hypothetical being can hide.
Gloateus Maximus writes “atheism is not faith-based”
True for “weak atheism” of the “I really don’t know and I don’t care” variety. But it becomes faith based in the case of “strong atheism” or evangelical atheism.
I do not argue against an atheist arguing against a particular god that cannot exist and such arguments are fairly common between theists: My god exists, your god does not!
“there is no objective evidence even of a creator”
Of course there’s a creator; what is not obvious by inspection is that this creator is anthropomorphic and does not want you to eat meat on Fridays and took only 144 hours to create Life, the Universe, and Everything (see Douglas Adams for more on that theme).
“let alone a deity which intervenes in history and counts falling sparrows and hairs on heads.”
I don’t know that he doesn’t and how would anyone know? History only flows one way; whether an intervention has already altered the flow cannot be known. I have a suspicion that my history has been altered. It is also a bit of an assumption that the Supreme Being does all that. There may well be some flunky spirit that is counting my hairs as they slowly fall and another counting falling sparrows.
I’ll admit to being slightly contaminated by the movie “Time Bandits”, a comedy but contains some remarkably sharp observations.
“Besides which, as noted, positing a creator explains nothing. Why worship such a vapid concept?”
Why indeed. I’m a bit fuzzy on the whole worship thing; while I know with certainty that a god exists, it is not clear to me that anything I do makes the slightest difference to him — but doing things makes a big difference to my neighbor. So, I worship nothing in particular but give service to my neighbor and respect to God. I don’t even know how to “worship”.
“Your experiences convince you, but others might chalk them up to accident or some subconscious sense processing.”
That they do. I am open to alternate explanations of why the voice told me to change lanes and avoid a deadly head-on collision, or at another time, told me to go render assistance to a person that I had no idea needed assistance, his daughter had just been in an automobile accident.
Neither do I strictly attribute these things to a singular person “God” who is merely the supremest of a rather wide variety of things which by their sheer numbers is far more likely what you or anyone else actually encounters. Several dimensions exist such as intellect (will), power, goodness/badness. A good number of people can feel these things, and feel it objectively which is to say, I will feel something and my wife will feel it and shortly after we turn to each other and say, “did you feel that?” I didn’t imagine it (well sometimes I probably do); but two or more persons imagining the exact same thing at the same time and place is a bit unusual.
For you to believe a single word I write would indeed be “blind faith” and there’s no reason for that. I am just telling stories; who does not like a good story? But someone reading these words has the same story, and maybe a doubt, and after reading my words their doubt will be resolved, “I too had that experience!” and their faith will not be blind, for I have not imparted my story, but validated, made objectively real, their own story.
For everyone with an interest in the subject, I highly recommend you see the movie “Contact” (or read the book by Carl Sagan).
Science is belief in what can be proven.
Faith (religion) is belief in what can’t be proved (ie God).
To quote U2 :
“No one is blinder than he who will not see” based on John 9:40-41.
There are people blinded by science and there people blinded by faith; neither can see that faith isn’t science and science isn’t faith. And these people , both coming from a faith and a science background, are the ones that see a conflict between the two.
Everybody has their opinion, but I do not go along with the idea that science involves “belief” of any kind. I have professionally involved myself in science and engineering for 40 years, and it is all an attempt to make the most reasonable sense out of what is observed. It is a world of hypotheses and theories, all of which are understood to be, in principle, temporary…until superseded by something more effective, or by a different way of looking at something.
When I was in graduate school, I had the exhilarating experience in very small classes of joining with the professor in trying to understand the material and where it led. It was from this I obtained the idea of “the Frontier of Ignorance.” We knew things up to a certain point, and beyond that, it was all a vast sea of ignorance.
It is a modern conceit to think that we must have an explanation for everything, and so we come up with flimsy explanations to paper over the gaps where we do not have robust explanations…when the more honest approach would be to admit “we just don’t know” and keep an open mind. A closed mind is like a closed butterfly net. I don’t need to explain the analogy.
Michael 2,
The point of the scientific endeavor is to try to find out how nature works. Of course that requires admitting and recognizing what is not known or well explained, ie our ignorance. But that doesn’t mean that scientists shouldn’t try to understand.
Gloateus Maximus writes: “The point of the scientific endeavor is to try to find out how nature works.”
Why?
1) Just to know, ie basic science.
2) To improve life, applied science.
Michael J. Dunn writes
“I do not go along with the idea that science involves belief of any kind.”
and
“It is a modern conceit to think that we must have an explanation for everything,”
So which is it? Things that are not explained (2) must necessarily then be believed (1) or not believed (1).
I suspect you believe quite a lot that you have not personally proven to be true.
What one labels their philosophy is their choice.
Both in their cleanest form are human paths toward understanding the spaces we inhabit.
Most religions leave lots of room for science.
And from what we can currently measure and safely infer, science has an infinity of room for GOD/Gods.
The sense of wonder, essential for good scientific speculation, is also essential for the humility to know, that we do not know.
From my perspective religion and science are one.A tool for a self deluding, pattern seeking mind to attempt to see.
It is not much, but the scientific method is the best we have come up with so far, to allow the exchange of ideas between men.
When we argue philosophy, religion our communication breakdown is accelerated by the number of undefined terms at the start of the conversation.
To attempt a scientific exchange, we must define our terms at the start.Thus limiting the conservation.
The God problem, is the same as defining “everything”.
If you are a scientist you can not be an atheist. They are mutually exclusive. Atheism is based on a logical fallacy and thus can not be science… nor can atheists be scientists as a result.
Temp,
Your baseless belief will come as a surprise to the hundreds of atheist Nobel Prize winners in scientific categories. You must be confused as to both atheism and science.
even a blind old squirrel can find a nut sometimes… and lets not forget that nobel prizes are not exactly science… they have been popularity contests for awhile(80+ years).
Temp,
Nobody is more skeptical of the Nobel process than I, but the vast majority of scientific Nobels have been warranted.
and I bet they weren’t atheist… plus another issue is that alot of nobel prizes more so recently are pure brutal force money stuff… not really true scientist. Once again science is about following the scientific method… just because you invent or find stuff doesn’t mean you did science to do it, random events do happen.
From this thread, I’ve come to see that self-styled atheists haven’t really given the meaning of their appellation much thought. Gloateus you are protesting much and not usefully criticizing some poster’s well thought out positions. You appeal to Nobel Prize winners, you inform us that the beautiful understanding of the questions by Stephen Hawking then degenerated into mundane atheism. Your atheism, and now I suspect this is a generalization, is more like a scouts badge sewed on your sleeve. Comon’ get into the subject. I thought it cool to be an atheist when a naughty university student but this melted away with a bit of thought.
Gary,
I am showing you what atheists actually think rather than what you imagine they believe. Your atheist period may not be typical of the opinions of long-term atheists.
What atheist “think” is well known. They are a religion based on a host of logical fallacies as the core beliefs they follow. Many evil people made tech advancement doesn’t mean they are any less evil. Science is about following the scientific method… a 12 year old can be a scientist while a harvard grad with 2 PhDs 3 nobel prizes and a cow may not be a scientist.
temp
December 4, 2015 at 11:43 am
What atheists think is apparently not so well known as you imagine, since clearly you have no clue. Just your uninformed opinions.
Obviously, you have never read even one book on what you call atheism by a real atheist, ie an agnostic who can find no compelling reason for assuming the existence of a supernatural being.
Agnosticism is indeed the scientific method in action, contrary to your baseless assertions. For the most rigorous, the most probable conclusion is that there are no gods or spirits, lacking any evidence to that effect. But not all agnostics are persuaded to that extent.
Gloateus Maximus writes: “Obviously, you have never read even one book on what you call atheism by a real atheist”
Now THAT was funny!
Such a book would have two covers and a sheet of blank paper between. That’s if one insisted on having a book that contained nothing.
What else would you like to write about? If anything, then it will be a book on that other thing.
Gloateus Maximus writes “Agnosticism is indeed the scientific method in action”
Also funny. The agnostics were a sect that believed knowledge cannot be known. Agnosticism is deciding that things cannot be known; hardly the scientific method, which exists solely to obtain knowledge, the very thing agnostics say is not possible.
From the Great Oracle Wikipedia: “Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.”
But I see you take your hint from Thomas Huxley (same source).
“In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean not knowable”
However, it appears all of these authors use the word strictly in conjunction with its relationship to God, NOT as a relationship to science, with the singular exception of Huxley.
The Large Hadron Collider is a better example of the scientific method in action.
Michael,
That “single exception”, Huxley, coined the word. That others since him have misunderstood it and misused it isn’t his fault. It means what he said it means, period. People ignorantly apply terms they don’t understand all the time.
“It means what he said it means, period.”
And to me, it means what I say it means, bang!
Michael 2
December 6, 2015 at 4:17 pm
If you imagine that books by real atheists don’t exist, then somehow you are ignoring a great many books.
I guess willful ignorance goes part and parcel with religious belief after all.
Really don’t know how you missed all the atheist literature published by literary and scientific greats over the past few centuries.
Gloateus Maximus writes: “Really don’t know how you missed all the atheist literature published by literary and scientific greats over the past few centuries.”
I have instead been reading books by non-futbol players all these years. It is amazing what afutbolists can write!
There is no such thing as atheist literature. On the other hand, it is entirely possible than an atheist has written a book on gardening; in which case it is a gardening book, not an atheist book.
I cannot imagine why anyone would write a book about a thing that doesn’t exist; necessitating inventing the thing that does not exist so that you can write about how it doesn’t exist.
As to writing about what *you* believe exists but by definition is impossible (atheist literature), we are doing that right now.
Science and religion are not at odds. Religion is a system of belief, science is a system of trying to tell what is likely to be true or real, that is, not what to believe but rather what to work with for the moment. Science could be applied to various religious beliefs, but traditionally has avoided that forbidden territory.. Atheism is anti-scientific because it also is a system of belief. Science asks that you forgo belief and simply follow the evidence. That is much easier said than done and scientists typically believe in all sorts of things, even though the better scientist try not to- AGW being a case in point. It is pretty much as pointless to ask a scientist who has never studied AGW whether or not they believe in it as it is to ask a scientist who has never applied the scientific method to studying religion whether or not they believe in God. In the absence of concrete evidence, (and there are lots of topics other than religion which fall into this category), for the sake of functioning in society one simply has to take their best guess and run with it. But comments like “Science without religion is lame” are childish. There is nothing so thrilling at all as the contemplation that you might be just the culmination of a series of physical, chemical and biological processes and so are solely responsible for all the choices you make in your life, including your own morality. That thought is truly exhilarating and renders the need for God superfluous.
BCBill:
I agree all of your post except its final word which I know should ‘joyous’ and not “superfluous”.
Richard
Yes, I could go with that. On a starry night when you feel you could fall off the earth into the cosmos, you can feel the joy of God or something in creation. Still, one must not let the fear of being alone or of having only your allotted three score and ten, lead into mollifying delusions. What we can see with our own eyes should be quite enough for anybody.
BCBill
As proselytising atheists always do, you proclaim what you want to impose on others when you write
What is “enough” for you is your business. But it is sad that anyone thinks what a person can see with his own eyes is “enough” for them.
I think love, hope and awe make life worth living.
Richard
“Science and religion are not at odds. Religion is a system of belief, science is a system of trying to tell what is likely to be true or real…”
I don’t understand how science would be possible without belief, or why science would be rational to attempt if it did not at least promise to result in belief. It makes me think you haven; given much thought to these matters . .
And what about us pagans? Animals can be gods, too, after all, even odd ‘animals’ like Pegasus. 😉
Open to much contention. But I will interject an observation that I do not expect to be disputed: that what we today know of science has been predominantly the creation of Jews and Christians.
For exemplary evidence, consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_physicists, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_chemists, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_and_technology#Before_the_eighteenth_century from our old pal, Wikipedia. Now, it may be hard to find some who have slipped through the list-making fingers (like Galileo and Isaac Newton), but specific research usually discloses their belief in God.
And why this? Because it is taught that, along with Scripture, creation is God’s word. And if it is His word, it is intelligible and rational, and we are obliged to heed it.
Moreover, the core principle of science, without which it cannot even begin (and which is totally relevant to the concerns of WUWT), is this: Thou shalt not bear false witness…
Yes, the single minded devotion to honesty is the hardest part of being a scientist and the failure to achieve that most fundamental requirement is rapidly undermining the value of science.
“You can explain anything as the action of angels in heaven or demons in hell. However, you can forecast nothing. ”
This is my belief of a key demarcation between what is science and what is not.
The image of the Atheistic Scientist is a cultural icon created by religious fundamentalists whose belief systems rely on unquestioning acceptance of holy writ, and who therefore feel threatened by the rational inquiry of empirical science.
Yup. Not all scientists are atheists.
I like hiring non-atheists scientists because IMO they have imaginations that are more open and fertile, and they seem more easy to get along with in a group. They also are less judgmental. Modern atheists seem hostile and arrogant and are obstinate and intractable which really hurts the creative mix in development situations. Weirdly, the modern atheists tend to have a need to be priests of their atheism. Now, I have hired and worked with self-proclaimed atheists, but they are emotionally confined to their task at hand good technicians for narrow scope jobs. Not someone to bring to a party after work. They really bring down the mood.
As evidence, I give you the above, hostile, intense, cruel advocates of atheism…not good for group dynamic.
Paul,
My experience has been just the opposite. I agree that militant atheists can be annoying, but less so than the highly hostile, intense and cruel, indeed vicious and vindictive, self-professed Christians outside the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial.
Would you really not hire Bohr, Pauling or Crick? Dirac, I grant you, might not have mingled well, as a militant.
You don’t have a real name, therefore lack sincere conviction. I won’t engage.
Yeah, wouldn’t want an employees that can spot nonsense. Better to hire likeable morons that won’t be able to upset anyone as the ship goes down for lack of application of mathematical and scientific rigor.
Dear Lancifer, I can’t resist a reply. According to your sarcasm, you would clearly not hire Isaac Newton, a profound Christian mystic…who, by the way, spent the latter part of his life as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint, where he fought relentlessly (and successfully) against counterfeiters. Also, as Warden and Master, he basically invented industrial time and motion studies. Yes, a really worthless lunkhead.
All it takes for a theory to be falsified is one contrary fact. Or so we tell ourselves…
Michael J. Dunn
Hi Michael,
As I said, “As evidence, I give you the above, hostile, intense, cruel advocates of atheism…not good for group dynamic.”
My favorite lunkheads, as you put it, is Father Georges Henri LeMaitre, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Pascal, Decarte, Indeed Sir Isacc Newton, Kurt Godel, Einstein, Gregor Mendel, Stokes, Faraday, Maxwell, Volta, Euler, Ken Miller, Boyle, Babbage, …. I am getting tired…. but Michael, I know you know. 🙂
God Bless you.
May I also add the Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham who is widely credited with an empirical method that looks suspiciously like the scientific method.
I know I am feeding a troll but Popperian falsification is fun.
My only comment is on the Einstein quote, and it is in the form of a question.
Q: Isn’t science (like our laws & justice system too) supposed to be blind to preconceptions, biases, and desired outcomes? Isn’t being blind the only way forward? Isn’t the unbiased child more likely to declare the emperor is naked, than the adults worried about social ostracism?
I once saw a quote attributed to Lorenz to the effect that a theoretician must know the answer he is trying to prove before he can prove it, so he can puzzle out the way to get to it. I don’t recall the exact words, and I can’t find it quickly at the moment).
If that doesn’t show the utility of preconceptions in science, I don’t know what would.
The key to science is that the path one takes to the Truth must be one that anyone ELSE may in Principle travel, if they so desire, and they will inevitably arrive at the same location.
Independently verifiable…
Einstein clearly wrote about his earliest thought experiments (gedanken experiment) of what the universe would look like if he were riding on a beam of light, as he tried to reconcile that with Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell’s equations. He realized the key idea of special relativity was embodied as time dilation and reference frames were always relative to the observer. He reasoned from his thought experiments that C had to be an absolute speedlimit (measured same value by all observers) that ensured causality.
From those thought experiments, he knew the answer the theoretical mathematic transformations formulae must provide. That E = mC^2 though was not preconceived, it came out of the transformation math.
But he was a maverick, with no intellectual stake in preserving classical notions of absolute time and space. His seniors were trapped intellectually in old paradigms.
tadchem “a theoretician must know the answer he is trying to prove before he can prove it, so he can puzzle out the way to get to it.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
In the case of religion and God the problem has no solution. You cannot prove the existence or nonexistence of God without a definition, but the moment you have created a definition you have also created a straw-god that may or may not have any resemblance to the real thing.
Induction never arrives at truth with perfect certainty. However, revelation gets there instantly — but only for the person so instructed. From that moment on, logic is deductive and emanates from sure knowledge of perhaps one fact only, but becomes certification of many claims.
I’ve not read all the submitted comments carefully, but it seems to me that an answer to the fundamental questions of How? and Why? concerning the “mystery of life” isn’t among them. Here are some of my own thoughts…
The how and why of existence are factual unknowns.
Science has no ability to determine the how and why of existence since its competence is limited to dealing with the universe of space, time, energy, matter and living things in which we find ourselves.
The dilemma we face is there is no possible answer to the questions of how and why available to us unless we attribute creation to a supreme being, but, of course, that presents still another how and why.
Attributing creation to a supreme being, however, does allow us to speculate that our inability to discover the answer to how and why is a deliberate and purposeful part of our creation, and that we are intentionally challenged to search for the how and why of existence, realizing than any hypothesis we come up with is neither provable nor falsifiable.
From this, one can infer that the “mystery of life” is by design and for us to ponder and come to our own conclusions using reason and perception.
The continuous motion and commotion occurring within the universe is propelled by 1) the physical laws of nature, 2) the struggle for survival, plus for humans, 3) free will. Although it would seem unimaginable that everything occurring around us is a reflection of god’s full-time, hands-on control of events, it would also seem unimaginable that god doesn’t intervene at times to influence the course of events, including responding to prayer.
Leaving the question of divinity aside, the influence of Jesus’ brief ministry and consequent establishment of Christianity has been profound and immeasurably beneficial. The wide appeal and rapid expansion of Christianity can be attributed to three defining characteristics— 1) the comfort of spirituality, 2) the promise of forgiveness, and 3) the personal and collective well-being afforded by the practice of selfless compassion, nicely summarized in a biblical quote: “faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.”
From a marketing perspective, to me atheism looks like an inferior product. It claims we came into existence by accident, for no purpose. During the brief time we’re here, bad things often happen to good people and good things sometimes happen to really bad ones. But we don’t have any control over any of that, because the laws of nature preclude free will. Then we inevitably die into oblivion. Wow!
In contrast, even if there is no God or afterlife, I’m still a satisfied follower of Jesus. By any objective standards, things have gone a lot better for me than anyone would have expected from my trajectory when I was an atheist. And I have found many good reasons to believe in God and heaven, which by the way no one can prove don’t exist. So I’ll continue to live in hope of life after death and eventual justice to compensate for its absence now.
Again from a marketing perspective, you’d like to have appealing people in your advertising and publicity. But the examples many people see of atheists are on the Internet, and much of the time many of them come across as very angry. This in contrast to Jesus, whom even some non-believers see as attractive. (Yeah, we undoubtedly have our share of jerks too, as Gandhi may have said in an oft-quoted favorable comment about Christ, but very few really hostile ones.)
I believe ‘human spirituality’ played a huge roll in the development of our minds. Before the written word was invented, history and knowledge was passed on through fantastical song and dance. However after the written word was invented, did we see the rise of religion which I believe is a perversion of human spirituality.
Fyi, I’d like to think of myself as an agnostic theist since I neither believe nor disbelieve in beings greater than myself and I think human spirituality is fundamental to who we are as a species.
I urge this blog to not go where WM Briggs goes.
Hans Erren wrties: “I urge this blog to not go where WM Briggs goes.”
Too late 😉
Already there. Your blog can go where you lead it or let it go.
I must me the only atheist liberal climate sceptic in the world then.
Functionally you can divide people in two groups:
Religious people, for whom religion is perceived as an important part of their lives.
Non-religious people, for whom religion is either not an important part or plays no role in their lives.
I would say that 97% of scientists belong to the second group.
Javier,
Obviously wrong, since it is claimed that ‘97%’ of scientists believe in “dangerous AGW”.
Of course, we know that’s nonsense.
Javier your false dichotomy isn’t even clever. Fact-free, but not clever.
It’s not that black and white.
You don’t have to be religious to be spiritual. Human spirituality is a product of the growing intelligence of our early ancestors. It was initially a method of passing on knowledge through fantastical story telling so that we could better document anything and everything vital too our survival. Look no further than Native Americans from both the north and the south.
All in all, religion is a perversion of human spirituality as it attempts, most effectively, to control the masses and consolidate power via doctrine.
Oh and you can be a scientist and be spiritual at the same time. I mean, all that spirituality really means is that you believe you’re apart of something larger than yourself. For me, it’s something physical – The Earth. I believe all life is connected and that you never truly die (there is no scientific evidence that there is a difference between life and death), but become a million other things after you decompose. After all, we’re only 15% human and 85% bacteria all of which is composed of star dust billions of years old …
That is human spirituality, the recognition that you are connected to everything on this little blue dot.
“God does not play dice with the universe”
-Albert Einstein
(I think he was objecting to quantum uncertainties)
Correct. He made the comment in opposition to the Heisenberg UP.
“God” is figurative, expressing his now outdated view of how the universe works.
Well, maybe not all scientists are atheists (the headline) also begets the opposite too … not all atheists are scientists?
I should think that there are relationships between the two: the principles of scientific discovery, mathematical/theoretic systemic classification, testable theory assessment, vigorous debate and rejection of unprovable “magic spirits” would at least statistically guide a larger-fraction-than-nominal number of people who are scientists to also be atheists.
But the opposite is true? That people who for whatever reasons reject theism might be more inclined to take up life work as scientists? Yes, this might be the case: without theism or other pancreatism “meaning of life” belief system, I can imagine that scientific pursuit is a pretty good proxy religion.
So both statements must then be true. Neither is an exclusive subset of the other. Just a likely relation.
GoatGuy
Science is, by design, and necessity, a frame-based philosophy. The perception of a finite consciousness (e.g. human) has accuracy that is inversely proportional to the product of time and space offsets from an established reference. The scientific logical domain intersects with the faith logical domain. Individuals who acknowledge their faith, and whose articles of faith recognize the soft separation of logical domains, will experience no conflict between logical domains including science and faith.
Whether it’s theism or atheism, the problem is, historically, individuals who suffer from a god-complex (e.g. acute narcissism, material greed). Individuals who may or may not acknowledge their faith and intrinsic limitations. Typically the men and women who are morally insane and choose to denigrate individual dignity and/or debase human life.