Does science lead to atheism? Not really 2 Jul 2009 Occasionally one’s sole impact on things is the ability to get other people to do good work by threatening to do it badly. I was set to do a review of survey’s on scientists and religious belief, but the literature got out of hand rather quickly, so I emailed Matt Young, who with John Lynch had written a piece on religious belief among scientists for a book. This got Matt rushing to head me off before I made a complete arse of myself, and the result is this piece at The Panda’s Thumb. The short answer is: Paul Strode and I tried to show that science is not necessarily incompatible with religion, though it certainly falsifies the specific claims of some religions. Nevertheless, both atheists and creationists (some of them, anyway) want to think that science necessarily leads toward atheism or agnosticism. It is hard to say, but it seems more likely that skeptics or freethinkers, who may be already inclined toward disbelief in God, are more likely to become scientists or, perhaps, science teachers. The claim that social scientists are less likely to believe than are physical scientists may not stand up to scrutiny. Creationism and Intelligent Design Epistemology General Science Philosophy Religion Science Social evolution
Administrative Off to talk religion and evolution 18 Sep 2008 Okay, so in the AM I am off to drizzly Melbourne, my old home town, to address a conference on the implications of the project of naturalising religion, especially in terms of evolution, to an audience that may, or may not be religious. So if you never hear from me… Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 5: Social Dominance and Power 2 Nov 20112 Nov 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Thus far we have focused on the differences between human beings and apes, and the ways we should expect to find each species behave. What do all apes… Read More
Cognition Evolution Quotes: Quine on evolving similarity 16 Aug 2012 A sense of comparative similarity, I remarked earlier, is one of man’s animal endowments. Insofar as it fits in with regularities of nature, so as to afford us reasonable success in our primitive inductions and expectations, it is presumably an evolutionary product of natural selection. Secondly, as remarked, one’s sense… Read More
The way I see it, every world view since the rise of science is a modern discipline has tried to get it on their side. The error, I think, is in the notion that science has a “side”. If it turfs your most beloved beliefs, then that’s just too bad. In the case of atheism, it’s just as unsupportable, to the extent that it makes any claim that one could try to support, as any religion. It certainly has a lot smaller body of claims to put through the ringer (well, it only has one claim, really). As to why so many scientists seem to lean towards atheism or agnosticism, I suspect it’s many because scientists are disciplined to think in very rational terms. Religions tend to rely upon one form of ecstatic experience or another, so no matter how many times the Pope insists it’s all very reasoned and rational, well, it isn’t.
Atheism says, “There is no good scientific evidence supporting the existence of a god.” That is what atheists mean when they say that science supports atheism, and the truth of that statement is why it is correct to say so. So how, exactly, is that “just as unsupportable” as any religion? The only way that it could be “just as unsupportable” is if theists could produce good scientific evidence supporting the existence of a god. But the issue is precisely that they cannot do so, so it is simply wrong to say that atheism is “just as unsupportable” as believing in the existence of some god.
Atheism says, “There is no good scientific evidence supporting the existence of a god.” That is what atheists mean when they say that science supports atheism, and the truth of that statement is why it is correct to say so. So how, exactly, is that “just as unsupportable” as any religion? The only way that it could be “just as unsupportable” is if theists could produce good scientific evidence supporting the existence of a god. But the issue is precisely that they cannot do so, so it is simply wrong to say that atheism is “just as unsupportable” as believing in the existence of some god. If that is what an atheist claims, then the atheist is off base. Since an (alleged) supernatural being is fundamenetally beyond science’s capacity to create any kind of a theory for, the statement you make is fundamentally flawed. Equating atheism with science, or claiming that atheism is a natural derivative of science is false. Perhaps it makes some atheists feel superior to imagine that their position is scientific, but clearly it is not. And, before you ask, I am an atheist. As I’ve said many times over the years, I feel my atheism is rational, I do not pretend that it is scientific. God is quite beyond the realm of science.