All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists | Hacker News Reader

All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists

newyorker.com

33 pointssnake11735 comments

I should preface this by saying that I'm an atheist scientist myself, but...

The author has no idea what he's talking about. He's clearly ignorant of basic epistemology as it relates to both religion and his own field. Worse, he embodies the kind of hubris for which the militant atheist community has gained notoriety.

There are sacred ideas in science. Granted, they aren't referred to as sacred per se, but they are the same thing at their core: non-negotiable tenets that are accepted a priori. In science, we typically call such things "assumptions" or "postulates".

To list but one example, take the idea that truth is ascertainable through the senses (empiricism). This is a metaphysical question which the natural sciences, by their own admission, cannot scrutinize.

Edit: why on earth was the article flagged? Just when the debate was getting interesting!

Real scientists with half an ounce of amateur-level psychology and social-sciences under their belt ought to be capable of realizing that scientists writ large are capable of: having a variety of different personal goals (including desired sociopolitical outcomes), thinking intelligently about whether or not "militantism" in their belief system is the most effective way to achieve their goals all the time (or if they'd attract more flies with honey than vinegar), the extent to which it's ethical to inflict their beliefs and goals on an unwilling populace (whether that be university students or the people of the world), whether irrational behaviors are sometimes perhaps super-rational, and the role that this "religion" concept has played in human evolution and society.+

They're allowed a choice of answers, of course, so saying "all scientists should be militant atheists" is painting with a brush too broad.

They should also (generally speaking) welcome people from a diversity of cultures and ways of thinking, as these people can provide different perspectives on the questions in their field.

+ good book, btw: http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Human-Evolution-Paleolithic-A...

The "all scientists should be militant atheists" part was more like "if liking good explanations over superstitious tradition is called militant atheism then yes, call me a militant atheist".

No, they shouldn't. The article says that through god you can justify anything. It appears in the absence of God you can do the same things. No one appears to have the duality of man or even basic separation of things that you beleve versus things you know?

That's missing the point, I think. Dr. Krauss wouldn't avoid challenging non-religious beliefs and theories that he believes are wrong, either. For example, he's vocal on climate change, and while there's some overlap between religiosity and disbelief in climate change (or disbelief that it matters even if it is occurring), the core claims of climate change vs no climate change are about sources of data and validity of models, which are secular arguments.

Pointing out that the sociological pathologies that lead to bad beliefs under religion can also exist in an ostensibly religion-free culture or group does not address the disparity in social acceptance of critique between bogus religious doctrine and bogus non-religious doctrine.

Krauss's argument is not that we should try to eradicate anything that encourages wrong belief (Krauss is not as extreme as Harris or Dawkins). Rather, Krauss's argument is that religious beliefs should be as open to criticism as non-religious belief (and not defended simply because they're religious in origin).

> The article says that through god you can justify anything. It appears in the absence of God you can do the same things.

Would you like to substantiate this claim? How is it possible for an atheist with a philosophy rooted in the scientific method justify "anything" without contradicting core principles of said scientific method?

EDIT: For some reason I am unable to reply anywhere in this thread, so I am updating this. Current replies are missing an important point: adherence to scientific method and atheism requires adopting a set of constraints logically derived from axioms of the scientific method. This constraints are concrete, empirical, testable. They greatly decrease the cardinality of a set with non-contradictory justifiable ideas.

On a side note, it is amusing to see HN blossom with postmodern philosophy when religion is involved.

Because the scientific method has nothing to do with morality. The author gives the example in his own article when he says that he doesn't understand why people would have a problem experimenting on aborted or miscarried foetuses.

Well the scientist might see it as a bag of matter that would otherwise be thrown out with the trash, but unborn child's mother might have a different perspective on the issue. It concerns me that the author apparently doesn't get this.

The scientific method is not strictly sound from a logical perspective - it depends on the acceptance of an unproven prior axiom, namely that the universe works through repeatable rules and all knowledge about it can be acquired by performing controlled experiments. That axiom is not falsable, and therefore does not follow the scientific method; but as long as the results of this process are consistent - i.e. devoid from contradictions, we accept it for pragmatic reasons.

Scientific religious people work from a slightly different set of axioms: there is God which defines how the universe behaves, and knowledge is acquired by a combination of empiric observation and introspection about your own and others' feelings. As long as the results of this process are also consistent, there is no logical difference between both philosophical approaches - either both are rational, or neither are.

I would love that more atheists understood the philosophical problem of the Regress argument [1] - it would make science-religion debates much more friendly and respectful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument

The Brother's Karamazov. If there is no god, than perhaps there are no consequences to our actions.

Anyways. I'm with Einstein, the universe is way too elegant for there not to be a god.

He could take a nihilist, hedonistic position. It doesn't matter if he hurts someone through his acts if there is no one to judge him.

Of course atheists are not devoid of morals and certainly not all religious people are acting in a moral way.

Yes, with the absence of god Stalin for example justified a whole lot of things. So did Mao.

One shouldn't underestimate the effect of an authority (possibly imagined - I don't want to argue about this here) that might judge you no matter if no one will be able to judge you here in life.

There are many people that would refrain from certain acts just because of this belief.

I don't think that an attempt to bluff sociopaths is sufficient benefit for a generalized belief in a specific revengeful or judgemental higher being.

As someone who do not believe in some higher powers and live without god, I can not disagree more with this view.

Not only is it simplistic to say the least it's also completely missing the point of science.

But even worse is that it's promoting a kind of atheism that is primarily of interest to a minute group of atheist who have been replacing religion with obsession.

Scientists can be doomsday religions fanatics for all I care. As long as they are curious, methodic, critical and factual; they are going to produce just as good work as someone who believes that scientists should be militant atheist.

On an aside: I just noticed the nice underlining used in the site. After some digging, I came across these two links [1,2] explaining how it works. Very interesting:

[1] http://www.acusti.ca/blog/2014/11/28/towards-a-more-perfect-...

[2] https://medium.com/designing-medium/crafting-link-underlines...

Science and religion conflict because they're both seen as a source of truth.

However, if we were mature about it we'd see that neither science or religion is a source of truth, not of absolute truth anyway. The important part of science is the method of inquiry, the important part of religion is the method of building character.

If both scientists and religious leaders could accept the 'all I know is that I know nothing' idea, I suspect there'd be much fewer issues between them.

Science and religion conflict because they're both seen as a source of truth.

Religion claims to be the source of [absolute] truth.

Science seems to be most humble about it, always self-doubting, always open to better explanations.

If both scientists and religious leaders could accept the 'all I know is that I know nothing' idea, I suspect there'd be much fewer issues between them.

Religion is much more than [absolute] truth.

It also claims [absolute] morality.

Absolute rules.

And that means their leaders, their belief and their rules are untouchable and will always be.

Good, in that case we're half way there, just need to have more guidance towards 'belief over truth' on the religious side.

Science doesn't care about 'truth', but about falsifiable explanations and predictions. This is a complete opposite of religion.

Science admits there is a lot of things we don't understand, yet religion asserts a universal explanation of everything, God.

I don't think either science or religion are seen as a source of the truth. They're both methods established to help seek the truth, be it rational truth in the case of science, or irrational truth in the case of religion, but neither purport to provide absolute answers.

I suppose between the times of Newton and Einstein you could say that science did purport to be able to provide all the answers, but I'm not sure that can still be claimed after Heisenberg.

This one contains fantastic snippets.

"Belief or nonbelief in God is irrelevant to our understanding of the workings of nature—just as it’s irrelevant to the question of whether or not citizens are obligated to follow the law."

"Five hundred years of science have liberated humanity from the shackles of enforced ignorance. We should celebrate this openly and enthusiastically, regardless of whom it may offend."

The first snippet is quite absurd. Historically, laws are based on religious believes, or at least sacred texts.

The inherent difficulty of our modern society is to find new basis for grounding our laws on. But science is irrelevant in that matter. Which is why we see a resurgence of religious believes nowadays.

Disappointing that bullshit clickbait articles get so much traction on HN.

> The Kim Davis story raises a basic question:

No, it really doesn't. A person's right to freedom of religion means they cannot be compelled to perform actions incompatible with that religion. Kim Davis is not compelled to marry gay people. Kim Davis chooses a job that has the requirement to marry gay people. Kim Davis is free to chose a job that fits her religion better. Sucks for her that the requirements of the job changed halfway through her career, but I guess I can't muster too much sympathy for ignorant fucking bigots who've forced their hate onto other people.

I am pragmatic

I don't care in what scientists believe as long as they do their job (that are accepted in the society) and their beliefs don't interfere with it.

Also remember there are racists, conspiracy nuts, religious zealots within the scientific community as well (and let me say especially since "being a researcher" is more about pushing conservative papers and doing bureaucracy than actually experimenting stuff)

Apart from the clickbait title, the article is mostly common sense. No ideas should be held as beyond questioning/testing/proving etc. Labeling this approach as atheism just confuses the matter.

Scientists should advocate science.

God & friends are beside the point, though. Religion in public life is more often a sock puppet, obediently speaking the lines of basically non religious ideas like Catholic natural law philosophy and evangelical panic in the face of modernity.

In this regard, atheism and theism are just playing the roles of competing sock puppets and you won't alter the debate by banishing God from it. It will likely just jump to another equally obliging puppet (such as arguing on the basis of what's "natural").

Nope, they should be militant sceptics.

A skeptic, presented with a super-natural explanation for natural events, which makes tons of falsifiable (and falsified!) claims, stops being skeptical, and asserts the theory is false.

The premise of science held by scientists is to do everything from the power of understanding to refute the existence of higher or supernatural force or being that cannot be quantified in that very power of understanding.

So in short, scientists are the military wing of atheism, for they fight the battles that might terrorize atheists into thinking that a higher supernatural order exists.

I am tired of "atheist" scientists, how can you justify scientifically the absence of god?

When you enter the non-falsable territory you can believe what you want, and in parallel do all the science you want.

I agree with the author that you cant break the law because of religious ideas, but also in geneal you dont want to force someone to do something that hoes against his beleifs.

This is just brought up around the author sitting in airports and having to deal with CNN's news cycle... Of course there's strong reactions from both sides but the court case is playing out in your position's favor.

Ignore and it will fade.

My take away isn't that scientists should be atheists, but people shouldn't be illogical bigots

>ITA(rticle) fedora tippers

Real scientists recognize Atheism as being illogical as both it and Theism are based on faith.

The Agnostic position is the only logical position one can take, as it is not faith-based and it makes an assertion that is true: we don't really know if a God(s) exist or do not exist. There's no proof that one does, and there will never be proof that none do.

I don't believe there is sufficient evidence for the existence of a super-natural, omnipotent being.

Further, I believe that the Gods described by every major religion were invented by humans.

As for strictly believing there is no god, it would require super-natural evidence to prove the non-existence of a super-natural being. Therefore, it's a nonsense question.

On the whole, this classifies me as an atheist. It requires no faith to believe that a mystic book, and a bunch of people who believe in it, are self-deluded. It is the extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof. Asserting the extraordinary claim is most likely not true is not a matter of faith, it should be the default position - especially after the overwhelming lack of evidence.

Real scientists know the colloquial notion of atheism is false and are, in fact, atheists.

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