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Comment by newdayrising | Hacker News Reader

I think it's the opposite. There are scientists who are obsessed with finding extraterrestrial life because of their philosophical views regarding man's place in the universe. The fact that our universe seems primed for life has bothered so many gung ho atheistic scientists that they've conjured all sorts of semi-pseudoscientific multiverse theories (Sean Carroll). That's one part of it. The second part it's reducing abiogenesis to a simple process that just "takes time" and is almost inevitable. The goal is to try to shove bare faced facts into a dusty drawer while you trot out the latest sensational theory. This is why there's been constant attacks on the Big Bang theory even though it's one of the triumphs of modern cosmological science. It all becomes so easy to justify when you define science as "what atheists believe."

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Methodological naturalism as applied to the scientific Certainly has no dependence on atheism.

Who categorizes science as an intrinsically atheistic endeavor other than religious apologists?

The perception that all scientists are atheists comes from a small number of loud dogmatists. This is exactly like the perception that all Christians are literalist fundamentalists or hold right wing political beliefs.

All scientists are not atheists, just the smart ones. Depends on your interpretation of the word though. I don't consider atheism to be a complete abscence of philosophical pondering. I believe we haven't explored emergent consciousness enough and that makes it a mystery. But a scientist believing in a God from an ancient textbook is a red flag for me

Only 7% of Nobel Prize winners are "smart"? https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_of_Nobel_...

How would microbial life on mars be a confirmation of atheists beliefs?

The nature of general religious beliefs is that they're essentially non-falsifiable.

And particularly in this case, life on mars wouldn't be shocking due to the fact that there is life on earth and there is a small amount of mass transfer. If there isn't some amount of microbial life on mars it would only because of the dumb luck that there hasn't happened to be anything on earth that could get transferred, survive the transfer, and survive on mars.

Why would a position on athiesm have any negative bearing on whether the universe is teaming with life? Atheism would likely posit that finding life all over the place hints that it's a common natural process.

People could also see it as evidence for a creator, e.g. that the universe is obviously fine tuned for life. Theism isn't scientifically testable or falsifiable, so science can't say much of anything about it.

Moving the goalpost doesn't prove much. Going from how special we are vis a vis Adam and Eve, to accepting life is actually everywhere and has been since well before Earth was a thing is itself a huge leap to make.

Is it really different than any other retcon that's occurred in the last 500 years? At least in Christianity anything can be de-emphasized or treated as metaphor if it is inconvenient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

What?

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