Re:All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists
by omginternets on Friday September 11, 2015 @08:41AM
(#10203305)
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!
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!