News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by rayiner on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @07:03PM (#10748450)
> Frankly, I think belief in the supernatural should be screenable in an employment application

If you apply this fairly, it would exclude a lot of people. For example, I meet a lot of people folks here on HN that believe in "human rights" or "natural rights" that don't arise out of legal documents. But if you cut someone open, you can't find any "natural rights" in there, nor has anyone provided experimental evidence characterizing the physics of "natural rights."

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by Amezarak on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:07PM (#10748741)
Yup. These same people find these rights somehow engraved in their minds (from education in the civic religion and other socialization) and consider them to be eternal and obvious truths, which were nevertheless somehow not apparent to anyone for approximately two million years of human history, which is full of people murdering, raping, and enslaving without the slightest consideration that it might be violating people's rights.

I don't mean to pick on them, but just to strengthen your point: almost all of us believe in something supernatural (which doesn't make it any more real, of course.) But what really characterizes people who believe in something supernatural is they believe that thing is natural. Devout Christians do, of course, believe that God transcends nature, having created it, but God is for them an entirely 'natural' thing, a perfectly obvious and eternal truth that everybody should just know, you'd think, an inalienable part of the natural world.

This kind of fundamental belief, or axiom, or cognitive bias, or whatever you want to call it, is very difficult for most people to really identify and understand in themselves.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by harryh on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:23PM (#10748826)
Now you have me trying to identify and understand a supernatural belief that I might hold without realizing it.

I don't believe in god or natural rights, so examples raised so far are out.

Maybe markets. I believe that forces like supply and demand are fundamental and essential in all sorts of human interactions. But maybe that's just because I can't transcend some sort of deeply engrained thinking.

Hrmmmmmmmm.

Re:I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my per... by pvaldes on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @08:34PM (#10786606)
This is a logical fallacy. Lets say.

A) Scientists believing in the supernatural should not be hired.

This statement could be correct or not.

B) supernatural events can not be explained with the laws of physics. There is not any experimental evidence of any supernatural event.

This is true.

C) "natural rights" can not be explained with the laws of physics. There is not any experimental evidence of any "natural right" inside a human body. If you cut someone open you can't find any "natural rights" in there.

This seems true, but is false in fact *

D) Thus, we conclude that people believing in natural rights should not be hired.

Not. This is a fallacy because C is not related at all with neither A, nor B. Thus your example can not teach us about if A is false. Is not a proof of anything.

To suggest that people "believe" in a paper with something written on it is equivalent to people "believe" in god is wrong. You can sacrifice a chicken and them put its corpse in a fridge, but you are not trying to make the fridge happier or less angry. Is not a god. Fridges, as laws, are just created by humans to improve the life inside human societies. A law is just a pact, a paper with something written on it its origin and creation can be explained perfectly without to breaking any natural rule. Laws can seem esotheric, but this is not remotely equivalent to such thing as "a supernatural event".

* Yes, C is false. If you cut someone open that believe in natural rights you could find some copies of those "natural rights" of course, as chemical traces saved in the cells that hold the memory and culture of this people. At least for a while.