The Three Shades of Atheism How atheists differ in their views on God Conclusions: Faith-Based Atheism In demonstrating a sizable category of gnostic atheists, our data reveal a way of thinking among many atheists that is fundamentally religious in nature. Do atheists accept atheism on faith? In The God Delusion, Dawkins proposed a “spectrum of probabilities”7 to represent the range of judgments that people could make on the question of God’s existence. It is a continuous scale highlighted by seven landmarks: (1) strong theist, (2) de facto theist, (3) leaning towards theism, (4) completely impartial, (5) leaning towards atheism, (6) de facto atheist, and (7) strong atheist. Dawkins characterizes his own position as (6) and “leaning towards” (7). He states that it is not (7) only because, in principle, one cannot prove that something does not exist. It would have to be accepted on faith, and in contrast to believers in God, “Atheists do not have faith…” However, when we look at the data we find that more than half of atheists who take a belief position express certainty in the non-existence of God, with statements such as “Atheist means that you are certain there is no such thing as god,” “I’m certain there are no gods,” and “There is no God or other deity and I don’t entertain the notion that there might be.” As Dawkins states, “reason alone could not propel one to total conviction that anything definitely does not exist.” What fills the gap here is faith. At the extreme ends of Dawkins’ scale we essentially have two opposing religions. ---- see the comments - atheists are incensed
Is Science Hitting a Wall?, Part 1 In the realm of pure science, many physicists remain stubbornly committed to strings and multiverses, things too small and large ever to be observed. Theories of consciousness have also gotten wackier lately. Prominent experts are espousing panpsychism, which holds that consciousness might be a property of many kinds of matter, not just brains. As with strings and multiverses, panpsychism cannot be experimentally confirmed. Another sign that science is running out of gas is the sharp increase in average ages of winners of Nobel Prizes in science, and especially physics. *The replication crisis isn’t a reporting artifact. Then there is the replication crisis, the finding by statistician John Ioannidis and others that many peer-reviewed claims cannot be replicated. Optimists insist that the scientific literature is no more flawed than it used to be. We’re just giving the flaws more attention now, which is a positive trend. At The Session, an expert on the replication crisis rejected this upbeat perspective. He said that science has become less reliable because competition among researchers for publications, grants, tenure and other rewards has become more intense. ---------- Part2: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-science-hitting-a-wall-part-2/ I can imagine other fields designating a Dead Ideas Officer to improve efficiency, except that in some fields ideas never die. Look, for example, at the persistence of Freudian psychoanalysis in psychology and of string theory in physics. The Dead Ideas Officer could perhaps issue recommendations as to which ideas should be dead and hence cut off from further investment. That would be a thankless job, but someone has to do it, for science’s sake. --------- https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-science-infinite/ Rees’s view resembles mine. In The End of Science I asserted that scientists are running into cognitive and physical limits and will never solve the deepest mysteries of nature, notably why there is something rather than nothing. I predicted that if we create super-intelligent machines, they too will be baffled by the enigma of their own existence. In Switzerland I suggested that the riddle of consciousness is a synecdoche for the riddle of humanity. What are we, really? For most of our history, religion has given us the answer. We are immortal souls, children of a loving god, striving to reach heaven or nirvana. Most modern scientists reject these religious explanations, but they cannot agree on an alternative. They have proposed a bewildering variety of answers to the question of what we really are. We are clusters of neurons awash in chemicals, genes shaped by natural selection, egos keeping a lid on ids, software programs, nodes of information in a cosmic web, quantum wave functions. wow! --- Deutsch’s claim that science is infinite also has a contradiction at its core. He wants science to solve the deepest mysteries, like consciousness, and yet to have more mysteries to solve, forever. That is a radical assertion about the structure of nature, which to my mind reflects wishful thinking rather than hardheaded realism. -- So take a step back and you will see - these oh so mighty scientists - are no more than rats going round in circles - confined to the narrow grooves of their human limitations - a tiring and never-ending journey which ultimately leads nowhere. If only they would just look up and see that there's a real-world right above their heads [scathing pun intended].
science journals are written by humans. the Holy Qur'an and Traditions are from Allah & His Noble Messenger. which is more reliable? decide..........
Saving Science - a must read for deluded Muslims who have come to consider "science" as the touchstone upon which everything - even scripture and creed - should be tested. It's insane - "science" is an imperfect tool, full of limitations and as susceptible to human weaknesses such as lying and manipulation as any other endeavor out there - it is too shallow to answer the Big Questions of existence. The patchy and limited understanding it provides has certainly made the airplane and the atom bomb and the smartphone possible - but it is too shy to answer anything beyond the sensory and even that with characteristic incompetence, more often than not, filling the gaps with guesswork, imagination and even fantasy! How unfortunate and stupid are those who give up faith - or harbor doubts - just because the all too human "science" has not yet been able to "prove" something.
Nobody, it turns out, likes heretics. The Science Delusion Sheldrake was to be "condemned in exactly the language that the pope used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reason. It is heresy". Scientific Heretic Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic Fields He presented an alternative framework—involving his theory of morphic resonance (explained below)--in his 1981 book A New Science of Life, which Maddox, in a now-famous Nature editorial, called "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years." The Anti-Science Canard It started when Hank Campbell, creator of the Science 2.0 , accused me of being “anti-science” and “hating biology,” which he claimed I see as a “tool of Lucifer.” The biases and intolerance are obvious.
to err is human, to pretend it isn't is the "new science". Scientists are humans - and humans beings have limits, one of which is subtle and overt biases. Humans cannot know reality anymore than is humanly possible. But pop science ignores this fact and equivocates scientists' version of reality with reality itself. Science is what scientists do Science is not what scientists do --- 10 Biggest Research Scandals My favorite: For well over a decade, Diederik Stapel of University of Groningen, University of Amsterdam, and University of Tilburg printed up more than a dozen psychological studies, which landed him success in both academic journals and mainstream news outlets. His 2011 suspension happened as a direct result of pretty much all of it being straight-up garbage. More than 30 publishing outfits found themselves duped by falsified research, plagiarism, and all other fun, grossly unethical good times. Although they maintain their anonymity for perfectly understandable reasons, it’s suspected that his notoriously abused graduate students – and maybe even a colleague or two – finally went and told the school what was up. Stapel currently contends with criminal charges filed by University of Tilburg for compromising the academic success of everyone who relied on his research. Another ten Most notorious science scandals 2015 UK-based BioMed Central, the publisher of over 270 peer-reviewed journals, pulled 43 papers earlier this year on account of “fabricated” peer reviews. The committee, it said, “has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals across different publishers.” Accounting professor James Hunton, formerly of Bentley University, reached a notorious milestone of sorts. Following a retraction due to a “misstatement” in November 2012, an investigation found Hunton guilty of another 31 infractions, which has now earned him a place in the top 10 of the Retraction Watch leaderboard. Top Science Scandals of 2012 A widely discussed research study published this year showed that more than sloppy mistakes or accidental omissions, retracted papers are most likely to be withdrawn from publication because of scientific misconduct or knowlingly publishing false data. In fact, more than 65 percent of the 2,000 or so papers studied were retracted because of poor ethical judgment. According to that report, high impact journals have been hardest hit by the increasing rate of retractions over the past decade. Just 700 out of 2000 passed scrutiny. What that means is anybody's guess.