Is atheism a scientific perspective?

[Angrboda]

It also includes the reverse, arguing that something is false until proven true, which is what he's doing.

Ok... I agree.  Admittedly, I wasn't following much prior to my entry into the thread, so I cannot comment, but am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this.

In giving those reasons one is postulating something that hasn't been seen.  We do not have sufficient intelligence to design a life form.  So what you must mean are that the effects seen in the operation of our intelligence are in identifiable ways the same as the effects produced in a cell.  You don't have a consistent, methodical way for pinpointing that, either.  You have no way of identifying that an artifact was the process of design from the description of the artifact alone.  So your positive evidence turns out to be no evidence at all.  Your positive evidence turns out to be a bluff.  Moreover the inference to design is relying on the inadequacy of evolution and abiogenesis to explain things as the key piece of evidence supporting the inference to design.  That's not positive evidence either.

Ok... but I don't think that given something which we have not seen, that we cannot make an inference as to a cause sufficient to produce the effect.   Given that an intelligent cause more closely resembles what is seen, rather than an unguided cause, I do think that it is more reasonable move towards an intelligent cause (albeit with capabilities beyond our experience) rather than the other way.

How does it more closely resemble it? That's the $64,000 question that ID theorists have been attempting to answer and so far they've come up bankrupt. The concept of specified complexity is mathematically vacuous. Many ID advocates mouth the words specified complexity as if it referred to a real thing. This is based on Dembski's work in the field which has been repeatedly shown to be without merit. If you can't quantify in what way human design efforts resemble the putative design embodied in a cell, and you can't, then you have no basis for asserting that an intelligent cause "more closely resembles" what we see than an unguided cause. You're left with the uninformative "It looks designed."

 
I do think that you are confusing falsification of the theory of I.D. with relying on the inadequacy of evolution and abiogenesis.  Falsification does rely on the things that can falsify the claim; to not be true.  It is part of the nature and power of the ideology.  However the claims of intelligent design are not just about the inadequacy of those other things you mentioned.   Showing those mechanisms to be false, does not mean that it is intelligently designed (according to the theory).  And contrary to your prior claim, the theory of intelligent design does look to pinpoint characteristics, which are evident of design.

It looks to pinpoint such characteristics but it has yet to find them. "That is specified complexity, irreducible complexity, and fine tuning." And this is bollocks. Specified complexity is an empty term with no meaning; irreducible complexity isn't; and fine tuning has its own problems. And no, I haven't said a word about falsification.

  See this link for more:  http://www.uncommondescent.com/faq/#tautol  Natural forces produce effects that are highly specified, but not very complex.   Chance produces, results that may be complex, but are not specified.  To achieve something which is complex and specified with a large enough search space, requires choice especially within a restricted time frame.

I found your link totally irrelevant. You're just mouthing empty words whenever you talk about specified complexity; there is no such valid concept for detecting design.

There is a reason why many biologist and astronomers mention the appearance of design in nature...   Why is it so crazy, to think that among these many divergent examples, that they likely are designed?

If it's just a belief not grounded ijn reason, then, knock yourself out. However Hume has noted that where an analogy departs from the target, the less reliable the analogy becomes. Likening what we find in nature to what we find in human design is so far removed from one another that the analogy is useless. What you have are subjective impressions, and they're as likely to be wrong at inferring design as they are to be right. To make an inference to design requires a reliable method for separating the one from the other because false positives are plentiful. So far no one has found such a method.

  I.D. looks to put a mathematical model and testable system in place to this instinct of design.

And so far it has failed to do so.

  I think that those who oppose need to make some positive claims, to why we should ignore that which appears evident.

Appearances are deceptive. We have plenty of examples of things that look designed but aren't. If the instinct is unreliable, why should I be pulled to task to try to disprove it? And we have the positive claim, in evolution. That you dissent from the majority of science is no skin off my nose.

If we see a house,… we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect (Hume, Dialogues, Part II).

[robvalue]

I couldn't care less if it's designed. If I did really think some stupid bastard was responsible for how life has ended up on this planet, the last thing I'd do is worship it. I'd start with a good few hours of pointing and laughing.

What exactly would the scientific community, or anyone, gain from the conclusion "It's designed"? Science is about results. You can't do shit with that. You certainly can't test for it, because no criteria are ever put forward. We need an objective way of distinguishing "designed" life from "non-designed".

Life is how it is, regardless of how it got here. And we're studying it just fine without needing a magic origin story.

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Also...


Why are people spouting all this on an atheist (not even science) forum, instead of collecting their acclaim for finding damning problems in one of the most well established scientific theories of all time? It's like bragging about your winning lottery ticket on a windmill forum instead of cashing it.

1. If you are pointing and laughing, then you must not realize how impressive the organisms are on the molecular and cellular level. You don't care about the fact that most of your genes can be transcribed forward and backwards to produce different products. You don't care that your RNA can be differentially spliced or edited to produce functional variation. You don't care that your cells can release compounds in vesicles that can travel throughout the body to communicate with other cells. You don't care that you have a blood brain barrier to protect your most valuable organ from environmental stressors. You don't care about the intricate signal transduction pathways that allow you to respond to exquisitely precise stimuli. You don't care that your phenotype is flexible based on changes in transcription. You don't care that your billions of neurons have traveled so specific targets during their development all based largely on calcium concentration and the post synaptic membrane protein composition. You don't care that fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants to limit DNA damage, chelators to prevent metal toxicity, hormone like molecules to enhance cellular function, and common sugars and nutrients to provide energy. None of this matters to you. All you care about is that your esophagus is near your trachea.

Sure, that's a lot of scientific terms, well done. But it's still a rubbish design, considering the magic designer you're too dishonest to admit you're talking about is meant to have infinite power and resources. Or does it not?

2. The scientific community would have enhanced respect for biological systems. They would not come up with ridiculous theories like neutral constructive evolution to explain away RNA editing machinery. Instead, they would understand that RNA editing has a function (namely to expand the information contained in a given DNA sequence). Nobody would have predicted junk DNA (one of the worst scientific predictions of all time). The conclusion that plant foods are better for us would have come much sooner as well. 

This is all so vague I have no idea how to even respond to it. You seem to be making up ret-con predictions and making meaningless statements. What is "enhanced respect", and why does it matter?

Nobody would have predicted junk DNA? What are you talking about? Are you suggesting there's no such thing as junk DNA? Or that... it was a bad thing it was predicted?

3. Why is design magic to you? Did it take magic to design your laptop? Things are designed all the time without magic.

It's not magic to me. It's magic to you. Remember the God you're too dishonest to admit you're talking about? How does "God" design and create things? Why won't you tell us?

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Seriously...

You think any actual practical use comes out of believing the statement, "Life is designed"? That's all we're talking about here. No one is offering up any specifics at all.

Obviously, life forms work as a fairly coherent system. That's why they've survived. People are already aware of this. How exactly does "it's designed" make any difference? No explanation was given above for point 2, just strange claims.

[Ravenshire]

I know that these things have been argued before, but I think that they typically end in name calling, circular arguments, and loss of interest.

And I disagree that science agrees with you so far. There have been a number of recent discoveries (mainly the fine tuning of biological systems and the physical constants of the universe) that seem to have theistic implications. And every scientist believes things with no proof. In fact, the word proof is only allowable in mathematics or topics that use mathematics. Other than that, we deal with probabilities. There is virtually no such thing as proof in biology. This is another example of how the general public has a narrow schema of science. I have described no "proof" anywhere. And I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence (not the one in parenthases).

And it is ironic that you want to put a disclaimer to tell people not to use previously used arguments when you come here, read the first and last page, then admittedly make an argument that has already been argued.

The arguments can go either way but I've noticed that on this site the atheists usually don't get hostile unless the Xian does first. Facebook and that sort of thing is just horrible but here we have some pretty good civil debates which is why I was surprised they started in on you right away with the cursing and hostile attitude. We have also been harassed by some pretty mean xians lately so the reaction from them might have rubbed off on you. I know we have a few xians on the site that everyone gets along with and we have pretty good discussions.

The last sentence I was referencing the bible. Xians kinda lug that around and I saw a few mentions of it on this thread. I do like that this is about science though. I was saying my comments despite reading the rest because what I was saying didn't pertain to the convo that had evolved from the main subject so I was making it known that it wouldn't factor in the new conversation. I have read a few more pages since my first post but I got realllly really bored because like someone mentioned being atheist doesn't mean we are into science. I mean I put science first but I have no interest in reading about cells and biology being something that isn't 'proof'. I'm sorry but while I know that our understanding of science evolves with our discoveries I can't agree that biology is not proof. There are still a lot of things humans don't know but the science is still out there. We are limited by our own minds and will eventually find it all. I'm pretty sure the whole point of science is to NOT believe something without evidence. We have had so much 'evidence' come up over the last 100 years it's not even funny and we aren't done yet. We didn't develop math we just worked out a way for us to understand it. That is what science is doing. Yet still I see no reason to think any theist claims are real.

Trip-A is a serial offender. This isn't his first attempt at shoving his tripe down our throats and it probably won't be his last.

[robvalue]

I just don't even know how to reply to some of this stuff.

People who think humans are "designed" realized eating plants was "good for us" quicker than people who don't subscribe to such a belief? What can I possibly say to that? Considering even now most of the world are religious, and for ages belief in design has been dominant, I don't even know what the complaint is. Any progress that was going to be made had plenty of time. But in fact, the progress has come when people set aside their religious beliefs (where applicable) to do proper science.

Now, taken for what it is, the human form is truly astonishing when you consider it came about through nothing more than random changes and natural selection (after life began somehow). But if you instead have someone choosing to arrange things how they are, then it becomes stupid. It becomes not impressive at all. And if that someone also created the rules in the first place, and created all these weird obstacles so that it could overcome them with all these strange parts of our body, it becomes laughable.

I think our friend is here is confused as to whether the human species was designed, the materials of life were designed, or the "way evolution works" was designed. The first is blatantly untrue, since we already know what we evolved from. The second and third are already attributed to whatever pissweasel designed our reality in the first place, so there's no extra design involved here.

Where is the design stage? What was done? How? With what? By who? What mechanism? Why?

Edit: Of course, "impressive" is subjective. Some people are very easily impressed.

[robvalue]

1. If you are pointing and laughing, then you must not realize how impressive the organisms are on the molecular and cellular level. You don't care about the fact that most of your genes can be transcribed forward and backwards to produce different products. You don't care that your RNA can be differentially spliced or edited to produce functional variation. You don't care that your cells can release compounds in vesicles that can travel throughout the body to communicate with other cells. You don't care that you have a blood brain barrier to protect your most valuable organ from environmental stressors. You don't care about the intricate signal transduction pathways that allow you to respond to exquisitely precise stimuli. You don't care that your phenotype is flexible based on changes in transcription. You don't care that your billions of neurons have traveled so specific targets during their development all based largely on calcium concentration and the post synaptic membrane protein composition. You don't care that fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants to limit DNA damage, chelators to prevent metal toxicity, hormone like molecules to enhance cellular function, and common sugars and nutrients to provide energy. None of this matters to you. All you care about is that your esophagus is near your trachea.

No one ever cares about all the charity work I did. Or all the times I helped old ladies across the street. Or the many and varied inventions I made which helped society. Everyone just keeps going on about the five or six times I walked into a public building and shot everyone in the face for no reason.

[AAA]

1. If you are pointing and laughing, then you must not realize how impressive the organisms are on the molecular and cellular level. You don't care about the fact that most of your genes can be transcribed forward and backwards to produce different products. You don't care that your RNA can be differentially spliced or edited to produce functional variation. You don't care that your cells can release compounds in vesicles that can travel throughout the body to communicate with other cells. You don't care that you have a blood brain barrier to protect your most valuable organ from environmental stressors. You don't care about the intricate signal transduction pathways that allow you to respond to exquisitely precise stimuli. You don't care that your phenotype is flexible based on changes in transcription. You don't care that your billions of neurons have traveled so specific targets during their development all based largely on calcium concentration and the post synaptic membrane protein composition. You don't care that fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants to limit DNA damage, chelators to prevent metal toxicity, hormone like molecules to enhance cellular function, and common sugars and nutrients to provide energy. None of this matters to you. All you care about is that your esophagus is near your trachea.

And the deep reverance and awe that you feel (and justifiably so) for these beautifully intricate and complex workings of microbiology have lead you to:  "I simply can't imagine or understand how these things could have come about without an intelligent agent - therefore, design."

You can stamp your feet about it all you want, but it's still an argument from personal incredulity; totally lacking in any positive evidence for an actual design, or your assumed designer/s.

No, it's not that "I can't imagine or understand how they couldn't come about without an intelligent agent", it is that NOBODY who has ever lived (despite a thorough search) can even imagine a reasonable scenario to describe their origin other than intelligence. Therefore design is a reasonable conclusion. It is not lacking positive evidence, these things are continuously associated with intelligence.

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1. If you are pointing and laughing, then you must not realize how impressive the organisms are on the molecular and cellular level. You don't care about the fact that most of your genes can be transcribed forward and backwards to produce different products. You don't care that your RNA can be differentially spliced or edited to produce functional variation. You don't care that your cells can release compounds in vesicles that can travel throughout the body to communicate with other cells. You don't care that you have a blood brain barrier to protect your most valuable organ from environmental stressors. You don't care about the intricate signal transduction pathways that allow you to respond to exquisitely precise stimuli. You don't care that your phenotype is flexible based on changes in transcription. You don't care that your billions of neurons have traveled so specific targets during their development all based largely on calcium concentration and the post synaptic membrane protein composition. You don't care that fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants to limit DNA damage, chelators to prevent metal toxicity, hormone like molecules to enhance cellular function, and common sugars and nutrients to provide energy. None of this matters to you. All you care about is that your esophagus is near your trachea.

No one ever cares about all the charity work I did. Or all the times I helped old ladies across the street. Or the many and varied inventions I made which helped society. Everyone just keeps going on about the five or six times I walked into a public building and shot everyone in the face for no reason.

You're analogy would be better if you say that you donated $15 trillion to charity, donated your kidney to a dying homeless man, spent 40 years of your life teaching children how to live effective lives..... Then some people (like atheists in the analogy) complain that you stole a loaf of bread to feed your starving child.

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I just don't even know how to reply to some of this stuff.

People who think humans are "designed" realized eating plants was "good for us" quicker than people who don't subscribe to such a belief? What can I possibly say to that? Considering even now most of the world are religious, and for ages belief in design has been dominant, I don't even know what the complaint is. Any progress that was going to be made had plenty of time. But in fact, the progress has come when people set aside their religious beliefs (where applicable) to do proper science.

Now, taken for what it is, the human form is truly astonishing when you consider it came about through nothing more than random changes and natural selection (after life began somehow). But if you instead have someone choosing to arrange things how they are, then it becomes stupid. It becomes not impressive at all. And if that someone also created the rules in the first place, and created all these weird obstacles so that it could overcome them with all these strange parts of our body, it becomes laughable.

I think our friend is here is confused as to whether the human species was designed, the materials of life were designed, or the "way evolution works" was designed. The first is blatantly untrue, since we already know what we evolved from. The second and third are already attributed to whatever pissweasel designed our reality in the first place, so there's no extra design involved here.

Where is the design stage? What was done? How? With what? By who? What mechanism? Why?

Edit: Of course, "impressive" is subjective. Some people are very easily impressed.

When you view nature as a designed system, you quickly realize that plant based diets should have extreme health benefits. This is something that is (believe it or not) still not widely acknowledged by some of my professors. One of them said that it is a fallacy that natural foods are healthier. He said that chemistry is just based on electrons and it doesn't matter where they come from. I still can't believe he would say something like that when the evidence is so clearly the opposite. But do you think he would have made that claim if he thought it was designed?

And don't assert that life becomes unimpressive when you think it was set up the way it is on purpose. As far as I'm concerned, that is just a statement of extreme ignorance. And once again, we do not need to show the mechanism of design to infer design.

And yes impressive is subjective, but I think that you think that by saying you are not impressed you are reflecting some higher knowledge in yourself. In other words, if you don't find our biology impressive, then that must mean you understand it, right? You must have some higher knowledge of something more impressive that has caused you to be desensitized to the level of the biological functioning.

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1. If you are pointing and laughing, then you must not realize how impressive the organisms are on the molecular and cellular level. You don't care about the fact that most of your genes can be transcribed forward and backwards to produce different products. You don't care that your RNA can be differentially spliced or edited to produce functional variation. You don't care that your cells can release compounds in vesicles that can travel throughout the body to communicate with other cells. You don't care that you have a blood brain barrier to protect your most valuable organ from environmental stressors. You don't care about the intricate signal transduction pathways that allow you to respond to exquisitely precise stimuli. You don't care that your phenotype is flexible based on changes in transcription. You don't care that your billions of neurons have traveled so specific targets during their development all based largely on calcium concentration and the post synaptic membrane protein composition. You don't care that fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants to limit DNA damage, chelators to prevent metal toxicity, hormone like molecules to enhance cellular function, and common sugars and nutrients to provide energy. None of this matters to you. All you care about is that your esophagus is near your trachea.

Sure, that's a lot of scientific terms, well done. But it's still a rubbish design, considering the magic designer you're too dishonest to admit you're talking about is meant to have infinite power and resources. Or does it not?

2. The scientific community would have enhanced respect for biological systems. They would not come up with ridiculous theories like neutral constructive evolution to explain away RNA editing machinery. Instead, they would understand that RNA editing has a function (namely to expand the information contained in a given DNA sequence). Nobody would have predicted junk DNA (one of the worst scientific predictions of all time). The conclusion that plant foods are better for us would have come much sooner as well. 

This is all so vague I have no idea how to even respond to it. You seem to be making up ret-con predictions and making meaningless statements. What is "enhanced respect", and why does it matter?

Nobody would have predicted junk DNA? What are you talking about? Are you suggesting there's no such thing as junk DNA? Or that... it was a bad thing it was predicted?

3. Why is design magic to you? Did it take magic to design your laptop? Things are designed all the time without magic.

It's not magic to me. It's magic to you. Remember the God you're too dishonest to admit you're talking about? How does "God" design and create things? Why won't you tell us?

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Seriously...

You think any actual practical use comes out of believing the statement, "Life is designed"? That's all we're talking about here. No one is offering up any specifics at all.

Obviously, life forms work as a fairly coherent system. That's why they've survived. People are already aware of this. How exactly does "it's designed" make any difference? No explanation was given above for point 2, just strange claims.

Are you kidding me?? You are seriously just going to assert that it is still a rubbish design despite all of the intricate processes that I've described. Do we need to take one example in depth for you to see how amazing it is? I am actually offended that someone can just ignore all of the processes that I mentioned by basically saying "yeah that's nice, but the design is still garbage".  And once again, just because a design is not perfect does not mean that the designer could not have extreme wisdom. A flaw in the design could be explained as a necessary functional constraint (why aren't all neurons extremely wide? it would allow the messages to travel faster, but it would be an unneeded obstruction), a degradation of a previously good system (like every disease), or a misunderstanding of function (the appendix).

I am suggesting that junk DNA was one of the worst predictions ever made. They almost didn't sequence this portion of the genome which would have been the biggest scientific mistake of all time. This "junk" DNA has so many funcitons including guiding chromatin modifications, guiding alternative splicing, guiding RNA editing, organizing nuclear domains etc. 

And I already did provide a possible explanation for how it was designed. The designer simply formed amino acids and nucleotide building blocks using organic chemistry. The designer then ligated them together in a desired sequence to form proteins and DNA. Other cellular components were also arranged based on knowledge of chemistry and a plan. I have no way of knowing if this is right, but design does not have to be magic.

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I don't see a receding pocket of ignorance, I see a continuous decline in possible alternative explanations.

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I don't have to provide a mechanism by which the designer designed the system. Given that logic, you do not believe that your computer was designed, because you almost certainly do not know how they did it.

Are you suggesting that there does not exist physical, observable, testable, repeatable evidence demonstrating how computers are designed, lol?

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Congratulations.  How about your car? Do you design those? Do you know how it was designed? The point is that we don't have to know how something was designed to rationally infer that it was.

But if you WANTED to learn how your car was designed you could, because the science and technology actually exist.  The mechanisms of said design are reproducible and demonstrable.  They have been studied, tested, improved upon, taught, implemented, and...surprise!  You drive a car along with the rest of us.  Your analogy is...not a good one.

You are missing the point. I don't have to know how something was designed to rationally conclude that it was. And it isn't like we are just looking at biological systems and saying that it just looks designed, it is that we have dissected them to their most fundamental levels in many cases, and intelligent design currently stands alone as the only known force capable of producing it.

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And I don't think that you can just credit the crowning achievements of biologists to the theory of evolution. The fact is that the theory results in many similar predictions that one would make from design. We also don't know how quickly science would progress if people had design as their point of reference. It may be faster.

The theory of evolution explains complexity in a simpler fashion than does your idea of design.  It does not require a designer.

You have no evidence of a designer.  Until you do, your argument is specious.

It absolutely does,

Unsupported assertion.

but that's not even what I was trying to convey.

What were you trying to convey?

We are less susceptible to diseases and infections if we eat plant based foods and exercise.

Unsupported assertion.  
Eating meat is a more efficient means of nutrition than a purely plant-based diet.  We have evolved as omnivores.

Therefore, those who do not live this healthy lifestyle are more likely to be removed by the purifying force that is infection. At least this is a possibility.

Purifying force?  Are you serious?

You can't just assert that evolution is an adequate cause. How much information per generation does natural selection coupled with mutation produce? How many generations have there been? How much information is contained by the genome. Until we know the answer to all three of these we will not know if natural selection+mutation is adequate. 

And you don't think that lifestyle impacts our genetic output? That's like the whole point of epigenetics. Environmental stimuli lead to heritable changes in transcription. Eating meat is not a more efficient means of nutrition. Nut consumption has a much higher assimilation efficiency than meat. Also, you have to consider that the meat itself has disseminated most of the energy of the primary producers when it was alive. Therefore, skipping the middle man is a much more efficient way to eat from an energy perspective.

[Whateverist]

AAA you never responded to my suggestion. When we speak of "design" we are talking about things manmade. The reason we don't look for evidence of design in nature is that its the exact opposite of manmade. Naturally occurring vs manmade is the distinction you're mixing up. Why do you wish to throw out that distinction and replace it with "everything is designed".

I assume that is your position, that absolutely every speck of every single thing is designed with a purpose in mind by the cosmic watchmaker? If that is so, I have a couple of follow up questions.

If everything is designed, does that extend to the laws of physics as well? Does anything at all have an intrinsic nature which God didn't give it? In other words, were there any constraints whatsoever in God's designs or would absolutely any result have been divinely possible? If there were no restraints imposed by the nature of the materials themselves, was His creation "skillful"?

[Asmodee]

While atheism itself has nothing whatsoever to do with science, atheism and scientific understanding do tend to go hand-in-hand.  First, though, atheism has no connection whatsoever to science.  Atheists can be vaccine deniers, climate change deniers, even evolution deniers.  Atheism is not, itself, scientific.  No stance on the supernatural is because science is the study of the natural.  The supernatural, by definition, is that which we have no data on; that which is not part of the natural world.

That being said, there is a direct correlation between education and atheism.  More educated people tend to be more liberal and less religious.  There has been study after study showing this.  I have several articles bookmarked on the subject.  Atheists are more intelligent than religious people, Liberals and atheists smarter?, How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God, there's even a Wikipedia page on Religiosity and intelligence.

So atheists tend to be smarter, or smarter people tend to be atheists, however you want to look at it.  Atheists tend to accept the scientific view more.  We have no views, after all, which are particularly negatively affected by scientific discoveries.  While it is possible for an atheist to be an evolution denier, it is far, far less likely than, say, a fundamentalist Christian.  So it's not that atheism is inherently "scientific" so much as it is that smarter people, people with an interest in science, tend to be atheists.

And this perhaps wouldn't be so obvious in our society if there were no Christian agenda to get religion into the schools, something which infuriates most serious atheists.  Intelligent design seeks to do this by masking their religious teachings as science.  And thus the idea is born that religion is anti-science (even the Catholic Church, which accepts most science, has, in my lifetime, denied condom science when Pope Satan was in charge).  So of course atheists take the opposite stance when religious organizations try to hijack science.  Of course we cling to real science like it is important to us, not to mention that for many of us, it is.

I haven't looked into the history of atheism and science at all, and I wasn't even an atheist (at least not a serious atheist) when intelligent design first began its assault on the intelligence of America, but it seems to me like religion masquerading as science to teach my kids stupid shit, like we all just "poofed" into existence one literal day, would be a very good reason for me to side with real science, to cling to it, to defend it.  I really have no idea, but it seems to me like it's at least possible that this connection between atheism and science may actually be the result of young earth creationist attempts to hijack science.  It is very possible this connection we have with science is a result of the ineptly named Discovery Institute attempting to render science completely useless and fling us into a new dark age where "magic" is the answer to tough problems.  To me, that's a very good reason to learn all I can about science in general, to defend it, to trust it and to make it part of who I am.

I've always had an interest in science, but it wasn't until I started hearing logical arguments and scientifically ignorant people misusing what little they know to "prove" their magical ideas that I really got an interest in science, specifically in understanding the sciences they tell me are wrong.  Let's face it, Christians lie, all the time.  They usually don't know it, or at least don't let themselves know it (except for Jehovah's Witness printed materials.  There is no possible way they don't KNOW they are being purposely deceitful), but they tell me things which are blatantly false all the time.  My JW friend tells me constantly that the science isn't settled on evolution, that there's a huge debate among scientists right now over whether it's real or not, that many, many scientists want to speak out against it, but there's a huge conspiracy to silence them.  If they speak up they will be drummed out of science.  None of that is true.  I have proved it to him repeatedly.  He still keeps telling me it's true.  I feel that I need to know a lot about science to even talk to most Christians I know because they are going to be lying to me about science and I need to know enough about it to spot the lies.

So, for me anyway, Christianity made me cling to science and, yes, I do tend to kind of relate it to atheism in my head.  "There are no gods" is certainly the more scientific view.  There is no evidence to suggest it's true, there is no data to be collected, that is likely because there is nothing to the claims.  But it is the supernatural and, thus, inherently not within the realm of scientific inquiry.  There are religious scientists.  There are religious biologists who wholeheartedly support evolution and there are surely atheists who do not.  So while my religious views have nothing whatsoever to do with science the two have become intertwined, not because scientific understanding made me atheist or atheism is the scientific stance, but because I need to know a lot about science to defend my religious views against those who would give me false information in order to confuse me into accepting their religious views.  I also tend to look for an ulterior motive whenever a Christian asks me to agree with something which seems innocent enough, because it's usually a trick.  An example my JW friend gave me when trying to convince me that we were in the end times, "Wouldn't you agree that the weapons we have today are more powerful than anything throughout history?"  The year was, I think, 2014 and my answer was "Yes", but then I thought about it.  If the year had been 1702 my answer would have been "Yes".  If the year had been 1287 my answer would have been "Yes".  If the year had been 973 my answer would have been "Yes".  If the year had been 2115 BC my answer would have been "Yes".  The answer to that question is ALWAYS "Yes".  It will be "Yes" in the year 2525, and again in the year 3712, and again in the year 6314.

The point is, I have to think and think hard when talking to a Christian, especially those of particularly deceptive religions such as the Jehovah's Witness religion.  I have to know a lot of things.  They are actually trained in deception and psychology, not that they realize that.  They think they're just being trained to "answer questions" when in reality they are being trained to trick and deceive.  They will ask you on the spot to name a transitional fossil, and you had better have an answer right then and there or an entire lecture starts about how you "put your faith in science", thus beginning the conversation with the evil villain which starts out, "We're not so different, you and I" as he tries to talk you into joining the dark side.  If I don't know something when he brings it up then he sounds reasonable because they are trained deceivers who are, themselves, deceived.  You can't spot a lie when the liar doesn't know he's lying unless you know the truth already.

To to answer the OP directly, atheism and science really have no correlation, but if I, as an atheist, don't know a LOT about science when talking with the general Christian who is trying to convert me I am going to "learn" things which aren't true and possibly be deceived into abandoning reality for fantasy.  So I learn science and I love science.  It's not that science is in any way related to atheism, it's that Christianity is synonymous with "bad science" which Christians actively push, doing real damage to the intelligence of our society.  Science and atheism aren't the same thing, but without a single exception I can think of right now, belief systems (whether they be religious, economic or political) and bad science are very much the same thing.  If I relate belief to bad science it's only natural that I would relate lack of belief to "real" science.

[robvalue]

As it happens, I only eat plants anyway. I think it can indeed be a very healthy diet. But to say it's as simple as "plants is best" is ridiculous. Nor does it have anything whatsoever to do with thinking we're designed. If you're suggesting everyone else thinks parts of the body float around independently...

Take me for example. If I'm designed, it was a terrible job. I just had to have an operation just so I can eat things with a consistency above the level of baby food. Epic fail God.

If I drove a brand new car through your front window and charged you 50,000 dollars for my time, what would you say?

[LastPoet]

As it happens, I only eat plants anyway. I think it can indeed be a very healthy diet. But to say it's as simple as "plants is best" is ridiculous. Nor does it have anything whatsoever to do with thinking we're designed. If you're suggesting everyone else thinks parts of the body float around independently...

Take me for example. If I'm designed, it was a terrible job. I just had to have an operation just so I can eat things with a consistency above the level of baby food. Epic fail God.

If I drove a brand new car through your front window and charged you 50,000 dollars for my time, what would you say?

You only suffer that because you deny god. Wow, this shit is remarcably easy