(January 16, 2016 at 7:51 am)Mr.wizard Wrote:(January 16, 2016 at 7:38 am)Brian37 Wrote: This is what ticks me off about well intended liberals who try to treat science and religion as separate but equal. This is also why I think Dawkins "God Delusion" and morso Victor Stenger's two books "God The Failed Hypothesis" and "The New Atheism", combined are why the idea of splitting the baby is not a good way of looking at science.
It is true that scientists can and do hold religious beliefs, and many can and do leave their religion out of the lab, but this apology we are needlessly having to deal with is precisely why the well intended sense of empathy and fairness is not a good thing to coddle.
If one watches the entire new Cosmos series with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, they should be able to see the the same gatekeeper fallacy throughout our species history. Humans stupidly attach our natural curiosity and ability to make discovery to the divine, the same mistake they make when attaching wealth and success to the divine.
The believer, be they Christian, or Muslim or Jew or Hindu or whatever, point to their scientists but that is still not evidence of one religion being true or one god being real. They are still stuck with those competing claims and still stuck with a gap answer and still stuck with the problem of infinite regress.
"I am smart so therefor" is not an argument. Once you start inserting apology into a lab you poison the objectivity of the process.
What do you mean liberals treat science and religion as separate but equal?
Let me clarify, far too many liberals. Ok, and not just atheists, but liberal theists as well. I am very staunch about agreeing with Stenger in his position that there is no splitting the baby. The harsh fact is science is and has always been religion independent.
Far to many liberals allow their evolutionary sense of fairness to confuse human rights with being the same as weight of a claim in a scientific setting.
You do have liberals if you talk to enough, including scientists say "Science explains one thing, religion explains another", we end up having to deal with crappy threads like this as a result.
Not all claims are equal, and things are not true by proxy of utterance by default. That is a pragmatic issue outside of law and government and human rights. You never assume going into a claim if you want to test it and verify it that it props your bias up. I have seen people from all the major religions worldwide make this mistake. And even if not all, far too many well intended liberals unwittingly give this bad tactic cover.
