“Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method”

Last updated on: March 24, 2019 at 12:47 am by Dan Peterson

“Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method” 2019-03-24T00:47:22-06:00 Dan Peterson

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View of the long house in Frijoles Canyon, Bandelier National Monument, near Los Alamos, New Mexico
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

The other day, I posted a blog entry about my own very occasional and very amateur (and very armchair or, perhaps better, very car-seat) interest in geology:

Plainly, one of the readers of this blog — although, like me, he isn’t a trained or professional geologist — is a much more serious amateur geologist than I am. Here is a blog that he maintains:

Wanderlusting the Jemez: Geological adventures in the Jemez Mountains and surrounding areas

And here is some of his more sustained writing on the subject:

Supervolcano: A Geologic History of the Jemez

Incidentally, in response to my 20 March 2019 blog post “Thoughts on a few controversial topics related to science,” in which (among other things) I recounted my one experience, of decades ago, with what seems to have been a case of water witching or dowsing, he mentioned his own. Since I’ve been ridiculed, elsewhere on the web, for telling that story — it appears that having had that experience and being willing to admit it demonstrates me to be both absolutely clueless about science and irrationally superstitious — I presume that the same ridicule would, consistently, be directed at him, as well. Which, since I know what his background is and how he makes his living, I find screamingly funny (in an ironic sort of way).

***

Thanks to Kevin Taylor for bringing this item from Scientific American to my attention. I fully anticipate that the reactions to it will be uniformly serene, dispassionate, and charitable:

“Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prizewinning Physicist Says: In conversation, the 2019 Templeton Prize winner does not pull punches on the limits of science, the value of humility and the irrationality of nonbelief”

For some additional background information on the scientist in question, you might enjoy the following:

“Award-Winning Physicist: ‘Science Does Not Kill God'”

***

But enough of such unpleasantness! Here’s an article on another subject — a subject that is much less likely to jar the tender sensibilities of some of my readers than the thought of theism does:

“Jack the Ripper identified by DNA evidence, forensic scientists claim”

I worry, in this instance, about the chain of custody of the tested item, and about the likelihood of contamination and sample degradation. But this finding is unquestionably interesting. If it’s right, a mystery that has remained a topic of speculation and debate, not to mention horrified fascination, since 1888 — that’s fully 131 years — has finally been solved.

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