Despite the obvious commonalities between the two groups, the atheist movement has always had a rather strained relationship with the more generalized skeptical movement.  In part this is the fault of organized atheism, as many atheists endorse mystical crap like acupuncture and other alternative medicines while pretending to be reasonable just because they reject religion.  However, the real schism between the two groups is a result of the unfounded idea that atheism, at least in some forms, is not sufficiently scientific.  Those skeptical movements that disassociate themselves from atheism tend to see atheism as a philosophical outlook rather than a scientific or empirically justified stance.  The arguments in support of this claim, though, tend to be rather unconvincing.

Most forms of atheism address conceptions of God that are explicitly amenable to scientific tests.  The bulk of religious believers, for instance, do not believe in obscure deistic entities that never interact in the physical world.  They believe in a God that can manifest itself as a human being, perform miracles, heal sickness, control the vocal cords of those filled with the holy spirit (though God seems to take some perverse joy out of using those vocal cords just to speak in jibberish), and so on.  Even those deities that are a bit more remote and do not perform miracles of this sort are nevertheless testable, as they are said to be creators of the universe and to have placed humanity on top of some sort of cosmic hierarchy of importance.  These are all characteristics that yield testable hypotheses, and when our observations do not support these hypotheses, we have scientific grounds for rejecting these religious claims.  When we see that humanity is the product of random forces whose existence is not probable, much less logically necessary, that throws serious doubt on any conceptions of God who created the universe with humanity as its pinnacle achievement.

In that sense, then, atheism is indeed scientific.  Most forms of God can be ruled out on a purely evidentiary basis, in much the same way a scientist would rule out similar scientific hypotheses in other fields.  This is generally accepted, even among those skeptics who feel atheism is a philosophical stance rather than a scientific one.  The problem, naturally, is that some forms of God cannot be ruled out in this manner.  These versions of God are so remote and deistic that they yield no testable predictions or observations of any sort, and thus, the skeptics would argue, they are not susceptible to scientific investigation.  Massimo Pigliucci recently made an argument of this sort in a blog post titled “On the Scope of Skeptical Inquiry“.

Pigliucci acknowledges that some religious claims about God are scientifically testable, but in the end maintains that atheism is primarily a philosophical position because it addresses claims that can’t be assessed scientifically through the process of observation.  One of the examples he gives is the claim by some creationists that God designed the world to look as if it were billions of years old when it is in fact only 6,000 years old.  No evidence could contradict this kind of statement, obviously, and as such Pigliucci claims that it can only be assessed on philosophical, not scientific, grounds.

The problem, of course, is that this could extend to any realm of inquiry traditionally seen as within the scope of skeptical inquiry.  If believers in cryptofauna like bigfoot and Nessie protected their claims from inquiry by saying, such as they do, that we would not expect to see evidence of their existence even if we looked, clearly we cannot scientifically address such a claim.  Nevertheless, no skeptical organization is thus busy rewriting its mission statement to exclude cryptozoological investigations from its scope of inquiry; atheism, on the other hand, is singled out for just this reason.  If the basis for rejecting atheism as a form of scientific skepticism rests on the unfalsifiability of religious claims, then any other field of skeptical inquiry is open to the same sort of criticism, as those who believe in alternative medicine, creationism, psychic powers, and ghosts frequently make claims that are unfalsifiable.

With that said, the other problematic aspect of rejecting religion as a field of skeptical inquiry concerns the overly narrow conception of “science” endorsed by such skeptics.  Science isn’t just a process of simple falsification of claims.  It is much more nuanced and much scientific activity is philosophical.  Pigliucci tries to differentiate science from philosophy in noting that scientific knowledge seems to progress whereas philosophical knowledge seems to stagnate on the same unanswered questions.  This is an uncharitable characterization of philosophy, though.  Science itself is one of the ultimate successes of the progress of philosophy!  The early Greek philosophers weren’t simply asking questions about souls and free will, but were addressing questions of the natural sciences.  The scientific method is merely an epistemological and philosophical framework.  The reason philosophy doesn’t seem to progress isn’t because it is not successful, but because when it is successful it becomes renamed as science!

So, in a sense, the demarcation between science and philosophy is not clear.  Nevertheless, even if we accept the demarcation, it is clear that scientists do entertain and reject untestable hypotheses all the time.  Science isn’t simply a matter of testing reality against observation, but it also puts into practice epistemological principles like Ockham’s razor.  For example, basic philosophy of science shows that theories are always underdetermined by the data.  That is, for any set of data, an unlimited number of potential explanations exist that would also fit the data.  Evolution explains the data we see for the origin of human beings, for instance, but so does a hypothesis stating that the universe and human beings popped into existence two seconds ago with only the appearance of age.  Scientists reject all the other potential explanations, even though they can cohere with scientific observations, because they are untestable or not parsimonious.  Notice that scientists do not reject these alternative explanations after observing evidence that the additional elements of these hypotheses do not exist!  They are rejected for epistemological, and hence philosophical, reasons.  In this case the principle of rejecting untestable claims serves as a check against the tendency of human beings to make mistakes and err.  The more you assume, the more likely you are to be wrong, and thus scientists assume the least that is justified by the evidence.  As can be seen, the principle of parsimony is essential to science, because it cuts through problems of underdetermination by requiring evidence for additional explanatory entities.  As such, scientists do not claim the origin of humanity is not within the scope of skeptical inquiry merely because untestable hypotheses can be generated to “explain” our origin.  Scientific inquiry is not so constrained or feeble and frail that it cannot overcome untestable hypotheses.  This includes untestable hypotheses of a religious nature.

In short, the attempt to form ghettos of critical inquiry that exclude atheism from skepticism are misguided.  It would be as misguided as randomly excluding cryptozoology or alternative medicine merely because their supporters also make untestable claims.  Scientific analysis is always dealing with untestable claims.  Any theory accepted by scientists entails the rejection of countless untestable claims compatible with the underdetermined data set.  As such, rejecting untestable claims, whether they be religious in nature or not, is thoroughly scientific.  For the skeptical community to attempt singling out atheism for this reason thus seems silly and disheartening, especially knowing that it is likely motivated by the unfounded respect (which entails a lack of criticism) traditionally accorded to the religious.  I suspect that had we evolved in a parallel universe where cryptozoology was the reigning belief system, and we were all socialized to respect claims about Bigfoot and never criticize them, then we’d be seeing skeptical movements decrying the inclusion of cryptozoology within its scope.  Luckily, we do not live in that universe.  And hopefully we can change our current universe from one in which the skeptical community attempts to exclude atheism to one in which skepticism of religion is just as acceptable as any other area of inquiry..

Hey everyone, I’m writing this to let all you fine readers know that I do plan on updating this blog again eventually.  I have been busy lately and I’ve also been stuck in a bit of a personal funk.  (Okay, okay, so I’m having a quarter-life crisis!)  It doesn’t help that I’m mildly perfectionistic about my writing so I never feel content with publishing a piece as-is (hence the 30 or so half-written entries saved and unpublished for this blog).  But I will make a concerted effort to get something of substance out for you fine folks soon!  And I also wanted to say that I appreciate the donations some of you have given me.  It helps cover the costs of my webhost and also gives me a mild incentive to actually write more and buy delicious snacks.

So keep an eye out for new posts!  And stop whining when I don’t post stuff!  (I’m looking at you, Lizz.)

Conquering the world is a difficult task, but it is a worthwhile goal for any aspiring evil genius. Now what is the most important part of conquering the world? Is it having really cool, high-ranking henchmen with weird physical deformities and absurd methods of attack involving thrown items of clothing? No. Is it devising elaborate, Rube Goldberg-type methods of killing potential heroes? No. The most important thing to have before setting out to conquer the world is lots and lots of underlings. You’ll need people to build your rockets, to transport your rockets, to clean your rockets, and to spell out the word “rocket” on the side of the rocket and maybe put some cool flame decals on it so everyone will know that it is, indeed, a rocket. But where do you find these underlings? How does one come across people so eager and willing to aid in the destruction of their very own planet? Well, it isn’t easy to find them, but it can be done.

First of all, you have the find the most gullible people in the world. This can be done in a variety of ways. Start conversations on various topics, like the following:

• The moon landing was a hoax.
• Evolution is a lie.
• Glenn Beck sure does make a lot of sense.
• Homeopathy totally cures cancer.

If you find anyone agreeing with you, this person is surely a gullible buffoon. Capture him in your net and take him to your secret headquarters. He may be suspicious at first, but you can put his mind at ease by throwing out phrases like “I am only kidnapping you to cure you of the quantum energy chi trapped in your DNA that can only be released through holistic, traditional Chinese medicinal practices involving watered down trace elements,” “I am removing you from society because it’s all a conspiracy theory to cover up huge governmental black flag operations that everyone is in on except you,” “I am taking you to a tea party protest to save you from the health care death panelists out to kill you with their fascist and socialist political ideologies,” or “Darwin said evolution was a lie on his deathbed, so I’m taking you to the great church of Jesus to build a rocket that will disprove evolution with Biblical science.”

Now normally you’d think you can stop here, knowing you have a tidy sum of idiots, but that is not the case. Some of these people will still not be stupid enough to be your minions. (Some, namely the Glenn Beck fans, may even be too stupid, forgetting such essentials as how to breathe or eat, rendering these minions useless for any task aside from sitting in a vegetative state in front of a TV blaring Fox News.) To ensure your minions will be stupid enough for your world-conquering tasks, you have to put them into an environment that rewards stupid behavior and winnows out those showing signs of intelligence. Call it survival of the idiots.

Finding the biggest idiots is relatively simple.  After having starved the captives for a few days, put the starved gullible morons into a giant maze, with a big hunk of cheese at the end of the maze.  Hidden inside the big hunk of cheese, place a giant, crazed robot with guns for arms that wields a chainsaw. Any candidates who reach the end of the maze should be eaten by the crazed robot for being intelligent enough to find the food. In this way, you’ve created a selection mechanism against any hint of intelligence. Those still stuck in the maze, endlessly pushing against the doors that say “pull” in search of the exit, are your new minions.

Don’t stop there, of course. Though there are a lot of stupid people in the world, there are likely not enough for a good-sized army of minions after you’ve winnowed out a good portion of the population with your stupidity-maze bottleneck effect.  To increase their numbers, you need to breed them with each other. Then you should breed their children with each other, always keeping the relationships as incestuous as possible.  The inbreeding of those who are already massively stupid will only encourage the proliferation of idiocy through the gene pool.  (Empirical evidence supports this fact.  See, for instance, Prince Charles, supporter of homeopathy and all things woo.)  After a few generations of sexy incestuous mating, you’re ready to take over the world with your new horde of minions. Also, be sure to invent a cure for old age and death, so that you can live long enough to survive through several generations of idiot-breeding.

With your minions in tow, you must then build rockets, like any good evil genius. Give your minions simple instructions using single-syllable words and easy to understand verbs like “go,” “do,” and “woo”. Have them build, label, apply sweet flame decals to, and transport rockets. Threaten to shoot said rockets at various countries unless they provide you with large sums of money. Show the leaders of the world images of your hordes of minions, using photoshop to edit out their glazed over stares, homeopathic pill bottles, creation-science textbooks, and the pools of drool and saliva at their feet. As long as you are not a communist and encourage capitalism among your peoples, Western governments will work with you. It also helps to have large resources of oil. But never under any circumstances become communist or possess no oil when threatening Western countries with your rockets. Then they will just bomb the shit out of you and your puny rockets.

Congratulations! Now that your threats of violence with rockets and a large army of idiot minions have succeeded, you will become a sovereign nation. At this point, you can meet the President of the United States at the UN after giving a long, rambling speech filled with conspiracy theories about JFK and in which you call the President your “son.” But even after gaining legitimacy, never try to usurp the United States’ army. The United States is a whole country full of half-stupid creationist woo conspiracy theorist minions that has been breeding for over 200 years. You’re better off going up against France or Sweden.

The Anthropic Principle has had a long and sordid history among cosmologists and others.  In essence, the principle asserts that the fine-tuning of the physical constants that allow for the formation of conscious life requires some sort of explanation.  As an example, some physicists try to argue for the existence of multiple universes in order to account for the precise values of physical laws, like the cosmological constant.  However, this reasoning seems to be a bit flawed.

Many writers who invoke the Anthropic Principle speak of the principle as if it somehow demonstrates some sort of strange fact about the universe.  But the Anthropic Principle doesn’t really demonstrate anything.  It merely presents a problem, not an explanation.  The principle can’t be used to justify a hypothesis if there is no other additional evidence for the hypothesis in question.  As such, I don’t quite understand the fascination with the Anthropic Principle exhibited by many physicists.

Consider someone who has won a lottery.  Such an event is quite improbable.  According to anthropic reasoning, this improbable event would require some sort of explanation.  Suppose a cosmologist argued that he could explain this event by invoking multiple universes where the person plays the lottery.  The person loses in most of the universes, but happens to have won in our own.  In this sense, the improbability is explained away.  The cosmologist can further argue that the mathematical model of this multiverse is consistent and trumpet this as some saving grace of his hypothesis.  But in the end, if there is no additional evidence of these multiple universes, mere mathematical consistency is not enough to support such a hypothesis, nor is the improbability of winning the lottery reason enough to assert such a bizarre hypothesis.

The problem with such anthropic reasoning, as I see it, is that there are a variety of other potential explanations, and without additional evidentiary support they can’t be ruled out.  Beyond that, it doesn’t even seem as if improbable events necessarily require explanations beyond chance.  By definition, even very unlikely events can still occur, as they are only unlikely, not impossible.  Aside from chance occurences and multiverses, there are a number of other possible explanations, ranging from benevolent deities creating things in this way to “evolutionary” mechanisms that select for universes that promote life or perhaps universe characteristics that correlate with the formation of life.  Without any sort of additional evidence for benevolent deities, or multiple universes, or evolutionary selection mechanisms for universes, though, such explanations are only baseless conjecture.  I don’t think it is enough for String Theorists to talk as if the precise values of the physical constants, in tandem with the mathematical consistency of their models, is evidence for such a conjecture.

Of course, I am not terribly well-read on the subject, and if anyone has any resources that present any additional evidence for such explanations, I’d gladly look into it.  But it seems to me that the Anthropic Principle is highly questionable as a “scientific” principle.

As a skeptic, one of the most grating words I can ever hear is intolerance.  Any skeptic, upon hearing this word uttered, is hit with instant paranoid dread and disgust, knowing that there is an almost infinitely likely probability that its sense is being mangled and distorted in such a way as to imply that one is equivalent to the Nazis for, say, ridiculing homeopathy or satirizing religion.  Of course, mocking ridiculous beliefs is not necessarily intolerant;  whenever I mock peddlers of alternative medicine, or insult the religious, or rape creationists with my rhetorical skill, I am nevertheless tolerating the rights of these fools to exist and to believe whatever silly shit they wish to believe.  I tolerate their presence; but I will not be forced to respect these morons.

Given my hatred of the way the word intolerance is frequently misused, naturally I was a bit disgusted to read a recent column by Paul Kurtz at the Center for Inquiry’s blog in which he criticized Blasphemy Day for encouraging intolerance, even going so far as to invoke the image of those rhetorically overworked swastika-laden Germans to argue his point.  Basically, Blasphemy Day was a response to those who insist that religion must be protected from criticism, either through laws against blasphemy or threats of violence.  The goal was to encourage the ridicule and criticism of religion and the preservation of free speech.  No one is arguing that religion should be destroyed by force, or that religious beliefs won’t be tolerated.  Contrary to Kurtz’s argument, those who would wish to suppress the right to criticize religion are those practicing a form of intolerance, working as they do to criminalize blasphemy or threatening violence against those who do things as harmless as publishing satirical cartoons and drawings.

Of course, Kurtz seems to miss the point completely.  He writes, “What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way?”  The problem, of course, is that religious believers can’t insult skeptics in the same way.  There is no analog for “blasphemy” in skeptical circles.  We don’t threaten to murder people if they publish cartoons mocking science-based medicine.  We don’t explode in rage if people draw little insulting Hitler mustaches on skeptical leaders like Paul Kurtz.  Nor do we attempt to pass legislation that legally prevents the criticism of our beliefs.  Now, would a skeptic be offended if a religious person mocked or satirized a skeptical viewpoint?  If he had thin skin, perhaps he would.  But that mockery of the skeptical viewpoint does not constitute intolerance.  As I skeptic, I reserve the right to mock whoever I want, and in turn I would not be surprised to be mocked in return by those who believe otherwise.  That’s how the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work.

The issue in question here does not concern tolerance.  Rather, it is a much more benign question of manners.  Ridiculing the religious and causing fundamentalists great offense is certainly not a very nice thing to do, but that doesn’t make it intolerant.  In the grand scheme of things, causing offense to the religious is justified if it is done in an effort to bring down unfair blasphemy laws and the undue influence of religious violence.  However, even if I were to rage against the religious and insult them without some deeper symbolic purpose at hand, this would hardly be so terrible.  There is no great moral imperative to be nice to people who believe in idiotic things.  It  is my moral duty to respect people’s rights to speak their minds, to let others live freely, and so on, but no one has a right to demand that others be nice.  Is it still tolerance when we no longer tolerate the free expression of justified anger, of satire, and of mockery?  A tolerance that is spread so thin is in fact no longer tolerant at all.