The New Atheist

I have always loved science. From when I was young I was always fascinated by everything – put everything terrestrial under my 10x microscope, looked at everything celestial through my telescope, made up chemistry experiments from books on kitchen chemistry and experimenting with electronics. I learned to love learning, and started reading non-fiction very young, and started reading beyond my years. I read Was Einstein Right at 12 or 13 on a family trip, and then began reading all I could on quantum and astro physics. And understood some of it. By 16 I had probably read much of the literature available in the public library on both subjects, and started branching in to chaos theory, geology and biology Never wanted to be a scientist per se, but always loved learning and reading on a variety of science topics.

For some odd reason today, a thought popped in to my head – why am I so passionate about scientific inquiry? This is a critical piece of my world view and the scientific method is, for me, a basic component day to day decision making. So I started thinking about it, and came up with a few things.

First, I’ve come to realize this naturalistic, scientific method type thinking creates a barrier with the religious. We speak different languages. For example, with science, the term “theory” is a good thing – something to be tested and supported by evidence and continually challenged. For the religious, the term “theory” is something completely unsupported, unproven and made up. Unless something unsupported, unproven and made up is in a “holy book” at which point it is absolute truth. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to get those folks to appreciate logic – and it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to stop trying me to accept ridiculous arguments. The problem is that religious folks think faith without evidence is a good thing, are even proud of it. Sometimes to the point they feel faith in the face of evidence contrary to their view is good. And I can’t fathom that. Which leads me to my second thought.

Science isn’t about having the answers, it is about seeking the answers. Good scientists, when faced with strong evidence, will change their stance. That is sort of the point of science – when a better hypothesis comes along, with good evidence, that new theory becomes the current standard to be challenged by new hypotheses and observations. Newton came up with a theory of gravity, and it was pretty good based on what could be observed. Then Einstein came along and showed Newton’s theory wasn’t complete. Science is OK with that, religion isn’t. Just as the religious were getting the hang of Newtonian physics, we threw them a curve and now space and time are no longer longer absolute.

Third, and this is my favorite bit about science – it does not claim to be right. The whole point, all these great minds and thinkers and time and energy, working toward _disproving_ hypotheses just as much as proving them. Sure, people are disappointed when new evidence doesn’t support their theory – but I’ve read too many articles and papers – scientists become excited by new evidence that can contribute to a new theory! Every time a hypothesis is destroyed by evidence, dozens of new theories rise up to be tested and tried and reviewed. This doesn’t happen in religion. With religion, all evidence must be suppressed; it is too threatening. With religion there is no opportunity to change direction without completely losing face (although they seem to find ways to squirm out sometimes).

Science is all about getting closer and closer to the truth – based on evidence. Constant learning. Willingness to accept “we don’t know yet” as an answer – and then coming up with an experiment to get closer to an answer. Building upon previous learning to enhance future learning. This inquisitiveness, excitement, and willingness to question is what I really love about Science.

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