Templeton winner: Atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method

Gleiser – Own work//CC BY-SA 4.0

Yesterday, we noted that physicist Marcelo Gleiser won the Templeton Prize. Now we think we have a better idea why Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne is mad (“Templeton Prize awarded to physicist for blending science and woo”). We thought Coyne maybe didn’t have enough to do in his retirement if he even cares so much but then there Gleiser said something that must have yanked his chain real hard:

A physics and astronomy professor whose specializations include cosmology, 60-year-old Gleiser was born in Rio de Janeiro, and has been in the United States since 1986.

An agnostic, he doesn’t believe in God—but refuses to write off the possibility of God’s existence completely.

“Atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method,” Gleiser told AFP Monday from Dartmouth College, the New Hampshire university where he has taught since 1991.

“Atheism is a belief in non-belief. So you categorically deny something you have no evidence against.”

“I’ll keep an open mind because I understand that human knowledge is limited,” he added. AFP, “Physicist Marcelo Gleiser: ‘Science does not kill God’” at Phys.org

That is, of course, a problem. To prove that something cannot exist, one needs a mathematical type of proof. For a look at this kind of question, see Robert J. Marks on Things that exist that are unknowable – though in that case, we are looking at a number that must exist and yet is unknowable.

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See also: Apparent non-crackpot physicist wins Templeton Prize Marcelo Gleiser sounds as though he thinks that the great mysteries of physics are about this universe, not space aliens, computer sim universes, cyborgs, and so forth (for another view, see 2011 Templeton winner Sir Martin Rees).

and

Neuroskeptic: Atheists are NOT genetically damaged Of course, the claim is nonsense but then those of us who have listened to rubbish about the God gene and such can’t help hiding a giggle. Hey, given that it’s Hate Your Local Atheist Week anyway, how about “Atheists have mutant genes, don’t live as long ” (This relates to Jerry Coyne being upset at Gleiser’s win. Coffee ready yet?)

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