What Steven Weinberg’s “pointless universe” really meant

Explained by a science journalist:

As science and religion began to go their separate ways—a process that accelerated with the work of Darwin—science became secular. “The elimination of God-talk from scientific discourse,” writes historian Jon Roberts, “constitutes the defining feature of modern science.” Weinberg would have agreed. As he told an audience in 1999: “One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from that accomplishment.”

Dan Falk, “Learning to Live in Steven Weinberg’s Pointless Universe” at Scientific American

What it really meant was permission to ignore the significance of the fine-tuning of the universe and of Earth for life. It really amounts to saying that evidence does not matter any more.

That was a big one and Steven Weinberg had a lot of help making it work.

See also: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?

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