I think Nation is saying that, not you. The problem is that the claims are verified - maybe not by you but by many people with an incentive to disprove them. That happens both after the claim has been published or aired (like with cold fusion) and during peer review. As a program chair and editor, I know that even one reviewer who casts doubt upon something in a paper will cause it to be looked at very closely, and possibly rejected. Reviewers who make long comments get more credence in the accept/reject decision than ones who write either “Great” or “Crap” and nothing else. We take this stuff very seriously.
There are also multiple levels of trust. Things like quantum mechanics get verified billions of times a second. Lots of incorrect conclusions are sitting out there in the literature since no one cares, but these are mostly trivial. A friend of mine, a physics major, had his PhD delayed a year when he showed that something that was accepted was incorrect. It wasn’t important enough for a PhD by itself. And incorrect stuff sneaks through. When I was in grad school someone (not in my department) published a paper with a bad proof that would haver rocked the world if true. This was in the most prestigious journal in the area. Two months later there were a spate of letters - including one from the author - saying “whoops.” The more eyes have looked at something, the more you can trust it. You’re quite correct in not trusting a single study you see in the paper about food x is bad for you or food y is good for you. The study has almost certainly not been replicated.
And I agree that we can’t rule out a higher power - I’m just going to act as if there is nothing there until I see a good reason not to.
For the record, I am to all intents and purposes an atheist, except inasmuch as I think the Kalam cosmological argument makes sense (and doesn’t contradict scientifically established fact).
That’s why the experimental physicists check up on the conclusions of the theoretical physicists. The most common reason for the kind of error you mention is bad assumptions. When we make them, and run an experiment, nature slaps us down. That is a crucial difference between science and religion. Aristotle and that crowd did science by reasoning, with often impeccable logic. But they didn’t believe in checking by experimentation, and they were almost always wrong. If they were right, like in atomic theory, it was more or less by accident.
No, that’s just pandering to religion. There’s no evidence for it at all, and it’s not a position we would take with some other baseless claim. I doubt you would say the same about fairies, or a claim that the world is flat and on the back of a giant turtle, and NASA is faking the evidence claiming otherwise. Slap the religion label on something though and we are supposed to pretend it’s a reasonable possibility no matter how ridiculous.
There is nothing “ridiculous” about the possibility of the existence of “God.” As has been indicated: it’s an unverifiable assertion. This being the case, you can’t ridicule it (well, at least not in the sense of pointing to evidence and saying, “Can’t be true!”). That’s why it is always best when scientists avoid discussions involving belief systems and believers avoid trying to assert that there is evidence of their beliefs.
Is there anything ridiculous about the hypothesis that werewolves, leprechauns, wood sprites or hobgoblins exist? Is there any hypothesis at all that can be fairly said to be ridiculous?
I didn’t say that the explanations put forth by any major religion were reasonable possibilities, just that to absolutely deny the existence of god(s)- for all possible values of god- is a bad idea.
But not as bad as absolutely discounting vampires! It could be anyone! Say what you want about god, but he’s never tried to suck anyone’s blood (to my knowledge).
Edit: Do you invite people into your house by the way? Do you at least give them the garlic check just in case?
I don’t suppose the possibility of the existence of God is ridiculous per se, but once you realize that belief in the Christian God and belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster are both equally valid it’s pretty hard not to laugh at them.
No. I’m saying it’s reasonable- even sensible- to accept the possibility that a supreme being exists. It’s not reasonable to behave as if one exists because there is no reasonable evidence that said being has provided any guidance as to how that is accomplished.