You responded with people having their lives ruined for being correct.
I haven't had time to read every single entry listed in those links, but AFAICT they're talking about scientists being, at best, ridiculed, not having their lives ruined. Moreover, in all these cases, the scientific community at large did realign their beliefs, once the evidence was presented.
Maybe I weigh being fired an unable to find a decent job for years a little higher on the, "how fucked your life is," list.
In fact, I would argue that this is part of the way science works, if unfortunate. As well as adopting new correct ideas, it's also important to be sceptical about new claims, otherwise we'd be adopting homeopathy, belief in Unicorns and who knows what. Yes, it's unfortunate if people's feelings are hurt, but that's more a social issue than a scientific one.[/quote]
[color="#1C2837"]I am not arguing at all against the scientific method. Just like religion the fault with ignorant/intolerant scientists lies with the man not with the method. I am just showing that holding science to a different standard when there are plenty of intolerant scientists just like there are plenty of intolerant religious people is ignorant. [color="#1C2837"][size="4"][/quote]
The second problem is that a significant number don't change their beliefs long after the scientific community has accepted them - again for evolution, significant enough to cause political debates in the US over education.[/quote]
Science shouldn't have accepted the neo-darwinist view of evolution in the first place purely based off of scientific evidence, as there are plenty of experiments with evidence counter to what should happen.
Your political examples aren't scientific ones. And I fail to see how the "video game" murders are anything to do with your claim about scientists ruining people's lives over new correct theories?[/quote]
It's to do with extremists doing stupid things that have nothing to do with religion.
I do think that religious belief is misguided (i.e., not supported by any evidence) and irrational. I also think we shouldn't uphold religious belief, faith and so on as being good things, or things that should be respected, just as we wouldn't for any other kinds of irrational belief.[/quote]
Why is it irrational? I find my belief to be logically consistent. Not to say some people's religious beliefs are not irrational, but certainly not all of us. There is an important difference between not having share-able evidence for something and being irrational.
So let's talk about religion - when religious people, and leaders of religious organisations, cling to a belief even if evidence or reason leads to the contrary, is this following the religious method, or is this not following the religious method?
If it's the former, then that's exactly what we are criticising here. And if it's the latter - perhaps you can join us in criticising the billions of religious people who are doing it wrong. (I'm not sure our views are that different - I acknowledge that there are some religious people don't seem to use it to base their beliefs about the world on, other than that there is a God.)
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I can't speak so much to other faiths, but specifically on Christianity/Catholicism there is a very vocal minority that is in fact doing it wrong. I totally agree that they should be rightfully criticized, but that doesn't mean we should all be criticized generally.
), that have archaeological backing. There's things that I've seen or know people who have seen that cannot be explained as anything other than God where coincidence isn't a possibility.
