Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method
OK, he&#x27;s obviously a brilliant guy, but I find his argument about atheism pretty weak... or rather, I should say that it only makes sense at a pretty abstract level. And that, IMO, is basically the same level of abstraction where one can make a compelling argument that science rests on (a form of) faith just like religion does (but possibly not the <i>same</i> form).<p>Anyway, &quot;belief&quot; in the supernatural makes, as far as I can tell, no testable predictions, or where it does, those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles.  I would say that non-belief, rather than being some &quot;affirmative assertion&quot; like he posits, is just the null hypothesis, and that all of the onus is on believer to show a way to invalidate that null hypothesis.<p>He is also ignoring the distinction between &quot;weak atheist&quot; and &quot;strong atheist&quot; where the former very specifically do <i>not</i> make an affirmative declaration that &quot;there is no god.&quot; Admittedly one can argue about the (apparently subtle) distinction between &quot;weak atheist&quot; and &quot;agnostic&quot; but whatever.<p>Me personally? I go with this point of view: I don&#x27;t need a special word to signify my non-belief in Santa Claus, and likewise I don&#x27;t need a special word to signify my non-belief in &quot;god&quot;. To me, those things occupy the same conceptual category. <i>shrug</i>