Scientific Atheism: The Religious Left

During the debate over Global Warming over the past few years -- largely dissipated now, since the world had its coldest winter in 100 years -- I noticed a rather striking characteristic of many of the debators on the Global Warming side of the issue. They weren't really debating. They were screaming. They were denouncing. They were emoting. They appeared to have an emotional investment in the issue far out of proportion not only to the rather questionable factual base supporting the concept of global warming, but to any possible practical implications of global warming even if -- as appears not to be the case -- their facts had been accurate. The notion that global warming might not be important appeared to cause them actual physical pain, to the point of inducing madness.

At the time, I thought that, perhaps, this reflected the development of a new kind of religion based on nature worship and environmentalism, perhaps focused on the International Green Party, and harkening back to the nature worship of the Druids and the polytheists. It appeared to have a fundamentally irrational basis, indifferent to scientific reality logic or fact, attaching great emotional significance to powerful totemistic symbols such as the Nobel Prize and "scientific concensus" without any real interest in whether they reflected any fundamental, underlying reality.

Lately, I have been debating so-called, self described "atheists". Personally, I doubt it is possible to truly be an atheist: we all have to believe in something, after all. We all must have some sense of purpose, if only to feed our bellies. Some may have a more complex sense of purpose and structure to things than others, but, we all have some sense of structure and purpose. In the case of modern, American "atheists", this structure and purpose is what they call "science". It has, of course, nothing to do with "science" in the normal sense of the term, which is the pursuit of knowledge. Rather, it represents an attempt to find a simple solution to the complexities of life, by assuming that if something called the "scientific method" is applied to them, all complexities will, magically, disappear, and everything will be simple and clear, easily understood and controlled.

"Great Scientists" are perceived by these "atheists" as Saints and Martyrs to humanity, above and beyond all material and practical considerations, Saviours to humanity. Exactly who these people are, or why, is not well understood. Many Nobel Prize winners would, presumably qualify, since the Nobel Prize is one of their great totemistic symbols. Many University Professors would also qualify, since Universities are another of their totemistic symbols. They would be less inclined to support professional scientists working in Industry, because they see Business as evil, and are somewhat socialistic in their leanings. But, some inventors would qualify, as well.

Whence comes this new religion, and why? I would suggest that it is related to the current social and economic difficulties in the United States, and is largely an American phenomenon. People are looking for simple solutions, and science and technology have, in the past, provided solutions. But, rather than focusing on actual progress in science -- which is difficult and complex -- the intention is to focus on the symbols of science as an emotionally reassuring manifestation of progress, whether any progress is actually made or not.

I suspect we are at something of a watershed in Science, at the moment, and this religious manifestation indicates the likelihood of a fundamental change in the way science is done. Computer technologies allow the control and analysis of such huge quantities of data, now, that some systematic method of selection, evaluation and interpretation beyond conventional peer review and committee methods is necessary. Some truly "scientific" method of determining which data is important, and why.