MoreOn comments on Outside the Laboratory - Less Wrong

63 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 January 2007 03:46AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (336)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: MoreOn 18 December 2010 06:52:13PM *  0 points [-]

scientific inquiry with the choice of subject matter motivated by theism is of lower quality than science done without that motivation.

Absolutely. Hence, the warning flag. A scientist expecting to find the evidence of God doesn't just have freeloading beliefs, but beliefs that pay rent in wrong expectations. That's akin to a gambling economist.

best scientists ... tend to be less theistic.

I'd say it's good evidence in favor of P ( good science | scientist is theist ) < P ( good science ) . Of course, your point about correlation not causation is very valid, too.

Someone in the discussion once said that atheism on average adds ~40 to IQ (I might be remembering incorrectly). I suppose high IQ is correlated with both excellence as a scientist and an ability to reconsider and abandon theism if the question ever arose.

My specific interest is whether or not atheism alone makes scientists better.