g comments on Fake Morality - Less Wrong

46 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 November 2007 09:32PM

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Comment author: g 12 November 2007 09:47:00PM 0 points [-]

Douglas, how can it possibly be sensible to "take Newton as an example" of what are *currently*, 400 years later, hindrances to scientific understanding? So yes, it's an "odd question" indeed.

We don't have any way of knowing whether Newton's belief in God made it easier or harder for him to improve on those who went before him, because we don't have access to an alternative universe with an atheistic Newton in it. Is anyone actually suggesting that theism makes it impossible to do good science? That would obviously be insane, so I rather doubt it.