The Downside of Peer-Reviewed Science Papers

Peer Review is considered by many to be the gold standard for evaluating science papers, but it comes at a price (click the image for the 2-minute video).

Consider also, Thomas Kuhn's observation:

During the period of normal science, the failure of a result to conform to the paradigm is seen not as refuting the paradigm, but as the mistake of the researcher, contra Popper's falsifiability criterion. As anomalous results build up, science reaches a crisis, at which point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science.

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NYT: To Investigate COVID Origin in Humans is Racist

Apoorva Mandavilli is a reporter for the NYT specializing in COVID issues. She thinks that her job is to NOT investigate how this pandemic-causing virus was able to infect human beings, allegedly because to ask this question is "racist." Maybe the NYT ought to replace Mandavilli with a new COVID reporter who has at least a mild interest in science.

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Duke Neuroscientist Punished for Arguing that There are Only Two Sexes.

From a May 14, 2021 article in The College Fix:

John Staddon, an emeritus professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, was taken off the Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology Division 6 listserv overseen by the APA.

. . .

The topic that appears to have gotten him removed was the suggestion that there are only two sexes. According to Staddon, what likely got him taken off was this post: “Hmm… Binary view of sex false? What is the evidence? Is there a Z chromosome?”

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Bart Ehrman: One Can Be Both an Agnostic and an Atheist

I encountered Bart Ehrman many years ago, when I encountered his excellent book, Misquoting Jesus. Today I learned that Ehrman writes at his own website, The Bart Ehrman Blog. Yesterday he published an article that makes sense out of a confused topic: the difference between agnostics and atheists? Erhman holds that the difference is not a matter of degree, a common misunderstanding. The title of Ehrman article is "On Being an Agnostic. Or Atheist?" Here's an excerpt:

. . . I think it is possible to be both an agnostic and an atheist. And that’s how I understand myself. So, in this newer view of mine, agnosticism is a statement about epistemology – that is, about what a person *knows*. Do I know whether there is a God in the multiverse? Nope. I really don’t. How could I know? I’m just a peon on a very big planet, circling around a very big star, which is one of some 100 billion stars in this galaxy, which is only one of anywhere from 100 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in this universe, which may be only one of trillions (infinite number?) of universes. So, well, I don’t have a broad perspective on the question. So I don’t know. I’m agnostic.

Atheism, on the other hand, (in my way of thinking) is not about knowledge but about belief. Do I *believe* that there is a God? No I don’t. I especially do not believe in the biblical God, or in the traditional God of Jews and Christians (and Muslims and so on). I simply do not believe that there is a God who created this world (it is the result of forces beyond my comprehension, but it goes back to the Big Bang, and we are here because of evolution, and I exist only because of some pretty amazingly remote chances/circumstances…); I don’t think there is a divine being who is sovereign over this world who interacts with it and the people in it, who answers prayer, who brings good out of evil. I don’t believe it. So I’m an atheist.

So I’m an agnostic atheist. Or an atheistic agnostic. Take your pick!

I like this approach.  No one knows whether there is a god hiding behind a distant star. It's possible that there is such a lurking god, even though I'll never be able to prove or disprove such a claim. This inability to prove or disprove god is an epistemic challenge, according to Ehrman. I am forced to live a life of ignorance about many things, including shy gods hiding in outer space (or in my toaster, or wherever). Ehrman would attach the word "agnostic" to that epistemic predicament. Fair enough.

And in the meantime, I need to either act as though god does exists or that god doesn't exist. As I see it, this is a question of where I'm setting my default for belief.  Some people set the bar low and they believe in all kinds of mystical claims and conspiracy theories.  I am extremely skeptical about claims about gods (and many other things). This might also be seen as how I set up my "burden of proof," as we might say in a courtroom. Those of us who are highly skeptical need extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.

I consider the question of whether god exists to be an extraordinary claim, but others might set the bar much lower.  Some of them believe with with nothing more than a hope and a duty old book of apocryphal tall tales. What do I believe when I (a person who sets the bar for proof high) don't see any evidence of a god and yet I can't disprove the existence of god? Shall I act "as if" or not "as if" there is a god? A lack of belief in a god is what Ehrman calls "Atheism."  This nomenclature makes sense to me.

I will give this some more thought, but I'm inclined to join Ehrman as new member of the church of Atheist Agnostics.

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