My Dogma Ran Over My Karma

“When my information changes I alter my conclusions. What do you do Sir?”

If we’re to learn anything at all in life, our information must determine our opinions—not the other way around. If opinion sparring was a viable path to knowledge there would be no lasting conflict in the world, 99 out of 100 people would have PhD’s, and there would be no market for reality TV or gossip magazines.

Myth 4: “Irrational” means “unscientific”

If there is a signature New Atheists mantra it’s the words reason and rational. Both turn up repeatedly on nearly every page of their publications (Richard Dawkins’ even named his own non-profit The Foundation for Reason and Science). But for all their preaching of both, they rarely use either in conjunction with any sort of formal analysis or scholarship. In practice, “reason” and “rational” are merely labels they apply to their own opinions, or more commonly, “irrational” is their label for anything they deem distasteful or unscientific (or more to the point, scientifically unpopular). This is of course, incorrect.

Properly defined, reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information (Kompridis, 2010). Note the emphasis on logic and changing beliefs based on existing or new information. At a bare minimum, any claim that purports to be rational must meet the following conditions;

1. A formal chain of logic beginning from clearly stated a’ priori or a’ posteriori axioms and ending with one or more specific conclusions consistent with them (including valid mathematics where relevant).
2. Well-characterized data and/or reliable testimony for all a’ posteriori axioms (including properly cited source material where relevant).
3. Freedom from all formal logical fallacies (e.g. Ad Hominem, Argument from Ignorance, Genetic, etc.).
4. Comprehensiveness: The ability to account for a broad range of experience with a minimum of initial axioms and/or hypotheses compared to any competing claim.

No New Atheist I know has ever attempted a formal demonstration of their views that met any of these conditions much less all of them, or to prove that mine do not.