{"id":4042,"date":"2009-11-05T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-05T08:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/?p=4042"},"modified":"2009-11-05T03:00:19","modified_gmt":"2009-11-05T08:00:19","slug":"this-could-get-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/4042","title":{"rendered":"This Could Get Ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global warming views \u2018are philosophical belief\u2019 for UK law<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations,\u201d ruled Justice Michael Burton (Guardian, Independent). \u201cIf a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is true, I suppose, that a view can be philosophical even if science addresses it \u2014 one can accept gravity without ever having taken a physics class, meaning that one believes in<\/em> gravity in a dogmatic sense. I think this is easier to see if one’s belief were to contradict science: one could sincerely believe that they can defy gravity and fly, though if that were ever put to the test they would have a hard time reconciling their belief with the fact that they did not fly so much as plummet. (Then again, having witnessed a lot of discussions involving cdesign proponentsists, I’ve seen fervent belief allow for some pretty wicked mental contortions). Certainly there are people out there that zealously believe that they can build a perpetual motion device, or that relativity is wrong. And it just boils down to this: if facts will not dissuade you, then your belief is religious.<\/p>\n

But we have words to describe those who tenaciously hold to beliefs that have been empirically tested, and found to be wanting: cranks, crackpots, woomeisters, kooks, loons, quackademics, wackjob, etc. You now appear to have the problem of not being able to fire an engineer or a scientist for believing in perpetual motion, simply because they hold that belief religiously. On the other hand, if the boss is a free-energy believer, how do you protect the science-minded employee from being dismissed for mentioning the second law of thermodynamics in front of the boss? Citing facts\/truth has to be what’s protected, not fanatically held lies or untruths. Between this and the libel laws in England, it’s kind of a wacky place for the intersection of science and speech (Can I say that?)<\/p>\n

Update: some commentary<\/a> on the situation, which cautions us that by reducing science to belief, we lose something: beliefs are created equal, and it’s far easier to dismiss a belief or an opinion \u2014 all you have to do is disagree.<\/p>\n

Religions have beliefs. Science is not a belief system but the best process we have for establishing the truth, piece by independently replicated piece. Nicholson should be appalled by the ruling he has won.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Global warming views \u2018are philosophical belief\u2019 for UK law \u201cA belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives, is capable if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,43,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","category-science-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}