Dear fellow atheists and skeptics,

[lonelocust]

These are some things that we should stop saying, in my opinion, part 1.

"I don't BELIEVE in evolution. I accept it."
The common usage of the word "believe" does not in fact imply believe without cause, nor believe without evidence. It means you think that's how things are. I believe my hair is green. I believe I will not start eating steak any

Comments

[ravenblack]

"Burden of proof" also frequently annoys me in non-religious science contexts, where a claim has been made about something working for someone, and then somehow the burden of proof is on that person to show that it works in expensive clinical trials.

I understand not wanting to just wantonly accept every claim, but the guy with the claim is generally in no position to run expensive peer-reviewed clinical trials, and he's frequently already provided a small evidence. I would say that in the presence of some evidence, the burden of proof shifts to the other party to show something that refutes that evidence (and "well that wasn't a clinical enough trial!" is not really a refutation

[martinhesselius]

Makes sense.
(I'm not an atheist and I'm skeptical but not a Skeptic, but those are logical viewpoints with which I agree.)

[7ghent]

I concur, for the most part. How do you feel about Russell's teapot?

[lonelocust]

I've no problem with the cosmic teapot as an explanatory argument. It illustrates why people disbelieve (or have a lack of belief). It's getting across what people mean when they say "the burden of proof is on you" while providing actual information, whereas merely saying that provides no information and comes across as a non-argument. The teapot, or my favored argument of "I believe there are not elephants dancing on my lawn right now, and while I could be wrong, I also don't feel uncertain", provide concept and content.