Alex Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy and philosophy department chair at Duke University, where he is also a professor in the biology department and in the department of political science. He has held fellowships from the J.S. Guggenheim foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation and the National Humanities Center. Besides The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, featured on Rorotoko, he is the author of 12 books in the philosophy of science, molecular biology and economic theory, including most recently, The Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction and The Philosophy of Social Science. In 1992 he won the Lakatos Award for contributions to the philosophy of science. In 2007 he was the National Phi Beta Kappa Romanell lecturer.
Most people think of atheism as one big negative. But there is much more to atheism than knockdown arguments that there is no God.There is the whole rest of the worldview that comes along with atheism. It’s a demanding, rigorous, breathtaking grip on reality, one that has been vindicated beyond reasonable doubt. It’s called science.The scientific worldview requires atheism. It can’t be an accident that 95 percent of the members of the US National Academy of Science (along with their foreign associate members) don’t believe in God.But science also enables atheists to answer all of life’s universal and relentless questions. Some of the answers it provides are disconcerting. Several are surprising. But they are all as certain as the science on which our atheism is grounded.So why aren’t scientists more up-front about these answers that we can read right off of science? Mainly because the answers are bad PR for science in a nation of churchgoers.
Alex Rosenberg The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions W. W. Norton368 pages, 5 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches ISBN 978 0393080230
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