Atheists and the Stock Market - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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- Опубліковано 23 вер 2024
- Complete video at: fora.tv/2008/02...
Bestselling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb gives his take on beliefs, religion, and stock market analysts.
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The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought with Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses his book, The Black Swan in relation to predicting the future, learning from the consequences of the unknown, and the power of randomness.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an essayist, belletrist, and researcher only interested in one single topic, chance (particularly extreme and rare events, the "Black Swans" i.e. outliers); but it falls at the intersection of philosophy/epistemology (skepticism; knowledge about the dynamics of history; inferential claims), philosophy/ethics (stoicism facing random events; theories of nonhedonic happiness), mathematical sciences (probability theory, statistical physics), social science/finance (opacity & incomplete information in economics), and cognitive science (the mental biases making us "fooled" by randomness). He mainly derives his intuitions from a 2-decade long and intense practice of derivatives trading ("nondull" activities with plenty of randomness).
Taleb is currently a researcher at London Business School. He the Dean s Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Fellow in Mathematics in Finance, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University (since 1999), and research fellow, Wharton School Financial Institutions Center, and Chairman, Empirica LLC.
Taleb held senior trading positions with trading houses in New York and London and operated as a floor trader before founding Empirica LLC. His degrees include an MBA from the Wharton School and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris. He is the author of Dynamic Hedging, Fooled by Randomness, and The Black Swan.
I wonder how may of these trolls below have actually red any of Taleb's books? He's easily one of the most influential thinkers of the past 50 years. What's laughable is that this is but a very small clip to a much bigger lecture, and they're taking it at face value instead of understanding the context.
I read.
I still like the first 2, but Anti-fragile and Skin in the Game are full of nonsensical arguments and pseudoscience as this shot video.
@@tamelo You're an absolute cretin
He's saying that religions use the ability to "predict" randomness by justifying things after the fact and making it look like there was a known reason, e.g. "oh that guy died of pnumonia, it's because he was a blasphemer", but so do a lot of other institutions such as stock market analysts. As it happens I'm pretty sure the government does the same thing.
a stockmarket analyst: i am reasonably sure that when we go down, we might go down further, unless we don't and can hold a position - but even if we do go down further, if we can hold at a given position, then i might become reasonably certain that we might then start to go up. of course that really depends on whether we are goiing to go up, because if we don't, then i will become bearish and start preparing for another descent - provided that there are no sudden upward movements.
@QCreyton hello the reason he "waffles" for a long time and never "gets back to his point" here is that this is a SHORT UA-cam video of 3 minutes time. His lectures are much longer and hes written several books so if you want the whole thing youll have to find the WHOLE VIDEO or read his books not very difficult thank you.
1) Atheist (for the most) recognize so many falsehoods and hypocrisy and "evil" with religion that the priests invoke this nauseating feeling of distrust while there is little to link the image of the analyst to "bad things" like the cause of economic distasters etc therefore the nauseating feeling of doubt is less prevalent; this is with MOST ppl not just atheists (about the stock analyst)
2) I personally DO view the analyst's words with scrutiny
3)hes an expert therefore hes more credible
yes i think so. He is just pointing out that both religion and the stock market have an expert problem, and ppl rarely calls them out on it because of the illusion of control
I havent read the Black Swan yet..guess it is time to pick up the book! We live in a complex system that delivers extreme deviations. Current risk management and economic analyses methods fail us in such a system because of low predictability. What should we do in such an environment? At the IMD OWP 2010, Nassim Nicholas Taleb will present simple rules (lower leverage, less reliance on deficit spending, less mathematical risk management) for a black swan robust economic system.
I have great regard for Mr Taleb but at 0:08 he says he doesn't believe in beliefs but at 0:37 he says he is orthodox. He is a bit of an enigma but that is what adds to the attraction of his argument. I do agree that you can't be dismissive of things like religion and not of the stockmarket. It is an imperfect mechanism where the the herd mentality adds fuel to the boom and bust cycles we go through.
The difference between religion and the stock market:
I have SEEN the return on my stock investment.
Have never seen the return of Christ.
Duh dunt dunt- pisssh! Give Gatsby a hand everyone, he just flew in from Paris..boy, are his arms tired!
Christianity can have a payoff even if Christ doesn't return in your lifetime, if you trusted in his eventuall return. The failure of the return of Christ in your lifetime does not mean your entire religious life has failed or was in vain. At the grave, we don't say: "Gatsby was a bad believer, because Christ didn't return in his lifetime, his belief was in vain".
The stock market is also not "scientifically" proven to give you return reliably, you also TRUST that it is a wise decision to invest your money. If you end up losing money over your lifetime, it was by definition a mistake to invest. And it is entirely possible this will happen. Yet you TRUST it won't. You trust it will be an overall benefit. Very naive.
You will.
@@kevincherian8190 Suuuuuuuure bud...
"It has become customary, not only for the layman, but for the business man, the financier and the professional economist, to think almost exclusively in terms of money or debt while taking only vaguely into account the fact that somewhere in the background, physical equipment exists and operates; that upon this operation the entire social structure depends; and that but for this, the entire debt and financial structure would fall like a house of cards."
I agree with taleb's thought process but I believe he didn't express it accurately. When he says "stock analysts" I don't believe he's talking EVERY person trying to make money in the stock market. I think he's specifically referring to the mainstream crowd that follows televised "predictions" of the stock market.
what is your point? I'm simply responding to the claim that you made that we take the identity of our parents on faith based on circumstantial evidence. parenthood does not require biological ties, foster parents for example. It was confusing because it wasn't clear if you were referring to biological matriarchs/patriarchs, which are often not the caretakers of the child, and that's who I want to identify as the parents, and that requires no faith. we seemingly disagree on definitions of terms
@1tephania There is also a huge generalization improperly placed on Atheists, and that is that all Atheists are so for the same reason. You pointed out that "Atheists claim to be non-religious because they apply their reason to the fullest when it comes to religion" when this is not the case. I for one am not Atheist for this reason, and to believe that Atheists in general fell this way is simply naive.
Additionally, there is nothing irrational about the stock market.
Economists are supposed to determine economic policies. If you believe that economics is bullshit, then you’re basically saying that we cannot have any economic policy and we should let the market run free.
It doesn’t matter if you call yourself an economist or a geoscientist, if you make economic policies you’re doing economics. That beloved book of yours, that’s a book about economics.
I have to disagree with Taleb here. He says that an atheist who invests in stocks is a hypocrite.
Well, I'm an atheist and I invest in stocks. I keep enough cash around to survive losing my job etc, enjoy my life, and the rest goes into savings...mostly stocks. I know with certainty if I do not invest in something that could offer big returns, I will not be able to retire wealthy. So how can I not take the risk, when the alternative is certainly a bad outcome?
That was not his point at all. He was not saying that you can detect someone's opinions on financial investments by the fact that they don't believe in God, he was just using it as an example to illustrate the different domains in which it is possible to have faith, and that unwavering faith in the stock market (as an example) is no better than unwavering faith in God. He's not actually saying that atheists have unwavering faith in the stock market, or anything else.
When has dawkins said he trusts the stock market??
But he only uses the stock market as an example to lay the foundation of his main point: our skepticism is domain dependent, and just because someone has blind faith to their religion doesn't make them uncritical or unthinking. They are merely being selective about what they are critical to. But this is true for most people. What we believe IS influenced by what we wish to be true, whether it be a mom believing the best of her son or accepting evil rumours of something we don't like.
As much as I love Nicholas Taleb, this argument he makes is very graspy and obviously emotionally attached to religion. I am skeptical of the bishops, and the financial pundits.
For example, what rumours you believe concerning Democrats or Republicans will to a large extent depend on your own position in the political spectrum. We tend to believe the worst of "them", while giving "us" the benefit of the doubt. Not blind faith, mind you (except with the fanatics), but wherever there is a choice, we tend to choose the beliefs which best conform themselves to our own opinions.
This is a very intelligent man, so I can't figure out why he just spent three minutes talking about nonsense.
That is what religion does to people.
@SaveTheWheat But machines must be operated in accordance with their design. If you wish to speed up your automobile, you must press the accelerator pedal. Into this problem enter no abstract considerations whatever, such as, is it ethical to speed up an auto this way, or is this the best of all possible ways of doing it?
to my surprise ad blocker didn't work! the ad is in the actual video!
I am amazed at how many people did not get the point he was making. He was NOT comparing bishops to the stock market. He was saying that skepticism applied to one thing but not another is hypocricy. He is saying that religious people are not less intelligent than anyone else, because skepticism is domain dependent. Atheists exhibit just as much blind trust as theists, only in different areas. Which areas is individual, but the point he makes is absolutely correct.
A short list of the things your comment has prompted me to doubt you really understand:
1. Economics
2. Science
3. Money
What's not to understand about this video? He's basically saying that if you believe Warren Buffett is a billionaire, then you are a hypocrite not to believe in God.
Does this make sense to you?
What a great teacher, I learn easily with him
I wish people would challenge what I say in writing rather than just give me a thumbs down. I haven't been rude or inflamatory and yet haven't heard any points of contention from whoever keeps disagreeing with me.
The link to the full video is not working?
His analogy with the bishop and the stock broker was really flawed.
Also Nassim Nicholas Taleb: If a book can be summarized, it's not a book but a magazine article; don't read it and don't read its summary.
Well, this video should be kind of a hyperbole and a preview of NNT's books, but I guess it's reasonable to think e's dumb if you consider the video as a summary of his books instead of a hyperbole or a preview.
He says in 1:13 that "there is nothing wrong about being critical to religion", and at 1:17 you get the main point of his lecture: "our skepticism is domain dependent". Everybody is critical, but many people make exceptions for certain things. His accusation that "everyone who is critical to religion who invests in the stock market is a hypocrite" is a gross exaggeration, of course, because only an idiot has faith in anything in the stock market, theist or no.
I am an Atheist and I put money in the stock market. It was too complex for me to predict and I lost money. I stopped. How is this being inconsistent? I suppose this video might have been taken out of context, but even if it was I think we have a hard enough time convincing people that beliefs in gods is irrational without a video making it sound like atheism itself is inconsistent.
However, I *bet* the entire talk is good and serves as a warning for atheists to be rational always.
"""""It is operated by the price system, not by guess work nor by economists."""""
...so what is the use for having any economists at all then?
A Price System may be either a fixed Price System where prices are set by the government or it may be a free Price System where prices are left to float freely as determined by unregulated supply and demand. Or it may be a combination of both with a mixed Price System.
@SaveTheWheat
In tossing a coin, how does one know how many times heads will turn up? How does an insurance company know how many people will die next year? How does a geologist know where to drill for oil? How does the designer of a building determine how many elevators will be required? How does the weather bureau predict what the weather will be tomorrow? How can the astronomers predict to within a second an eclipse of the sun 150 years hence?
@faro0485 Might I ask that you update the Wikipedia page on irreligion to include pantheism and whatever else you think irreligion should include.
"Are you as an irreligious person defining religion when you have no experience of war, matrimony or saving a life?"
Boy, that is begging the question if I ever saw it. Oh sorry, I didn't realize I must have been in a war in order to define religion. Am I allowed to define irreligion, or is that your prerogative?
I understand that. I just disagree that playing the stock market is analogous at all to having faith in a religion. True, in both instances you place "faith" in one sense in an system of principles and ideas, but in investing, the only thing you have faith in is that, if the investment is a good one, you are MORE LIKELY to profit, but you should diversify in order to hedge your risks because there is no certainty. Religion calls for faith not in the calculations of probabilitiy, but in fai
@FlipThatBond My point (and Taleb's too) is that we are ignorant and arrogant if we assume that the future will follow our perceived expectations. Thus, atheists and religious people alike are not very well prepared for such a proceeding. And our track record of future prediction is very dismal indeed. Read his book, "The Black Swan"; I hope you'll understand what I mean...
@IKNOWALLABOUTALL: What he's "on about" is what he considers the ironic disparity between the skepticism focused on religion vs the (lack of) skepticism focused on econometric modelling in risk and finance.
In his book "Black Swan" he makes a convincing case that most modern economic modelling in wrongly based on Gaussian statistical methods--and that almost no ordinary skepticism has been focused on the assumptions on which that choice of methods is based.
@1tephania Of course Atheists are capable of irrational thought: everyone is. Of course I haven't read his book, but at which point does Taleb actually say anything with substantial evidence? Aside from making a couple statements about the similarity between stock market and religion, and the fact that they both host "belief," what valid points does he make and prove?
I'm going to continue this thought on my next reply.
It would be a zero sum game if the money supply was static, but it isn't. The government and banking system creates lots of new money and a lot of that ends up in the markets.
@DayfallKat Taleb is not being very clear but he is NOT saying that Dawkins believes in stock market analysis. He is merely sourcing Dawkins double-standard example.
Is Nassim taleb a hypocrite because he is supicious of the stock market, but is not suspicious of religion?
Technocracy's Technate design, the synthesis for survival, is located in the last two chapters of the Technocracy Study Course, mostly written by Marion King Hubbert, who is today the most famous geoscientist of all time.
Atheists are surelely not hypocrites for investing.
Investing in a stock is somewhat a "leap of faith" though. But meaning just taking a calculated risk.
Investing, lottery and religion both involve a kind of wishful thinking also.
Besides, that isn't a perfect anaolgy. The analogy should be between bishops and stock brokers. The difference being that bishops tell you about God, the existence of which is debatable; stock brokers tell you about the stock market, whose existence is known, but its mechanisms perhaps not understood.
@QCreyton He's using a figure of speech, I thought that was pretty obvious.
If some people don't understand his rather simple points then I suggest the problem isn't with Taleb.
@QCreyton He is greek orthodox to feel better about himself. He isn't pretending that he acts much differently than nonreligious people because he's greek orthodox.
if his argument is that blind faith is a bad thing, that would be a very strange one for a supposed theist to uphold.
Here's the crux of a skeptics argument, he looks for rules to worship and be true. They are constantly looking for a perfect law, while rejecting a God who offers an absolute law. You cannot even judge something as Good or Bad without a concept, so athiesm is conflicted in itself by attempting to be a judge of any system. Because you worship rules, you look for exception to rules or patterns that you see. The exception to the "rule" makes a belief unlogical, Rule-igion = athiesm.
It is operated by the price system, not by guess work nor by economists. We don’t live in the Soviet Union, you know?
And in any case, science can deal with value as well.
@SaveTheWheat Science is in a dynamic sense, essentially a method of prediction. It has been defined as being the method of the determination of the most probable.
This is ridiculous.
He didn't justify a single point he made - he just kept repeating a bunch of ridiculous assertions and badly formed analogies, then moved on to his next pet topic.
Why so many dislikes? The thing about doctors is brilliant!
it's confusing what you say about parents. are you saying that people rely on evidence that they don't test and that's how they decide on who they call mom and dad? well me and everyone I know grew up actually observing the people who acted as our gardians and raised us and we just chose to call them mom and dad because they were the ones that treated us like we were their children and if that's not enough factual observation rather than faith, there are always birth certificates
I am interested in his test for skepticism. Any link?
@SaveTheWheat The machine is built simply to accelerate in response to this one operation. This is a useful lesson to digest. No machine, no group of machines may be properly operated except as specified by their design. America's idle factories, her wanton destruction of food supplies while her citizens remain undernourished are results of trying to operate a system by other criteria.
what does he recommend we invest our money into then?
Taleb's analogy is extremely flawed. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to language barriers. Although language barriers shouldn't affect the ability to use logic, but hey, it's tough speaking a second language and thinking.
So there's a disconnect here; atheists claim that they are so rational and that's why they are free of religious beliefs. Then how come this rationalism/skepticism doesn't serve them everywhere?
My answer (and not Taleb's) is this; atheism has become a form of belief over the recent years in which it was popularized by Dawkins et al. People do NOT think to arrive at atheism; they merely accept it as a form of belief because at first glance, it sounds cool and seems reasonable enough.
Math is accurately depicted in all things, though. For example there is a mathematical formula for gravity. When it is tested, it works. This rationally proves that the math representing it is factual. Also, understand that math can not be disproved. One plus one is always two, based on the purist definition of what one is.
Math is not only a system of notations we created, although we did, because the entire universe follows its laws. This is something we can prove. Religion is not.
So how are you going to make economic policy without economics?
Money then constitutes a form of generalized debt certificate which is exchangeable not merely for a specific product, but for any purchasable product, which the community affords. It is expressed in denominations of value.
Except that no reasonable physicist, chemist, biologist or geologist would try to make economic policies, as none of those sciences have anything to do with it.
Those people were scientists, but not in any discipline that has any use for making economic policy.
Economics is a social science, it’s not precise nor perfect, but it cannot be. There’s never going to be a (hard) scientific way of governing the economy.
I watched this video ok and tried to learn something ok and I read some of the comments ok on this video ok, and I'm not sure if I got anything out of it ok
Not that he was clear about it, but doesn't he mean "sick people who goes to the temple instead of a doctor"?
Except that this planet is able to sustain so much growth that it’s *virtually* infinite. Of course we can’t have infinite growth, but we won’t run out of resources because we are small compared to the planet: we’re only using some superficial stuff we find in the upper part of the crust, there’s much more underneath.
And in any case, we constantly find new ways of doing things. A today’s iPod is way more powerful than the huge computers we used to build in the 60s, and requires fewer resources.
"Economics, that pathology of debt, not containing within itself any modulus or calculus of design or operation, must likewise be discarded with the other historical antiquities. No political method of arriving at social decisions is adequate in continental areas under technological control, for the scientific technique of decision arrivation has no political antecedents."
It reminds me of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations : " how even managed economies were driven by the invisible hand! " nothing is sure!
@faro0485 We can't even communicate about communication. I have bookmarked the online etymology dictionary so I can decipher your sentences.
communication: "to make common". So now you want to make common my meaning for the word religion.
religion: Modern sense of "recognition of, obedience to, and worship of a higher, unseen power" is from 1530s.
(continued)...be validated, it would have to be the case that medicine continued to result in more deaths than the lives it saved. Now, I don't have statistics on preventable deaths in hospitals coming about through routine treatments or suchlike, but surely the near disappearance of diseases like smallpox and the plague, the fact mothers and babies don't die in childbirth as often anymore, and many other medical advances (in developed countries anyway), mean that his claim is just wrong?
Economics is not science. Science does not concerns itself with either values or opinions, and money is a value. Axiology is the study of values.
Investigate Technocracy Inc. for more information about a science based social synthesis.
@mateohellabay78
That is my point.
When the profit-motive-ideologists conned the government into privatizing pensions and retirements, many people were forced into a system they little or nothing about. And even if they did, they weren't necessarily even the ones who made the ultimate decisions about which stocks they became connected to.
The stock market seems designed to absolve anyone from accountability for the, often extremely destructive, actions of private interests.
There is a lot of rational people on the stock market making rational choices, based on empirical evidence. There are also a lot of people who simply buy into the hype. Perhaps he is referring to the later as being hypocrites if they are atheists. But I like how he is painting all investors and traders with the same color. If he does not believe in the market, he can always get out and be a hermit.
debate between richard dawkins and taleb would be an interestin one... i hope it happens soon
has it happened yet?
@MrMZaccone
Even cases like Galileo Galilei's famous trial is overblown. Galileo had powerful backers in the Catholic Church and at one time the Pope himself supported him. Galileo was also treated very leniently and the only reason he was convicted was because he lost in a political fight - long story.
"America stands on the threshold of that new era, but she will have to leave behind all the wish fulfilling thought and romantic concepts of value that are the concomitants of a price system. So, too, all philosophic approaches to social phenomena, from Plato to - and including -- Marx, must functionally be avoided as intellectual expressions of dementia praecox."
I believe that Taleb is letting some of his own bias cloud the argument he tries to make in this video. The epistemological structure, and consequential the type of evidence/scepticism applied, differs massively between the arguments for God and the stock market.
Surely a great many people do not understand the "nature" of the stock market but the the existence of it's apparatus is without doubt. Warren Buffet.
That the market is virtual matters not.
Nassy T. is the man
@FlipThatBond I assume you're an atheist, yes? Well I have to disagree: just because you can look past "social pressures" doesn't mean you're a good trader. Is an atheist better prepared to deal with what happens when a market crashes, seeing their wealth reduced by 75%? Nobody can claim to not be affected by that, not even the best hedge fund managers of all. Ability to predict the markets consistently is non-existent, and that to deal with them is not really related to one's spiritual beliefs.
""""""Secondly, you still don’t understand. Money is a means of exchange, it’s not value in itself.""""""
You still don't understand. Money is stated in denominations of value, and is exchangeable for goods or services of an equivalent value. We are talking about metrical measurement, as opposed to commodity evaluation. Totally different things.
You really have no idea what you're talking about. Your simplistic theory assumes that money supply is static and that every dollar sold of a stock reduces the market capitalization by a dollar, which simply is not true.
@SaveTheWheat These are all illustrations of scientific predictions. Some of these predictions, as you well know, are more exact than others, but they are all based on the same fundamental principles of reasoning from the basic facts. When more facts are known, more accurate predictions can be made. That is what is meant by the most probable; not that by this method one knows exactly what will happen, but by it's use he can determine more nearly what will happen than by any other method.
being skeptical of religion and playing the stock market is inconsistent? pardon me, but how the fuck are those 2 things related
I hope that this excerpt was some sort of joke and that the balance of his lecture has something valid to say. This was very poor.
Although I do take his point about the hypocrisy of investing certainty in stock markets but not in religion - it is a good point that bears thinking about, and I see no reason why a skeptical writer (no need to be a Neo-Darwinian or even to agree with Dawkins) couldn't address the irrationalities of this kind of 'belief' in the markets. Although, having said this, financial analysts and the like do at least try to test data empirically much of the time, which religious thinkers may not do
Only when you are looking at it.
So atheists can be *gasp* religious! Which brings us back to the comments on this video.
I've read a couple of pages of comments and there was only ONE atheist who got Taleb's point about atheists not being as rational as they claim to be. Others were fulminating and going apeshit because their belief was insulted.
.. Much like the Muslims who went apeshit when Mohammed was insulted in a Danish newspaper.
So in short he's saying: "You're not allowed to criticize religion when .. " (there is no need to continue this sentence). Why am I not allowed to criticize religion?
"Medicine killed more people than it saved". He does not back up this claim so I will assume it moot.
Sadly this seems to be the state of discourse whenever people 'attack' Dawkins. They deflect or simply refuse to follow logic.
I'm tired of the whole science vs religion discussion. Can't we just get along?
+TakanashiYuuji He is talking amount domain dependence of ideas, medicine has killed far more people than it has saved. I am not religious
Spencer Marlen-Starr "medicine has killed far more people than it has saved" do you have proof for this claim?
In his books, he claims that medicine has killed more people than it saves throughout its entire history until the mid 1800s.
I did not mean to claim that it still does today, but many modern medical treatments still cause more harm than good, many other treatments cause more good than harm. It isn't black or white here.
Spencer Marlen-Starr does 'he' have any proof for that claim?
TakanashiYuuji I will try to make my explanation of this simple. I love statistics, I am a math/econ major in college, I think statistics can be very useful. However, statistics are not helpful in studies about things that happened before the 19th century because data wasn't collected.
So to answer your question, there isn't a data sheet I can link you that shows decade by decade how many people doctors killed and how many they saved going back 6,000 years. That being said, his point is about the mathematical properties of convexity and concavity, if you are only slightly or maybe ill, treatement is concave (more possible harm than good), if you are REALLY sick as in dying, then treatment is convex (more possible upside than downside).
Just to let you know, not bragging here, but I read lots of books, I like reading all the time. I have never come across an author anywhere near as impressive to me as Nassim Taleb is. If you choose to read any of his books, it will be helpful to your intellectual growth, guaranteed.
@MrMZaccone
Unlike you, most people don't follow the stock market.
Most people aren't drawn to gamble their savings.
They have been forced to play the market when their pension funds and retirement funds were invested in spite of their ignorance.
faith is belief without evidence, which is irrational.
Just because people make irrational decisions in other arias of there lives (aka, stock market gambling) doesn't make irrational leaps of faith any less nonsense.
Taleb, you are making a comparison between the stock market and religion when it simply cannot be done. One is a man made identity and the other isn't. No, math is not a man made identity, but rather a representation for reality. Math accurately depicts all that exists -- nothing more although plenty less. The basis for my own disbelief in religion is its lack of mathematical proof. I do not believe in the stock market, but rather trust in it. There is a difference.
Is this guy unaware that plenty of people are skeptical about the stock market/and analysts? There is no double standard. And I'm not even going to go into his asinine comment about going to a doctor being the same as going to church.
The atheist claim is just a straw man anyway. Perhaps after he produces his figures about whether the religious are better or worse at predicting patterns in or believing in arbitrary, 'random' systems such as the stock market, in comparison with atheists, then we'll have a true comparator with which to judge his claim. But as it stands, simply conflating 'atheist' with 'believes in the stock market' is inaccurate and weak, as atheists just as likely to support socialism or some other system..?
I think science is imbued with certain values. Intellectual honesty and respect for evidence for example.
Can you be more specific? In what way?
mephesh "one of the things I discuss in my next book" go read it
""""Economics is a social science, it’s not precise nor perfect, but it cannot be. There’s never going to be a (hard) scientific way of governing the economy."""
Yes, that's because economics uses the concept of value, which pertains to the field of axiology, so it is incompatible with science. The vast array of complex industrial equipment currently keeping us all alive at a high standard of living here in North America can only be operated by precise metrical measurement and not by guesswork.
the difference is religious faith makes claims about unobservables, something that's not allowd by logical positivism. I think you are still equivocating religious "faith" with "loyalty" that scientists have to the tenets of their practice. Science makes no claim of absolute knowledge so it doesn't need nor claim to find an ultimate resolution. It's a system of induction not deduction. It's a fallacy to claim it's something that it's not and then act like you defeat what it actually says
@QCreyton ok well if you dont understand the point just keep trying its not hard good luck.
If you can not get something out of nothing, then how can you get intelligence out of non intelligence. What is God ? God could be an Infinite superior being / entity or organization of superior beings that administer over a sector of the Infinite or even the Infinite ( infinite intelligence, energy and matter ). What is the driving force that makes infinite minute particles bond. Energy cannot be created or destroyed ( infinite chemicaly and geometricaly ) Without a force there is no action.