Atheists use science like believers use faith in times of stress, says study

[skepticscott]

37. Uh, no it isn't

The conclusion of the paper is exactly that people show stronger "belief in science" when they're under stress and that it decreases when stress decreases. Cripes, what did you think...that they're claiming that all of their subjects would have had the exact same responses no matter what their stress level was? What would have been the point?

And yes, their criteria were clear...but that wasn't my question, now was it? I asked what the concrete definition of "belief in science" was. They way they attempted to define it was not remotely in line with how they tried to test it and what they concluded:

Whereas most individuals accept science as a reliable source of knowledge about the world, only some perceive science as a superior, even exclusive, guide to reality, and as possessing a unique and central value (Haught, 2005; Sorell, 1991). We refer to such attitudes as belief in science.

By their own words "belief in science" is something that only some people have, while others don't, not something that everyone has to different degrees. They assume that "scientism" exists and refer to it as "dogmatic faith in scientific methods and results". So how, again, does "dogmatic faith" in something change with the wind, depending on your stress level?

And as stated, these questions are a really shitty way to measure even realistic attitudes towards science. A lot of people who understand science well would answer "hell, no!" or "What the fuck?" to some of them. Just about all of them are flawed for their purpose.