Share Your Most Dangerous Idea

GabrielF writes "Every year The Edge asks over 100 top scientists and thinkers a question, and the responses are fascinating and widely quoted. This year, psychologist Steven Pinker suggested they ask "What is your most dangerous idea?" The 117 respondents include Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond -- and that's just the D's! As you might expect, the submissions are brilliant and very controversial."

Comments

Re:Incorrect again

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http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/atheism .htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_standard.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/ dict_online.htm

The secondary agnostic definition is colloquial. In that that is the intended meaning by people who don't know what they are talking about. Atheism is simply 'a-' (without) 'theism' (belief in God). It doesn't require an active disbelief, although if somebody disbelieves in God they by default lack a belief in God as well. Not believing in God is the only thing required to be an atheist.

Dictionaries simply give the senses that words are used in, not the proper sense. If a word is misused enough it gets added as that meaning, simply because somebody might wonder what a person means with that word and look it up. If you want to see this in action look up the word 'irregardless' sometime. It's not in the dictionary because it's right, it's in the dictionary because it's common. Atheism doesn't include any beliefs, just a lack of belief in any type of god or gods. However, enough people use it to mean a denial or disbelief in God (a position which does require that a person be an atheist but doesn't include most or all atheists) enough that that usage was added. Huxley coined the word 'agnostic' to mean one who doesn't know or doesn't think knowledge is possible. Agnosticism has nothing to do with belief, it's a knowledge claim. However, it has since been often improperly used as a synonym for weak atheism (lack of belief, without active disbelief concerning gods). And if a word is used improperly, and often enough it gets added. You can even check words like 'nuclear' and find, lo and behold, that annoying mispronunciation is sitting right there as proper (rhymes with spectacular). Yes, language reference are handy, but they only reference how language is used, not if it is used properly.