But that's what scientists have said all along! Fatalis is accusing scientists--Weinberg, anyway--of saying the opposite, that there is no God. But at some point it behooves us to stop objecting to that canard, as we run the risk of protesting too much.
H-m-m-m, I read Weinberg's statement like Fatalis did.
When Weinberg starts out by saying,
"It used to be obvious that the world was designed by some sort of intelligence," it's hard not to come to the conclusion that he's trying to debunk the existence of a Creator.
Weinberg says he doesn't see any need for God by looking at science. Well that's a dopey statement.
Is science is a God-neutral endeavor or not?
He states that he has not seen a need for God, yet by making that statement he implies that he would know what that "need" would look like, if he saw it.
So far nobody has been able to tell me what such evidence would look like.
I know why however, hee hee.
Weinberg IS saying that there is no God and he is using science to advance his own Philosphical Materialism.
Faith and Reason interview - Steven Weinberg
" I went on to say that if there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that -- in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves."
Later in the same interview,
" I think that part of the historical mission of science has been to teach us that we are not the playthings of supernatural intervention, that we can make our own way in the universe, and that we have to find our own sense of morality. We have to find our own sense of what we should love. And I would hate to have those gains made by science vitiated by a misguided reconciliation with religious life."
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-body.html