Abstract

Victor Stenger is a physicist and a ‘new atheist’ who has written extensively on science and religion. The distinctive thing about his critique is his claim that religious beliefs (Christian, especially) can be disproved by the application of scientific method. This is the main purpose of his book: God The Failed Hypothesis (2008), (subtitled How science shows that God does not exist), but it enters into others, especially Has Science Found God? (2003).

I shall argue, in general. that Stenger’s approach is misconceived and, in particular, that his specific conclusions are false, largely because of his insecure grasp of the principles of statistical inference.

Because the scientific approach to religious phenomena has much more in common with social scientific enquiry, I shall argue that Stenger’s approach can never, even in principle, answer the question he poses.