A world-renowned theoretical physicist has criticised atheism as an unscientific, dogmatic declaration. Marcelo Gleiser, a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, was speaking after winning the 2019 Templeton Prize.

In an interview with Scientific American he said that atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method as it is merely a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief. Science, however, proceeds by way of a hypothesis and then evidence for or against it.

An agnostic might say he has no evidence for God but, “on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn’t know about. ‘The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,’ and all that,” he told the magazine.

Gleiser also expressed his belief in Science’s need for humility, and for scientists to be ‘honest’ in the claims they make.

He rejects the notion that science alone can lead to ultimate truths about the nature of reality.

He often describes science as an “engagement with the mysterious,” inseparable from humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Gleiser’s writings propose that modern science has brought humankind back to the metaphorical center of creation – his doctrine of “humancentrism” — by revealing the improbable uniqueness of our planet, and the exceptional rarity of humans as intelligent beings capable of understanding the importance of being alive.