Show HN: Chromeless – Headless Chrome Automation on AWS Lambda - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless <comment><AUTHOR> I'm really excited to finally open-source Chromeless. We've used NightmareJS and similar tools before to run integration tests but these basically added ~20min to each build. With Chromeless we were able to reduce this time to under a minute!

Here is btw a demo playground to try it out: [https://chromeless.netlify.com/](https://chromeless.netlify.com/)

Let me know if you have any questions :)

<comment><USER2> How difficult would it be to also support google cloud functions and the azure offerings? This seems like a really useful standard tool that lots of people might want to use. CI jobs on pull requests that take seconds instead of minutes = big win!

<comment><USER3> Azure Container Instances might be good for this: [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-azure- cont...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-azure-container- instances/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> shamless plug: i've also written a high level api on top of the chrome remote debugger chrominator [1]

similar idea. chrominator use promises instead of a fluent api. it also follows the selenium w3c spec where possible. it does cool stuff with evaluate and evaluateAsync where it resolves the remote object to something usable.

to be fair there are a few other projects i know about that wrap chrome remote debugger with a high level api:

* autogcd [2]

* ghostjs [3]

[1] [https://github.com/jesg/chrominator](https://github.com/jesg/chrominator)

[2] [https://github.com/wirepair/autogcd](https://github.com/wirepair/autogcd)

[3] [https://github.com/KevinGrandon/ghostjs](https://github.com/KevinGrandon/ghostjs)

<comment><USER5> Shameless plug: I've been hacking on headless chrome in AWS Lambda but with selenium webdriver support [1], also using the binaries from the serverless- chrome [2] project.

To echo another comment on this thread, headless chrome seems well-positioned to shake up the automated browser testing market. The price—especially with the AWS Lambda free tier—is very, very compelling for a number of projects.

[1] [https://github.com/smithclay/lambdium](https://github.com/smithclay/lambdium) [2] [https://github.com/adieuadieu/serverless- chrome](https://github.com/adieuadieu/serverless-chrome)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks great! As the developer of an automated screenshot solution ([https://urlbox.io](https://urlbox.io)), one of the major pain points when taking screenshots is font-rendering. I wonder how you could install/configure fonts on lambda?

</comment><comment><USER7> @schickling - When will the PDF support arrive? [https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/blob/master/docs/api...](https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/blob/master/docs/api.md#api- pdf)

<comment><USER8> Also interested, this would be excellent fit for a use case I have archiving certain important government websites.

Btw, does the .viewport() option not work in the demo? I'm seeing a `TypeError: Failed to fetch` when I set one.

<comment><USER9> You need to do it like this:

[https://chromeless.netlify.com/#src=const%20chromeless%20=%2...](https://chromeless.netlify.com/#src=const%20chromeless%20=%20new%20Chromeless\(%7B%20remote:%20true,%20viewport:%20%7Bwidth:%201024,%20height:%20800%7D%20%7D\)%0A%0Aconst%20screenshot%20=%20await%20chromeless%0A%20%20.goto\('https://www.graph.cool'\)%0A%20%20.scrollTo\(0,%202000\)%0A%20%20.screenshot)

<comment><USER8> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This would have been awesome to have back when I was heavy in to the UI test automation game. Our best option at that point was a spot instance EC2 fleet and analyzing commits to determine which tests would be the most valuable to run. It's awesome being able to easily run hundreds or thousands of tests in parallel, completely segmented, and pay only on demand. A fantastic use of AWS Lambda! It suddenly becomes reasonable to do full integration tests on every merge request, or even commit, and get feedback to the developer in seconds.

<comment><USER11> Do the math. If you're suggesting running _all the tests_ , drastically increasing your compute volume, it's probably cheaper to use a dedicated instance running at max CPU utilization.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's of course based on what's more important for you: Running tests non-stop and perfectly utilizing a compute instance vs having the tests executed when you need the results as soon as possible. I might argue that in most cases the latter is what you'd actually want. Especially given that you're getting billed on a millisecond basis.

<comment><USER9> I would love to have something like this for my scala API tests. We have 3k tests running on 10 ec2 instances and the entire test-suite takes 10 minutes. If some infrastructure would allow me to pay a little more and run all tests in parallel, that would be a game changer for our team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a really cool project, but looking closer at the API and issues raised it seems that the features are being over-promised.

\- "Do pretty much everything you've used PhantomJS, NightmareJS or Selenium for before".

The main features of those tools plus their ability to handle a large range of edge cases are built up over the years in production use and do not seem to be already in Chromeless. Also, Lambda costs can be a significant point of consideration for professional test automation with large volume.

Nevertheless, there's no turning back as flood gates have been opened and many developers are noticing Chromeless. I believe, with enough dedication from Chromeless maintainers, they may be able to channel the attention and contributions to shape Chromeless to be the main challenger to existing test automation approaches. That will really be a blessing to the open-source community!

The only catch I believe, is it may be easier for those existing tools to be made working in Lambda or implement a similar form of parallelism while still having their mature API, than for Chromeless to catch up to the state of maturity of those tools. But as they say, growth solves almost every problem, so issues like these may be ironed out through collaborative efforts from contributors/maintainers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi kensoh, thanks a lot for your great comment.

I totally agree with you! It took years for these tools to mature and so it will be the case for Chromeless. There are probably a range of edge-cases that yet have to be solved but like you said, I'm very optimistic that together with our great community, we'll be able to handle all of these cases.

The big incentive for us to create Chromeless instead of using Nightmare or similar (which I've done for years) was the fact that you can now use headless Chrome (which provides a way more stable foundation) + the ability to execute the code on AWS Lambda which solves the parallelisation question. I hope this makes sense to you :)

<comment><USER12> I'm really excited for you guys, it looks like your implementation through AWS Lambda has struck a chord. I really can't wait to see how Chromeless maintainers & contributors give back to the open-source community by challenging existing ways to do stuffs and introduces new innovations in this space.

Yes perfectly, I believe for any one very serious about test automation or browser automation in general, they will make their own tool and bring it to market if there isn't already one that meets their needs. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using serverless-chrome for the past few weeks and this looks like a big improvement in usability!

[https://github.com/adieuadieu/serverless- chrome](https://github.com/adieuadieu/serverless-chrome)

<comment><AUTHOR> Chromeless is actually built on top serverless-chrome and was developed together with the author of serverless-chrome :)

<comment><USER14> ;-)

<comment><USER12> Really cool collaboration and project! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've got the impression that lots of sites block AWS IP addresses. I wonder if this would hamper the practical use of this on Lambda.

I'm doing something similar, and this concern was one motivation for running in our datacentre vs EC2.

Does anyone have concrete info on rates of bots blocked from AWS IPs?

<comment><USER16> I assume the number one use of this would be test automation for one's own sites so blocking would not be an issue.

What are sites' motivations for blocking AWS IPs? I bet there are some reasons I would agree with even though the somewhat crude method of blocking ip range would have some unintended consequences (e.g. blocking people running a personal VPN).

<comment><USER17> >What are sites' motivations for blocking AWS IPs?

I block AWS. So many crawlers up to so much nonsense! I don't block by IP, but by hostname.

      $block='.amazonaws.com';
      $ua = @$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

      if (stripos($rh,$block)!==false &&
      	stripos($ua,'Silk')===false &&
      	stripos($ua,'Safari')===false){

        	$block_visitor=true;
      	$message="Blocked Host:Amazon Web Services";
      }

<comment><USER18> Just curious what have you seen crawlers do to make you conclude they're up to nonsense?

<comment><USER17> Well, from amazonaws.com, there are so many requests for wp-login.php!

And then all the off-brand scraping companies use amazonaws.com.

<comment><USER15> What do you mean by off-brand scraping? You mean search engines that you haven't heard of, or copyright violating orgs?

<comment><USER17> Some AWS visitors:

Cliqzbot, VidibleScraper/1.0, CheckMarkNetwork, CCBot/2.0 ([http://commoncrawl.org/faq/](http://commoncrawl.org/faq/)), linkdexbot/2.2; +[http://www.linkdex.com/bots/](http://www.linkdex.com/bots/)

That last one is a "SEO platform".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How do cookies work in Chromeless? Can I specify a cookiejar to use? Can I keep cookies separated?

</comment><comment><USER20> How is this different from using a container/vm image which has chrome pre- installed and on request launch it in headless mode, accessing the instance via chrome-launcher and manipulating the browser with chrome-remote-interface?

You can then use the vm/container as a function to match AWS lambda.

Is it the that the api is more-user friendly or selenium w3c complaint?

Genuinely curious, don't know much about this project.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been super excited about Chrome headless but haven't had a chance to dig into using it yet. The api here looks amazing for getting started without getting lost in the weeds. It'd be fairly trivial to hook this up to a Slackbot and to get on-demand screenshots of various pages on my websites, etc.

<comment><USER22> A month ago I was trying to migrate some tests from phantomjs to chrome headless. The big blockers I ran into were that chromedriver automation has certain functionality that only works with a special chrome extension that it installs- but headless chrome doesn't support extensions.

There's work being done to fix this, but it's still in progress, last I checked. Until then, resizing windows, taking screenshots and a handful of other things simply don't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The last time I tried headless Chrome, file downloads were a PITA. Has anyone tried downloads with Chromeless?

<comment><USER14> Other than taking a screenshot and evaluating JS code in the context of Chrome and returning JSON, we haven't yet implemented any file-download features. But it might be possible for us to implement something. Would you mind creating an issue here describing your use case so we can discuss it further? [https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/issues/new](https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/issues/new)

<comment><USER12> By design, headless Chrome disables file downloads. This is being tracked at this issue to offer a way to enable that, and the issue seems to be moving along =) [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=696481](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=696481)

EDIT - above is assuming downloading a file by simulating a click event to perform the download. there may be other workarounds by script injection etc to use XMLHttpRequest() for downloading a resource directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'll just add some related projects I've used / tried in the past.

The promise of fast execution time in parallel is tempting with Chromeless. Thanks for sharing.

\- [https://github.com/webdriverio/webdriverio](https://github.com/webdriverio/webdriverio)

\- [https://github.com/nightwatchjs/nightwatch](https://github.com/nightwatchjs/nightwatch)

\- [https://github.com/assaf/zombie](https://github.com/assaf/zombie)

\- [https://github.com/dhamaniasad/HeadlessBrowsers](https://github.com/dhamaniasad/HeadlessBrowsers)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for bringing this up. We've tried all of the projects listed above before we began to implement Chromeless.

Ultimately it was the combination of using headless Chrome and the ability to execute code in parallel on Lambda, which made us invest in Chromeless.

<comment><USER25> How hard do you think it would be to update Nightmare/etc. to use headless Chrome under the hood? Asking as someone with some interest in the space but little experience with the codebases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Another platform that supports headless chrome: [https://devexpress.github.io/testcafe/](https://devexpress.github.io/testcafe/)

The error report given by this are some of the best.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is pretty nifty! I've been keeping an eye on Phantomium for a while, I wonder what's come out of it.

<comment><USER12> Looks like Google releasing headless Chrome is really shaking up the test automation domain. This is a really cool project :) The other day I saw another interesting and refreshing implementation using GraphQL - [https://github.com/joelgriffith/navalia](https://github.com/joelgriffith/navalia) (not affiliated with the project, just got to know from a PhantomJS issue).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Looks super promising, the API is really neat and running the tests in parallel is a big plus! Awesome work!

</comment><comment><USER29> (Shameless promoting): for an API version of the prerendering functionality, with no warm-up latency, we're running a large cluster of Chrome headless instances here: [https://www.prerender.cloud/](https://www.prerender.cloud/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like a great service and very useful for frontend developers.

We've built something similar internally and will shortly migrate it to Chromeless. We basically use it to pre-render our websites and docs: [https://github.com/graphcool/prep](https://github.com/graphcool/prep)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> We've been using chrome-remote-interface for test automation in a project that makes heavy use of Lambda for a distributed event processing infrastructure. I'm looking forward to seeing whether we can implement this for running our test automation suite!

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear how that goes. Please reach out if you have any problems or questions. The easiest way is to ping me on Slack: [https://slack.graph.cool](https://slack.graph.cool)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> One minor housekeeping comment:

The first two examples seem to return 404, for me:

[https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless#examples](https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless#examples)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. This is fixed now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So to clarify - this is basically a Node.JS wrapper around Chrome headless, right? =_)

Seems pretty awesome.

My use case is to take screenshots of various pages - the docs don't mention the default viewport dimensions, btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes exactly + this can run (in parallel) on AWS Lambda, so you don't need to worry about provisioning & running servers. That's actually the part I'm most excited about :)

<comment><USER33> It's parallel because AWS Lambda is inherently parallel? Or are you referring to within JavaScript?

<comment><USER14> Parallel in that you can invoke many Lambda functions at the same time and have them run independently of each other

<comment><USER34> So basically if I had 200 automations I could run them on 200 lambdas and have them finish by the time the slowest one finishes? That pretty awesome, specially for testing. For many cases this would also fall under the free tier since it not that many requests/usage...it kinda seems too good to be true. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER35> > For many cases this would also fall under the free tier since it not that > many requests/usage...it kinda seems too good to be true

(since I've ran into the same trap a couple of weeks ago and ended up with USD 650 of unanticipated charges): the free Lambda tier includes

* 1M requests

* 400k GB-seconds

\--> the GBsec can be a serious bottleneck. Imagine you're running each Lambda instance with 512MB RAM and each instance takes 2 mins to complete your test. This means that one Lambda instance is ~61.5 GBsec, meaning you can execute ~6,500 of these instances per month to remain in the free tier.

Depending on how extensive your tests are/how often you run them, you might run out of free GBsec well before you'd run out of the requests quota.

<comment><USER36> Granted that means running ~216 instances per day, or 9 instances per hour (taking 18 minutes per hour to run total). Now you're right, if you're running a screenshot service then this will kill you real fast.

However assuming a 8 hour work day you then get ~27 instances per hour. Each test takes two minutes to run, so for a single user testing, assuming a code - test - code - test routine, you'd be able to do that nearly continuously, for 8 hours a day, every day of the month (no weekends or days off). Seems safe to assume that wouldn't occur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can I use this somehow in a container? Farm out headless chrome + selenium on a local data center? I would be grateful for any hints.

<comment><AUTHOR> We haven't done so yet, but it shouldn't be a problem at all to set up Chromeless in a container environment. Would you mind creating an issue here to discuss this further? [https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/issues/new](https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless/issues/new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Really awesome. Will definitely be usefull for a project I am working on.

Any plan to support other languages beside JS?

</comment><comment><USER39> Can any headless browser solution be considered complete without GPU support? A large percentage of sites use GPU enabled and accelerated features and without GPU support, headless options are worthless to many applications.

</comment><comment><USER40> Wish it had a python wrapper.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to build one :) You should even be able to reuse the existing Lambda backend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> naming gore.

</comment><comment><USER42> Nice tool

Some API documentation says:

pdf() - Not implemented yet

Not implemented yet

How about you deprecate the API for now but reveal the purpose please.

</comment><comment><USER43> Cool. Now can you use it with webdriver functions instead of re-inventing the API?</comment>


Tiny, Winged Robots Show Agility in the Air - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2013/0502_fly.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> "Inspired by the biology of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap almost invisibly, 120 times per second, the tiny device not only represents the absolute cutting edge of micromanufacturing and control systems; it is an aspiration that has impelled innovation in these fields by dozens of researchers across Harvard for years."

\- from: [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130502142649.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130502142649.htm)</comment>


Climate change affecting corn prices - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/business/climate-change-effect-seen-for-corn-prices.html?_r=1&src=rechp

<comment><USER2> Most commodity prices are heavily influenced by speculators, aren't they?

If so, is the corn market different from the oil or precious metals market, in regards to speculation?</comment>


Show HN: Steamosaic: Generate a mosaic of your steam account - <AUTHOR> https://steamosaic.com/ <comment><USER2> Pretty cool!

Any plans to add sorting order? Maybe add background-color sort so it becomes a bit aesthetic?</comment>


Apple: "We must Have Comprehensive Location Data" - <AUTHOR> http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/04/24/1358223/Apple-We-must-Have-Comprehensive-Location-Data

<comment><USER2> This is misleading. This quote isn't in a response to the latest discussion about the location database file, but the title and Slashdot link both make it seem that way.

Also, please link to the original source.</comment>


Ask HN: How common is NIH Syndrome in different Industries - <AUTHOR> NIH syndrome is a major problem in the software development industry. Do other industries suffer from such problems?<p>If yes, then how often? <comment><USER2> I myself am not fond of external dependencies, having had some projects merely obsoleted when the dependent resources that be decided to drop/revise their offerings.

A lot of businesses would be hesitant to have dependent outsourced critical technologies, especially if its their core service or product. Over the decades I heard of many failures, not due to the product, but the dependent technology either dropping out, changing api/usability, or highly inflating usage/licnese costs.

Here is a Joel piece on it: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/14/in- defense-of-not-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/14/in-defense-of- not-invented-here-syndrome/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the blog reference!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> All of the big defense contractors suffer this too.</comment>


Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/atheism-is-inconsistent-with-the-scientific-method-prize-winning-physicist-says/ <comment><USER2> > it does inform my position against atheism. I consider myself an agnostic.

Surprising for someone with his background to not understand the difference between atheism and agnosticism, and obviously not understanding that these two are not mutually exclusive.

> "I don't believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I > don't believe."

That's absolutely not what atheism is.

Atheism is a single position on a single claim. The claim is "There is a god", and the position is "I don't accept that claim".

How can this be even remotely against the scientific method? It's not even a claim, let alone a hypothesis.

This person seems to be so confused about basic epistemological definitions.

<comment><USER3> My understanding from theology classes a long, long time ago is as follows:

\- Atheist: Believes there is no God.

\- Agnostic: Doesn't know/isn't sure/doesn't care if there is a God.

\- Anti-theist: Is against the mere idea that there is a God.

That may have changed in the intervening decades, and with the rise of the internet, the term "atheist" seems to have changed in popular culture, often to suit a particular person's views or vocabulary. A lot of internet atheists strike me as anti-theists. But that's not a common term.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely not.

Atheism is about belief, agnosticism is about knowledge.

They are complementary.

You can be atheist/agnostic, theist/agnostic, atheist/gnostic, theist/gnostic. It's a matrix.

Also there are two flavors of atheism: those that believe there is no god (a minority in my opinion, and that position requires a burden of proof).

And there are atheists who simply reject the claim that there is a god. They say there might be a god, or maybe not, but that people who claim there is a god have not presented enough evidence for that claim to be accepted.

If I look at a grass field and tell you there is an even number of blades of grass in that field, you are not going to accept my claim.

Does that mean you think that number is odd?

No. You're just saying I have not provided evidence for my claim, and therefore, you do not accept it. But you are not taking any position yourself.

That's atheism.

<comment><USER4> This doesn't match any dictionary I have.

Atheism: belief there is no god.

Agnosticism: we don't, we can't, know whether a god exists or not.

> They say there might be a god, or maybe not,

This by definition is not atheism, it's agnosticism.

<comment><USER5> The OED and M-W both disagree with whichever dictionary you're using.

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/atheism)

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/atheism](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/atheism)

You also seem to be strafing your dictionary claim and then ignoring anyone who shows that you're incorrect. That's a poor way to debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate the clickbait title. I hate how it will be misunderstood. I hate that the subtleties in his statement will be ignored.

And to the people who care about this, his claim about atheism is pedantic.

"I do not believe aliens abducted my dad."

Sorry, but that's a perfectly rational thing to say, in all but the most academic of circles.

In every-day life, I don't need to be so cautious as to say, "I have no evidence that aliens abducted my dad."

Drawing a distinction between those two is a waste of time, and some in the theist crowd will point to this and say, "Scientific American says denying God is inconsistent with the Scientific Method!"

This will do harm in the real world, and not any good in the academic world.

You know what else I say?

F=ma

I know about quantum mechanics and relativity, thanks.

I don't need a Scientific American article telling me, breathlessly, that "F=ma is false!"

In context, F=ma is a perfectly valid thing to say.

Imagine if Scientific American had a headline: "Earth Is Not Round". [1]

Isn't that an awful clickbait title? Does the content of the article really _inform_ anyone who actually cares about the subject?

I'm not going to go to a GIS Conference and declare, "The world is ROUND." That would be moronic.

I'm not going to get drawn in to a discussion, "Yes, it's possible the world actually IS flat, but has only appeared to be round so far to all of the experiments I'm aware of."

F=ma. The world is round. I believe God doesn't exist.

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not- roun...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-not-round/)

<comment><USER7> It's not pedantic.

One is a statement of belief. The other one is not. In the context of a discussion on belief systems, it's the difference between night and day.

And he's correct: atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method, since it posits something that cannot be proven or disproven using existing scientific method.

<comment><USER6> There are people who call themselves atheists who define atheism as carefully as you want them to.

It's not accurate for you to then say "atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method."

We're debating how many people use a term the way you want them to, and how many people use a term the way I want them to.

Hence: pedantics.

EDIT:

Try this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjY619aJ82Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjY619aJ82Y)

<comment><USER7> _It 's not accurate for you to then say "atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method."_

Atheism is the belief that there is no God. It's a belief, and can't be proven or disproven by known methods of experimentation or observation. Ergo, atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method in the same way that theism is inconsistent with the scientific method.

This is not to say that agnosticism is consistent with the scientific method, since agnostics merely posit that they don't know whether or not God exists. Some couch it in language like "there's no evidence" but not all agnostics base their skepticism on a reason consistent with the scientific method.

TLDR: Theists believe "God." Atheists believe "no God." Agnostics _don 't_ have a belief either way. This is not pedantry, it's a fundamental difference in belief systems.

<comment><USER6> In the contexts I care about, this absolutely is pedantry.

If I as a layman make the assertion, "I am an atheist," and a perfect scientist asks you to translate my statement into an expression compatible with the scientific method, that he could understand, you could do it.

Here, let me try: "VikingCoder is not convinced there is evidence that proves the existence of a being which created the universe."

Feel free to make your own translation, if you are dissatisfied with mine.

And if it turns out that you do not believe there's any difference between the scientifically literate explanation for agnosticism and atheism, THAT'S FINE BY ME.

I believe there is a scientifically literate explanation for atheism which differs from the scientifically literate explanation for agnosticism.

Because we're humans. We are allowed to express opinions. That doesn't mean we have abandoned the scientific method.

I'm allowed to have thought, "I believe we will find the Higgs boson."

I'm allowed to think, "I believe I will never be convinced of the existence of God."

> It's a belief, and can't be proven or disproven by known methods of > experimentation or observation.

My atheism absolutely could be disproven by observation. I'd be delighted to go in to listing observations that would disprove my atheism, if you care.

(I think you probably shouldn't have used "or observation" in that statement, if you wanted to be harder on me.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> OK, he's obviously a brilliant guy, but I find his argument about atheism pretty weak... or rather, I should say that it only makes sense at a pretty abstract level. And that, IMO, is basically the same level of abstraction where one can make a compelling argument that science rests on (a form of) faith just like religion does (but possibly not the _same_ form).

Anyway, "belief" in the supernatural makes, as far as I can tell, no testable predictions, or where it does, those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles. I would say that non- belief, rather than being some "affirmative assertion" like he posits, is just the null hypothesis, and that all of the onus is on believer to show a way to invalidate that null hypothesis.

He is also ignoring the distinction between "weak atheist" and "strong atheist" where the former very specifically do _not_ make an affirmative declaration that "there is no god." Admittedly one can argue about the (apparently subtle) distinction between "weak atheist" and "agnostic" but whatever.

Me personally? I go with this point of view: I don't need a special word to signify my non-belief in Santa Claus, and likewise I don't need a special word to signify my non-belief in "god". To me, those things occupy the same conceptual category. _shrug_

<comment><USER9> "those predictions have either been falsified or contradict generally accepted scientific principles." ...

Well our current flavour of Science is effectively materialist and it starts effectively with the assumption that 'the universe is made up of a bunch of laws' as we try to discover them. It postulates a priori a specific metaphysical position that immediately negates anything else ... so it's going to be impossible to test what has been ruled out as an assumption.

The first order problem that materialism brings us is the inherent nihilism in the 'we are just a random bag of particles problem' \- i.e. taken to it's extreme, not only is there no 'supernatural' \- there is effectively not even 'intelligence' or 'life' or possibly 'consciousness'. Just the _appearance_ of those things.

So logic, reason and science, i.e. tools which we 'the observers' developed to facilitate our understanding of ourselves, has come to negate our very existence? Or is it more likely we are caught up in our own bad thinking?

It's funny that we ignore the biggest problem staring us the mirror: 'what are we' / 'what is life' \- in lieu of somewhat more tangible things like 'Dark Matter' as we stare off into space, because the 'what are we' problem does not fit well into our materialist equations. In fact, speculation about 'life' may undermine just a little bit the very premise of science, in a much worse way than string theory (assuming it ends up really being actually wrong) ever will.

The headline is a little click-baitey, and Gleisers comments I don't think are much more insightful than a decent HN comment ... but I think the underlying problem is the straight jacket that materialism has imposed upon many of our best thinkers.

The argument he presents is essentially that of someone at an intellectual dead-end, as materialism seems to be on this issue.

Emergence [1] and Bio-Centrism [2] may offer us some hints at how to rethink our perspectives to accommodate for the very nature of life itself, the expression of which I think is what inspires our spiritual inquisition.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) [2] [http://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and- consciou...](http://www.robertlanza.com/biocentrism-how-life-and- consciousness-are-the-keys-to-understanding-the-true-nature-of-the-universe/)

<comment><USER10> > The first order problem that materialism brings us is the inherent nihilism > in the 'we are just a random bag of particles problem'

We are just a random bag of particles with self replicating power and the end result of billions of years of competitive self replication under limited resources (evolution). We survived entropy for long by learning to sense, make use of and adapt to the changing environment. Our fundamental internal purpose is to exist and to make more of ourselves (just another way of saying 'to exist').

We're agents learning to sense and act in a way that would maximise our future rewards, reward types which have been selected by evolution to serve self replication.

I don't see nihilism in this position, maybe there is a lack of appreciation in your position for the physical self replicator, the actual source of life.

> not only is there no 'supernatural' \- there is effectively not even > 'intelligence' or 'life' or possibly 'consciousness'. Just the appearance of > those things.

There is, we have the ability to learn to sense and act based on our rich environment and complex brains. Our emotions encode our current rewards and the prediction of future rewards. We learn the value function and the policy function that would allow us to continue to exist and self replicate. They form what we call 'consciousness' and 'intelligence'.

<comment><USER9> "We are just a random bag of particles with self replicating power"

", maybe there is a lack of appreciation in your position for the physical self replicator, the actual source of life"

Maybe you've misunderstood my statement.

Only from the materialist metaphysical perspective we are 'self replicating bags of atoms'.

Materialism essentially starts out with that premise, i.e. that the universe is particles that behave according to specific rules we will eventually discover. It's a premise, not a fact.

The materialist premise is exceedingly useful for many things, but in it's extreme, it's ridiculously stupid as it denies what we accept as a very rational fact: that we are alive.

In other words - because we can't explain life with physics, doesn't mean life doesn't exist, it means that physics is probably the wrong tool for the job.

The mental trap of materialism is strong, sometimes we get caught in it like a Chinese finger trap: it's deeply nihilist to propose that we, as a life forms, don't even exist, and that the words we write, the thoughts we have, essentially don't exist, or are at most only the result of random interactions.

It's also exceedingly hypocritical to live life with purpose or expression, and then somehow to have some strange belief that it is utterly random and meaningless. I think it's actually totally irrational and illogical.

<comment><USER11> If a universe bubbled into existence, stars exploded and cooled and a bag of atoms were to self-organise and develop the capacity to experience its own relative concepts of pleasure and suffering over millennia, I don't think it would be irrational or illogical for that bag of atoms to seek to selfishly maximise (long-term) the former and minimise the latter, and that scales out pretty comfortably to persuing philosophy, politics, raising a family etc., even in a universe where everything else is also just a differently shaped bag of atoms.

There's nothing inherently more meaningful about the supernatural than the natural.

This particular bag of atoms, for instance, derives much more pleasure from acknowledging itself as such, than from deciding that it is instead some platonically ideal "being" who was created by an ideal God who always was and whose mere existence eliminates every trace of the incomprehensible, random and emergent beauty that exists in this brutally materialistic framework in one fell swoop.

<comment><USER12> > If a universe bubbled into existence, stars exploded and cooled and a bag of > atoms were to self-organise and develop the capacity to experience its own > relative concepts of pleasure and suffering over millennia, I don't think it > would be irrational or illogical for that bag of atoms to seek to selfishly > maximise (long-term) the former and minimise the latter, and that scales out > pretty comfortably to persuing philosophy, politics, raising a family etc...

...and slavery.

<comment><USER11> Ha, yeah, all of the awful shit is better this way as well.

<comment><USER12> > Ha, yeah, all of the awful shit is better this way as well.

Honestly, that just sounds like the peace of mind of a psychopath.

<comment><USER11> Psychopath? That I would rather that all the terrible things in the world emerged randomly rather than being a part of some grand plan, or some supernatural game of Good Vs Evil?

I think you might be reaching for a label when you could have simply said we disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> > And we know for a fact that there will be no other humans in the universe;

You know that for a fact, really? With billions and billions of planets in the universe, you know that for a fact?

That's a pretty rich position for someone claiming he's an agnostic, "someone who doesn't know".

> like when you have scientists—Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss among > them—claiming we have solved the problem of the origin of the universe

Citation needed. These two brilliant men never thought anything remotely like that, they are/were way too humble to make this kind of claim.

> or that string theory is correct and that the final "theory of everything" > is at hand

Same remark. The scientific community is pretty well aware that there are many more detractors of string theory, or the the M theory is just around the corner, than supporters. This guy is a theoretical physicist, really?

<comment><USER13> > That's a pretty rich position for someone claiming he's an agnostic, > "someone who doesn't know".

There _might_ exist a being that defies everything we know about physical reality! But not other humans anywhere or anywhen. That's just highly improbable, _not_ purely speculative and outside the bounds of what we understand to be reality, so I reject it as impossible.

 _eyeroll_

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> After a little (very little) digging the "prize" he won was the Templeton Prize for "affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works."

On the topic of science v. religion he also says "Science does not kill God."

In my opinion this mystical thinking begs the question if he can be trusted within his field. He obviously lacks the ability to remain impartial about his religion. He's playing out a personal crisis in the open for his entire field to witness.

There's just too many things wrong with this that I can't adequately format them all for this post. I feel like I shouldn't have to teach him about things like Atheism. He should have the impartiality to learn about them, accurately, on his own before he goes around making an unsubstantiated ass out of himself.

And who is this mystical fairy-tale Templeton organization who rewards whimsical fringe scientists?

How is a "creationist scientist" (oxymoron in-and-of itself) getting an award from a creationist philanthropic organization for doing bad science to promote creationism newsworthy in the science community?

<comment><USER15> > In my opinion this mystical thinking begs the question if he can be trusted > within his field. He obviously lacks the ability to remain impartial about > his religion. He's playing out a personal crisis in the open for his entire > field to witness.

> There's just too many things wrong with this that I can't adequately format > them all for this post. I feel like I shouldn't have to teach him about > things like Atheism. He should have the impartiality to learn about them, > accurately, on his own before he goes around making an unsubstantiated ass > out of himself.

> And who is this mystical fairy-tale Templeton organization who rewards > whimsical fringe scientists?

> How is a "creationist scientist" (oxymoron in-and-of itself) getting an > award from a creationist philanthropic organization for doing bad science to > promote creationism newsworthy in the science community?

If you'd read the article, you'd have found that Marcelo Gleiser, the recipient of the award, self-identifies as an agnostic. And a _tiny_ amount of digging shows he's also obviously not a creationist: [https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why-d...](https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/18/145338804/why- do-so-many-have-trouble-with-evolution).

Your comment consists of little but bomb-throwing falsehoods, and is really about a straw-man of your own invention. It's not really the kind of thing that should be posted in a flamewar-prone topic, or anywhere for that matter.

<comment><USER14> I forgot, HN is only for AWS press releases and people telling other people what should be on HN. Gotcha!

On a serious note... you could have stopped after: > "In my opinion..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> " honestly think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It's a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief. "I don't believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don't believe." Period. It's a declaration. But in science we don't really do declarations. We say, "Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." "

Oh dear, he should have checked out "Russell's teapot"*

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot)

<comment><USER13> This seems easy to reducio to "you can't disbelieve anything you're not empirically measuring _right this second_!" without even going too far down the epistemological rabbit hole.

"Dude the sun just disappeared! I know you still see light but it's coming from a different source entirely, that appeared so seamlessly that you didn't notice the shift!". No. No, I don't believe you. No, I don't feel compelled to check just this second. Or ever, really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

This is a common trope, but it's wrong in many cases. The absence of evidence for leprechauns/unicorns/bigfoot/etc. is in fact evidence of absence of these things. Likewise, the absence of evidence for gods is in fact evidence of absence of at least certain kinds of gods. In particular, it is evidence of the absence of gods that interact with the universe in certain meaningful ways. Evidence cannot rule out passive observer gods, like the deist deity, but that is generally not what is at issue when disputes of this sort arise.

<comment><USER15> >> The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

> This is a common trope, but it's wrong in many cases.

When you're dealing with something of low intelligence or awareness, _heuristically_ absence of evidence can be _approximated_ as evidence of absence, if you've made so thorough a set of observations that the probability of absence can be estimated to be very high.

However, that heuristic fails when you're dealing with something with intelligence and awareness, as that thing can choose to behave differently when you're observing it vs. when you're not. Doubly so when you're dealing with something that may not even be bound by the laws that bind your observations.

<comment><USER17> You are confusing evidence with proof. Absence of evidence is not _proof_ of absence, but it is _evidence_ of absence even if the subject is intelligent. The absence of evidence for alien visitors to earth is in fact evidence of the absence of such visitors.

Now, there are some _adversarial_ situations where absence of evidence is only _weak_ evidence of absence. Two examples of this are the game of hide-and- seek, and steganography. There is also the invisible pink unicorn. So you can't rule out a certain class of adversarial deity just as you cannot rule out a passive one. But again, the actual deities that are the generally the subject of dispute are not adversarial.

(This, BTW, is one of the reasons that my favorite god is Loki.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lots of comments quibbling about whether he understands the word atheism.

His central point—despite the interview title, which he didn't write—is: humility. He argues that to practice science is to avoid adopting a position of certainty, but rather, to ask questions.

That almost everyone on this thread missed that point suggests maybe he's on to something.

<comment><USER19> Except they didn't, because every Atheist I have ever known would, given evidence, become a theist. They accept humility and that they don't know - they are simply stating their _current position_ given the evidence they have.

The author doesn't understand the argument of the people they are criticizing, and so attributes a lack of humility to them based on their strawman of their argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > And by doing that, by understanding how science advances, science really > becomes a deeply spiritual conversation with the mysterious, about all the > things we don't know.

Seems like this might be the central point. You may or may not be able to rationally justify atheism, but that's besides the point. If you want to do science, you have to cultivate your feeling that the world is mysterious and that there's a lot left to discover. To so that, you need to be open to a variety of interpretations of the world. Atheism might be fine for a philosopher who wants to figure out what is rationally justified, but for a scientist, you need to keep your mind open to stay creative.

For me, the best argument against atheism is that it's boring. I get to choose my attitude toward the stuff that we can never know. Why not choose the more interesting choice (i.e. agnosticism)?

</comment><comment><USER21> Negative/weak atheism ("I do not believe there is a God") expresses the absence of a belief, and therefore is compatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism.

Positive/strong atheism ("I believe there is no God") expresses an unproved and unprovable belief, and therefore is incompatible with the scientific method, and with agnosticism.

The above is true for any definition of God.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism)

<comment><USER22> > Positive/strong atheism ("I believe there is no God") expresses an unproved > and unprovable belief, and therefore is incompatible with the scientific > method, and with agnosticism.

'Incompatible' is not an accurate word here. 'Incompatible' implies that Atheism conflicts with the scientific method, which it does not. It would be more accurate to say atheism is orthogonal to the scientific method. But even that isn't true.

Saying that God exists is a claim in the positive and requires proof on your part to prove the claim, not proof on my part to disprove the claim. Anyone can make a claim about anything (pigs can fly) and we're not required to provide proof to the contrary in order to say with certainty that pigs cannot fly. Likewise, I can say, "There is no God" without having to prove that God doesn't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's just about semantics. By that definition you pretty much have to be agnostic about everything where there is no direct proof, including elves, Santa Claus, dinosaurs in Congo, alien abductions and the tooth fairy. I can state the world will disappear in 10 years and nobody should be able to refute my claim but has to stay agnostic until 10 years have passed.

I am sure believing in a god is even less consistent with the scientific method that atheism is.

<comment><USER2> Atheism is an answer to a question. It has exactly nothing to do with the scientific the method in much the same way that "What is your favorite ice cream?" has nothing to do with the scientific method.

Belief in god, on the other hand, is making a claim, and as such, can be verified by the scientific method.

It has been, actually, and belief in god is by definition disproven by the scientific method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> One of the interesting, teeth-gnashing ironies is that the father of modern genetics is a Catholic monk, Gregor Mendel, and the inventor of the Big Bang theory is a Catholic priest, George Lemaitre. George Lemaitre was given a papal award for his efforts.

Odd that Hitchens and Dawkins never mention that fascinating fact that their audiences would have been fascinated to know.

Nor mention that most of Christianity never had a dogma of a literal translation of the Bible. hmmmmm...

Nor tell them that most monotheisms define their supreme beings identically, ie it's the same god. Nor that the Catholic Church, that rigid institution that will not be polite enough to die or bend, teaches that the supreme being has manifested in most other monotheisms. Indeed few of them are exclusivist as atheists like to wrongly assert.

Meanwhile, it is a fact that something in the universe has the property of 'existence'. Logically, it exists of itself and could not have ever not existed. Existing of itself, it appears to be a logical feedback loop. Which leads straight to a possibility, the grandest of feedback loops: self- awareness.

And Dawkins main objection "Who made God?" is answered since...

The real question has never been "Is there a god?", but rather "Is the fundamental thing self-aware, and if it is, does it care?".

Meanwhile, despite the objections of atheists and agnostics, especially in what they see as the otherwise incomprehensible suffering of the innocent and children, the answer has always been to ask.

Ie, "If you exist, God being, please reveal yourself, and show me why it is that the innocent must suffer".

</comment><comment><USER25> It's perfectly consistent with the scientific method. Atheism is falsifiable. If there's solid evidence of gods existing, an atheist will change their mind. Theism is non-falsifiable, and thus inconsistent with science. Also Templeton Foundation is a well-known collective of anti-science loons.

</comment><comment><USER26> People who deny existence of the tooth fairy are inconsistent with the scientific method?

</comment><comment><USER27> This guy sounds exactly like I practiced pastor lots of BS too much assuming and a whole lot of nothing really important said.

</comment><comment><USER28> Not forming a belief when you dont have evidence for the existence of something? Sounds like good metaphysics to me.

</comment><comment><USER29> The author left out us militant agnostics.

<comment> V-eHGsd_ there are dozens of us, dozens!

<comment><USER30> I wouldn't know

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> atheism is dumb, whoever thought that opposing a metaphysical concept that lies way too close to the heart of those who believe in it was a good idea to curb religious influence wasn't on their brightest day.

Determining the lack of evidence of connection between religious entities and a supposed god is possible, saying a concept as ill defined as "god" does not exist doesn't even make sense to me.

</comment><comment><USER32> How can someone so smart not even understand what atheism is?

He may be trying to drum up some funding/interest in a book or project. This guy is unlikely to have accidentally misunderstood prominent atheists like Sam Harris.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think we should further make a difference between the existence of a god and religion.

Atheism is significantly driven by the rejection of religion.

The existence of a god can be discussed and indeed we do not know. However religions are backward ideologies that should really be relegated to the history books.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm amazed and more than a little disappointed at how many of us dont understand the difference between "I dont believe there is a god" and "I dont believe your claim of a god".

Atheism is _pure_ science. Its viewed a hypothesis, looked at the evidence, found it wanting and dismissed the Hypothesis. For every single claim.

The moment an Atheist finds some evidence to be even slightly compelling they become agnostic until enough evidence compels them to believe (Theist) or they discover better evidence to dismiss the previously compelling evidence (back to Atheist).

That's it.

Its incorrect to claim an atheist claims that a god doesn't exist. they just analyse and accept or reject a claim that one does exist.</comment>