Posting this because I think it’s an interesting examination of the overlap (or lack thereof) between atheists and general skeptics. It’s worth remembering that the term ‘atheism’ only means a rejection of theistic beliefs; non-theistic beliefs that are nonetheless irrational and unsupported by evidence are not relevant to the term. And yet one can easily see why there is an overlap between these two communities and why many atheists scoff at other atheists who profess belief in things like astrology, ghosts, reincarnation, etc.
I’m definitely one of those who doesn’t believe in anything supernatural, but I’ve certainly met atheists who do. It’s worth remembering the two groups aren’t synonymous.
Quasiparticles and virtual particles are different. Both would work here, but I’ll use quasiparticles for an example. (Also note that the explanation is extremely oversimplified.)
Imagine that you have a chunk of some semiconductor. It’s neutral, so it has the same number of protons and electrons.
Now let’s say that you remove one of the electrons. Since an electron is negative, now the crystal is positively charged, by +1. And there’ll be a hole where the electron used to be. But the electrons that stayed behind won’t sit pretty: they’ll see that hole, where that electron used to be, and they’ll say “IT’S FREE REAL STATE!”. One of them will migrate to that hole, filling it but creating a new hole elsewhere; another electron will migrate to the new hole, creating yet another hole elsewhere; so goes on.
You have two ways to describe this:
The first way is a descriptively more accurate explanation of reality, but it’s a hassle. The second one is kind of bullshit; but it works, since the make-believe particle behaves a lot like a real particle would. It’s useful.
Free will is in the same bag. Descriptively, our decisions depend on a very messy interaction between millions, perhaps billions of variables; some from nature, some from nurture. As such, free will is bullshit; it doesn’t refer to anything real. But it’s still useful as a concept when dealing with ethics, morals, law, and other matters, so it gets a pass.
That’s a fallacy called “appeal to authority”, given that the truth value of a proposition (in this case, “free will exists”) does not depend on who utters it (in this case, some “very rational people”).