last week i linked to the first news trickling out about a new paper by a NASA astrobiologist that purported to show that a meteorite contained fossilized bacteria. well, once people took a good look at the paper and its findings it became clear that the findings were absurd. lots of commentary on this one.

Matt, The Skeptical Teacher,…

(apologies to all as i've had to remove the first post and repost the links in a new post. some sort of glitch was preventing people from seeing the post.)

has life been found in a meteorite? if so, what would that mean for god?



Jewish groups are…

does dark matter exist? (the most important thing science has to teach philosophy.)

Dembski pwned again: ant trails and intelligent design.

Vatican confirms report of sexual abuse and…

Ex-apologist pointed to two new papers by philosopher Wes Morriston, one against god as a grounding for morality and the other against the Kalam on the subject of actual infinities. (pdf's at the link)



just because something's unexplained doesn't mean it's supernatural.…

is the genetic fallacy necessarily still a fallacy when it comes to religious belief anymore?

is it about time to recognize that mitochondria are bacteria? (…

the nature of philosophy and its role in modern society.

the skeptical community has a generally favorable view of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Josh…

Sam Harris responds to critics of his book The Moral Landscape.

on the question of homosexuality and natural selection.

C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb sat down for…

atheists are generous, they just don't give to charity.



Greg Fish has some criticisms for a new arXiv post that purports…

The Edge World Question Center asked scientists "what scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?". as i type this so far 156 scientists have responded.

R. Joseph Hoffman tears down the New Testament Messiah legend.

Hemant…

Luke Muehlhauser did a fantastic interview with Richard Carrier (audio and transcript) that's now up at Luke's site. they talk about the methodology of Jesus-historians, Bayes' theorem and it's importance to the historian, and fine-tuning arguments.

at one point in the interview Carrier was critical of Lydia and Tim McGrew, husband and wife Christian apologists and philosophers, saying that an article of theirs was…

references to a "missing link" demonstrate a misunderstanding of evolution. PZ Myers explains.

Daniel Florien pointed to…

Santa lives! Richard Carrier has this hilarious and clever post arguing that Santa is real. replace "Santa" with "god" at any point and you'll see how clever it is.

Greg picked his favorite arguments from Carrier's piece while linking to an older post by Eric Steinhart arguing for…

EDIT: i'm adding this link to today's edition because it's got some excellent information- including viewing times around the world- on Monday's eclipse and will be useless come next Sunday.

first, to all those members who…

-lots of anthropologists and scientists in general are upset over the American Anthropological Association's decision to drop all mention of "science" from their mission statement. The New York Times has the story.…