Sunday School JAN 27, 2013
Totally lacking in any sort of self-awareness, the state government in India is considering whether to require astrologers to register with state authorities in order to separate the fake fortune-tellers from the real ones.
Is it time to treat violence like a contagious disease?
Compartmentalization: how the mind creates conflicting beliefs.
President Obama took his oath of office, adding "So help me God," something that's not in the constitutional oath. With such a sectarian act, where is this "United States"?
We all should be familiar by now with the double helix structure of DNA. Now a four-strand structure of DNA has been found in cells.
Notable (and hilarious) examples of the Christian right's failed prophecies.
This week saw the day in the calendar known as "Blue Monday", supposed to be the the most depressing day of the year. Except. It's not. And the claim that it is is just stupid.
Massimo Pigliucci takes issue with Michael Shermer's recent account of the respective contributions that science and philosophy can make to questions of morality.
Was McLaughlin Crater on Mars once actually McLaughlin Lake?
On the evolution of white fur in animals living in the North.
Earth may have been hit by a gamma ray burst 1200 years ago.
On the pseudointellectualism of anti-evolutionists.
Creationism's inherent racism.
Michael Shermer wrote to describe a little talked about Liberal war on science, the flip side of the well known Right wing war on science. PZ Myers responded to say that Shermer was making a false equivalency.
How the Vatican built a secret property empire using seed money from Mussolini.
At the urging of humanist groups UK Air Cadets will now be able to recite a godless oath.
In Georgia, taxpayer money is going to support religious schools that are barring LGBT students.
LA Catholic Church leaders sought to hide sex abuse cases from authorities.
Was the Second Amendment ratified in order to preserve slavery?
Jerry Coyne reviews an increasingly common argument from religionists and faitheists.
A record number of people are now opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. This, even as barriers to abortion access are perhaps greater than at any time since Roe.
Sort of joking, sort of not; Jason Rosenhouse says agnosticism is for wimps.
There's unprecedented melting of Andean glaciers going on.
Alfred Russell Wallace's letters are now online for the first time. Check out this interesting "interview"produced from his writings. He tells of his research, his love of nature, and some thoughts on Charles Darwin.
Apparently the Catholic Church is prepared to argue that a collection of cells is a person... unless to do so would cost them money.
A new paper offers experimental results showing that consciousness awareness can be edited after the fact.
England's chief medical officer says that homeopathy is "rubbish", is "perpetually surprised" that the pseudoscience is covered under the National Health Service and called homeopaths "peddlers."
Irish citizens rank religion dead last out of 119 priorities for their life.
Here's a sobering graph showing a pretty dramatic increase in violence committed by far right groups.
Incredible NASA imagery shows the magnetic braids on the surface of the Sun.
A political scientist at Farleigh Dickinson University has report on results of a survey showing that the more Republicans know about politics, the more they believe in conspiracy theories. On the other hand, the more Democrats know about politics, the less gullible they are.
How do you find out how dung beetles navigate? Cover their eyes and see what happens. Conclusion? The Milky Way!
26,000 years ago an ice-age ancestor of ours grabbed a chunk of mammoth ivory and carved a portrait of a woman.
Arizona Republicans propose a bill that would prevent atheists from graduating high school. Rebecca Watson points out that this bill isn't about religion. It's just about stupidity.
A new study has it that while lots of religions claim to produce adherents that love their neighbor, they actually don't, failing to make people more kind or trusting.
Opponents of reproductive rights are notorious for their position that life begins at conception. But why does it follow from life beginning at conception that women can't have reproductive rights?
Meanwhile, a bill in New Mexico would make abortion in the case of a rape pregnancy "tampering with evidence", a felony.
The author of a UK government review of climate change science says "I got it wrong on climate change– it's far, far worse."
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Comment by Gary Bergeron on January 27, 2013 at 12:33pm -
Great read, thanx, Nelson!
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Comment by Ed on January 27, 2013 at 12:48pm -
The West Point study on the violent acts committed by far-right groups was quite interesting. Washington politics and especially the balance of political power in the legislative body seems to have a direct correlation to the level of actions by these extremist groups. Premeditated violence as a tool for social/political change remains a challenge.
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Comment by wyocowboy50 on January 27, 2013 at 1:14pm -
Awesome like always...love the article 20 amazing facts about the human body. Also enjoyed the dung beetle story, very interesting. the x-tian wing nuts failed prophices no surprice they have failed, when r they going to ever learn???? NEVER!! Thanks for all the articles
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Comment by SteveInCO on January 27, 2013 at 4:53pm -
I couldn't get the comment feature to work over there (I can't even read the 277 comments already left there) so I will comment over here.
The author of "Ayn Rand is for Children" misrepresents her egregiously, in order to try to imply her followers are hypocrites for relying on police protection. That's utter bullcrap, because it turns out police protection is one of the few things Ayn Rand thought government was actually for. (See her essay "The Nature of Government." It's apparent that David Sirota didn't or won't admit to it if he did.) Implying she's an anarchist is pure dishonesty or sheer ignorance--either way, this man's credibility was shot the instant he wrote that sentence.
I would really love to see a solid criticism of Objectivism by someone who actually understands what it says, but I suspect it won't happen until after I am dead, because I see the same ignorant tropes repeated again and again, and people just lap them up.
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Comment by Simon Paynton on January 28, 2013 at 3:27am -
Thanks for this gold dust: Massimo Pigliucci takes issue with Michael Shermer
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Comment by SteveInCO on January 28, 2013 at 9:00am
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Was the Second Amendment ratified in order to preserve slavery?
While it is certainly possible that some of its supporters had "busting slave rebellions" in mind when they voted for it, a lot of the comments below this article provide ample evidence this wasn't the primary motivation.
Ironically many of the first gun control laws were passed in an effort to keep ex-slaves from acquiring weapons--thereby giving the KKK free reign to wage a campaign of terror.
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