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 Mehta commented on a post by Christian writer Donald Miller who asked if Evangelicals are getting dumber.

PZ Myers pointed out that the answers to the question "what's the message of the bible in one sentence" compiled by Christian Dane Ortlund don't answer anything.

Austin Cline posted on the topic of atheists who say that atheism is a religion.

Jerry Coyne and Greg Fish comment on the most recent absurdity to issue from the Christian apologetics site BioLogos.

superscholar.org published a list of the top 25 atheists. some are questioning whether and why should some on the list be included and why others were left off.

philosopher apologist Tim McGrew gave a sermon (audio) recently that aimed to show that the bible is a reliable witness to truth. Edward Babinski posted a critique of the sermon. McGrew responded in turn.

astronomer Luke Barnes posted a  two  part critique of an often cited paper by Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys on fine-tuning arguments for the existence of god.

Ethan Siegel posted on the problem of "dark satellites" in the field of dark matter research. always producing great stuff, Siegel also discussed some newly discovered surprises about supermassive black holes.

there's been some noise from astrologers this past week forcing Phil Plait and The Skeptical Teacher to explain once again why astrology is pure stupidity.

when backed into a corner upon being shown that their faith has no evidence theists may sometimes respond by pointing to pragmatic concerns, arguing that religion improves a person's well-being. but this just isn't true.

Chris Hallquist has been reviewing Gary Gutting's What Philosophers Know and it's been interesting reading so far but this second part of his review is really good. he discusses J.L. Mackie's argument from evil and Alvin Plantinga's supposed refutation.

ethicist Alonzo Fyfe considers whether we should be nice to religion.

part two of Brian Deer's investigation into anti-vaxx messiah Andrew Wakefield was posted this week and the revelations are incredible. sure, we knew that Wakefield produced an elaborate fraud but now we know that he acted all out of greed and stood to make millions of dollars.

Orac has a great run down on Deer's piece but thinks some of Deer's criticisms are misdirected.

unveiled, the most complete map of the universe ever made.

we are not naturally religious!- a rant on the evolution of religion.

foxes use the Earth's magnetic field as a tracking system.

what's wrong with Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape? Chris Hallquist reviews Harris' new book.

oxytocin boosts favoritism towards our own ethnic or cultural group.

Michael Tobis and Scott Mandia posted to critique an opinion piece by Larry Bell in Forbes magazine. it's a great read, serving to illustrate the tactics of AGW deniers and refute many of the common arguments they use.

the sexual battles of flatworms: barbed sperm, mating rings, traumatic insemination, and going down on yourself.

why the resurrection is unbelievable.