Tag: Science

Mr. President, we need another scientific revolution; we must have a second giant leap for Mankind.

How politics distorts science on both ends of the spectrum.

The United States faced down authoritarian governments on the left and right. Now it may be facing an even greater challenge from within.

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned.

In a mass resignation, 150 Mormons leave the church over issues ranging from polygamy and gay rights to church discrepancies with science.

Physicist and author Victor Stenger calls upon scientists and all thinking people to focus their attention on reducing the influence of religion.

A few conservative Roman Catholics are pointing to a dozen Bible verses and the church’s original teachings as proof that Earth is the center of the universe, the view that was at the heart of the church’s clash with Galileo Galilei four centuries ago.

With less fanfare and more tact than the new atheists, “secular humanists” have attempted to provide an all-encompassing public philosophy based on science, as an alternative to moralities and political programs justified by supernatural religion.

NASA announced Monday that their researchers have found the strongest evidence yet that the components of DNA can be made in space.

In its coverage of Harold Camping—the evangelist who believes that the end of the world will occur on May 21, 2011—The Washington Post asked, “What does your tradition teach about the end of the world?” Richard Dawkins provides his response.

Creationists find support for the Biblical story of creation in the heat emitted by a moon of Saturn.

The absence of scientific evidence doesn’t dissuade those who believe childhood vaccines are linked to autism, or those who believe their headaches, dizziness and other symptoms are caused by cellphones and smart meters. And the presence of large amounts of scientific evidence doesn’t convince those who reject the idea that human activities are disrupting the climate.

A scientific study published today in the prestigious Royal Society journal Biology Letters was “conceived, carried out, summarized and written up by a class of 8 to 10 years olds” from Blackawton Primary School in Devon.

Religions do make factual and historical claims, and if these claims are false, then the religions fail. But this dependence on fact does not make religious claims anything like hypotheses in the scientific sense. Hypotheses are not central. Rather, what is central is the commitment to the meaningfulness (and therefore the mystery) of the world.

Religious leaders should be held accountable when their irrational ideas turn harmful

A study has shed light on a key genetic step in the evolution of animals’ limbs from the fins of fish, scientists say.

In this article the author explores whether we really need religion in this day and age. What are the positive and negative points that religions bring and how do they balance out in the end?

Op-Ed piece argues that the New Atheists aren’t tolerant enough.

In his book Not Exactly: In praise of vagueness, Kees van Deemter argues that the very foundations of science don’t come in black and white. I spoke with him about seeing the world in shades of grey.

There has been a swathe of dubious reports recently about the supposed benefits of religion – how it makes you healthier, happier, less anti-social and ensures that you grow better tomatoes.  Now we are seeing the opposite claims beginning to emerge. A new study published in Trends in Cognitive Science finds that religion may have evolved as a by-product of non-religious, cognitive processes, dispelling a competing theory that religion served as an adaptation to help unrelated individuals cooperate.  The findings, published on Monday, suggests that people’s gut instinct for what is right and wrong operates independently of religious upbringing.