Chris Mooney: New Atheists’ attack on religion is counter-productive

Chris Mooney is the author of The Republican War on Science, Storm World, and Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future (co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum). He is also an atheist who, for years, has engaged with believers on the validity of religious claims. He strongly believes that those who respect the scientific method should question religious claims. In this interview with D.J. Grothe at Point of Inquiry, however, Mooney takes on the New Atheists (starting here at about the 10:30 minute mark). Instead of attacking religions, Mooney advocates that we should promote scientific literacy. Yes, we should refute the baseless claims of fundamentalists, but it is equally critical to "mobilize the religious moderates," and not alienate them by attacking all religions. Mooney argues that the New Atheists have painted with much too broad a brush, and that they have used an aggressive tone that achieves "nothing at all." He points to P.Z. Myers as being one of the most prominent culprits.

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String around the Earth: excellent math question

Have you ever considered snugly wrapping a string around the entire Earth? If you did that, and then you added merely one additional meter of string (which would then raise the string uniformly off the surface of the Earth), how much higher off the ground would that new string be (the original long string, plus one additional meter)? Here's a simple statement of the problem, allegedly first used by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Here the math. Wonderful problem and surprising solution.

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Hungry Ghosts

I recently came out of an emotional bad spell - emerging from it felt a lot like hitting the surface after you've been underwater just a little too long. This spell of anxiety/fear/depression/whatever it was taught me more than usual because it happened smack dab after I had a really awesome year business wise. I was on a high. Things were so good I had to go buy a suit so I could go to Las Vegas and get an award for being so awesome. That is important to note not because getting an award is important (but it is kind of cool, right?) but because of what happened after the award. Intellectually I knew that all the activity I had in the funnel would end, and I'd be back in building mode. I knew it and even tried to prepare myself for the letdown. My business is cyclical - I know that. And I like building mode. Building mode is how one gets to closing mode. I just had a run of especially good fortune and my building mode was a distant memory, which I knew was not such a great thing for me. In the midst of my crazy happy frenetic good luck mode, I tried to prepare for what would come after the constant activity of balancing all the stuff in the hopper died down. I know how I can be - I get squirrley sometimes, so I tried to prepare. There is a saying: "Trying lets us fail with honor." I failed. I'm not sure I had any honor, either. "I woke up one morning and I was scared. Not just a little scared, either. I was in full-on panic mode. I remember thinking, "Dammit, Lisa, this is exactly what you worked to prevent." Yep it sure was. In my defense, I had a crazy end of September/October. We had family in from out of town (stressful), my Mom had spine surgery (surprisingly stressful), the foster greyhound we rescued need to be carried up and down our stairs in order to go outside (it takes both of us - constantly coordinating schedules is stressful), I bought a car (consumerism is, for me, fraught with drama, tension and guilt - stressful, but I sure like the car) and Ginger decided to feng shui our bedroom. Not only was I going through something hard, I had to do it with our bed facing a new and opposite wall. Things like that do bad things to me. I spent an entire sleepless night focused on whether the bed facing the other direction was symbolic of me never closing another deal. During that mental wrestling match I started doubting my employ-ability (I only have one suit!!) and by morning I had tearfully decided my only option was to make this thing work or I'd end up living in a paper box. I went to bed scared, I woke up panicked and I think Ginger wanted to throttle me (I wanted to throttle me). [more . . . ]

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Welcome to our store! . . . sort of . . .

Customers of this Dollar Tree store in St. Louis are greeted with the following signs located on the main entry door: img_0210 Here's how I interpret the above: Welcome, honored guests, but it you rip us off, we'll throw your ass in the slammer before you can even utter "Merry Christmas."

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