When I was a teenager, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew that I didn't want to wear a suit to work and I didn't want to carry a brief case. Fast-forward . . . I ended up being a lawyer who…
What is the xenophobic American religious right up to these days? Once in a while, I tune into the local all-Christian talk radio to try to understand the Christian Right a bit better. I tuned in again tonight on my way home, and I was rewarded with one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories. It was a real-life Twilight Zone. To better understand what was going on, listen to this 10-second long YouTube and consider what this doll is saying, if anything. If you guessed that the doll was saying "Islam is the light," you win the grand prize. I didn't win the grand prize. I listened to the radio discussion all the way home, compelled on by the insanity. The show included three religious conservative women, all of them very upset with this doll. The doll, which is called "Baby Cuddle & Coo Doll," is made by Mattel and, according to the women on the radio, the doll is an evil attempt to indoctrinate our innocent children to take up the cause of Islam. The women on the radio described this evil doll in many ways (they were quite upset); for instance, this doll is an attempt at "stealth jihad" . . .
Why indeed? Please read this excellent article by Johann Hari at the Independent, detailing the tragic hijacking of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights by religious bigots. Here's a taste: Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to…
Science isn't about a particular batch of results. Science is special because of the way in which it gets those results. The following is from a well-written essay in the NYT entitled, "Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy":
Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do to look for truth.
That endeavor, which has transformed the world in the last few centuries, does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view.
I thought it was just me. Over the past few months, while reading some of the comments here at DI and at several forums that I frequent, I’ve been noticing that there seems to be LESS consensus on the hot topics of our time rather than more. That doesn’t seem right. With the wealth of information on the internet literally at our fingertips shouldn’t we all be better informed than ever before? Not so, says Clive Thompson in a recent issue of Wired magazine. In fact he has the stats to back it up!