religiosity
hrynyshyn | August 20, 2007Half of the Scienceblogging team converged on New York City this past weekend to do what science geeks do best: drink someone else's beer and wine and argue about the allegedly non-overlapping magisteria (the science-religion divide to the rest of you). Of course, we talked a lot of science, but we tended to agree on most everything and there wasn't much in the way of genuine debate -- except when it came to how to deal with people of faith. Even those who didn't make it to New York seemed plugged in; witness Matt Nisbet's post explaining "Why the New Atheist Noise Machine Fails," which in…
hrynyshyn | August 14, 2007The headline for this week's current reading on the Island is perhaps unfair. It's become trite to point out that algebra and algorithm, to name just two mathematical terms, are derived from Muslim scholars. But as Taner Edis, the author of the book "An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam" argues in an interview with Salon's Steve Paulson, it's been a long time since Islam produced anything like a scientific advance. And even back in the 10th century, when Islam was the sole guardian of the ancient wisdom the Greeks, they weren't doing much of anything that resembles modern…
hrynyshyn | July 22, 2007Just in case you were wondering why so many science bloggers devote so much keystrokes to criticizing religion, the Washington Post's Rob Stein has this convenient reminder of the danger of letting faith inform public policy:
The long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one of the nation's most important social and public health successes, appears to have stalled.
After decreasing steadily and significantly for more than a decade, the percentage of teenagers having intercourse began to plateau in 2001 and has failed to budge since then, despite the intensified focus in…
hrynyshyn | July 20, 2007I have no idea if the staff at ScienceBlogs anticipated just how popular the religion vs. atheism debate would be on these pages, but it would seem we're not the only home of passionate and often thoughtful argument over the God Question. Over at the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog, there a fascinating example of what sets a science-oriented forums apart from those that appeal to a more general audience. Jacques Berlinerblau, an associate professor and program director at Georgetown University, recently complained that secularists are boring, and argued that atheists haven't come up with a…
hrynyshyn | June 23, 2007It's hard to believe that a dog can understand four languages, discuss the intricacies of Christian theology, and perform complex mathematical operations, including calculus and algebra, but it's even harder to believe that the editors of an until-now reputable newspaper would be so hard up for local news that they'd be able to find space for 1,500 words on the subject. But the Asheville Citizen-Times did just that. On the front page. I can't remember when they gave 1,500 words to anything.
Never mind that the video accompanying the story gives away the trick -- the dog's clearly following…
hrynyshyn | June 19, 2007Scienceblog posts tend to revolve around current events, almost to the point where history is irrelevant, and the Island of Doubt is no different. I try to put things in historical perspective, but concede that I tend too often overlook what has gone before. In an effort to undo a little of that cognitive damage, here's a humbling quote from a surprising place and time: Persia (or thereabouts) in the ninth century:
And we are the heirs, and transmitters to our heirs, of heathenism, which is honored gloriously in this world. Lucky is he who beareth the burden with a sure hope for the sake of…
hrynyshyn | May 24, 2007This Memorial Day will be truly memorial for those who believe the universe is only 6,000 years old. The Creation Museum opens Monday in Petersburg, Ky. A creation of the creationists responsible for the Answers in Genesis "resource," primarily Ken Ham, B.Sc., the designers of the new museum have managed to find $27 million to furnish their monument to Biblical literalism with the latest in multimedia and animatronic displays. Just think what those 27 million clams could have done for, oh ... I dunno ... the pagan public school system?
According to media reports, the folks behind the museum,…
hrynyshyn | May 22, 2007Actually, the report in question came on just shy of 11 p.m. Although my local Fox television network affiliate had been promoting its 10 o'clock news report, in which a scientist uses physics to prove the Christian god exists, for several days, the editors didn't think it newsworthy enough to slot it ahead of half a dozen car wrecks and other assorted crimes and offenses to decency. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, because news that someone had actually proved a god's existence would surely lead off any newscast I was directing. Also unsurprising was the discovery of the identity of the…
hrynyshyn | May 4, 2007While reading a hilarious New York magazine interview with Christopher Hitchens, I came across the news that Karl Rove is a apparently an atheist. Really?
Well, Christopher Hitchens may have his problems -- his defection to the pro-war camp a few years back was and remains disappointing -- he's not known for inventing this kind of thing. Atheist Revolution explores the issue further, but it really all comes down to this exchange:
Has anyone in the Bush administration confided in you about being an atheist?
Well, I don't talk that much to them--maybe people think I do. I know something which…
hrynyshyn | April 24, 2007I really didn't set out to keep writing about Al Gore. I mean, he's a good guy, and all. But there are more important things to worry about in the battle between science and superstition. Nevertheless the most active post on the ScienceBlogs at the moment is one in which PZ Myers decries Gore's alleged belief in creationism and suggests that this is undermining the famous climate change slide show. In reality, Gore is not a creationist and PZ seems to have swallowed an apocryphal report to the contrary.
I'm one of Gore's army of 1,000 slide show presenters. I've shown the offending slide, in…
hrynyshyn | April 21, 2007The cover of the latest issue of Maclean's magazine, which is the Canadian equivalent of Time or Newsweek, asks "Is God poison?" The secondary headline to the feature, which is online, says "a new movement blames God for every social problem from Darfur to child abuse." Well, I don't know if it does all that, but at least the magazine is finally paying attention to the rise of what, for lack of a better term, is being called "new atheism."
The piece starts off well enough, if rather belatedly, by reviewing the recent crop of books extolling the problems with religion (Dawkin's The God…
hrynyshyn | March 5, 2007Another day, another example of the moral bankruptcy of the James Dobson gang.
For those few of you not familiar with Dobson's particular brand of twisted faith-based logic, he's the head of Focus on the Family, a national organization devoted to holding back the tide of liberty, fraternity and equality through the promotion of patriarchal, homophobic and dishonest ideas that contradict science, decency and common sense.
Until today, his most recent breach of what most of us would consider common human morality came in the form of a screed claiming that "children do best on every measure of…
hrynyshyn | March 4, 2007Titled simply "Darwin's God," the feature in today's New York Times Sunday Magazine is a overview of theoretical musings -- you can't really call them full-fledges theories -- on why religion is so common among human societies. Not much in the way of new ideas, but a good survey of the current thinking among evolutionary psychologists. It doesn't give enough attention to the latest from the more interesting, and testable, field of neuroscience, however. For that, follow PZ Myers' introduction to a speech by Robert Sapolsky on what schizophrenia and shamanism have in common. There is some food…
hrynyshyn | February 28, 2007Jerry Fallwell. Can anyone compare to his particular brand of idiocy? He more than anyone else is the reason I blog. From the AP
Falwell says global warming is "Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus" from evangelism to environmentalism. Falwell told his Baptist congregation in Lynchburg yesterday that "the jury is still out" on whether humans are causing -- or could stop -- global warming.
But he said some "naive Christian leaders" are being "duped" by arguments like those presented in former Vice President Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Falwell says the…
hrynyshyn | February 7, 2007I'm talking about Alister McGrath, the author of the unbelievably weak polemic The Twilight of Atheism, who has resurfaced to take on his nemesis, Richard Dawkins. Jason does a good job dismantling McGrath's pathetic review of the Dawkins' The God Delusion, so all I'm going to do is posit that the editorial standards for people of faith are substantially lower than that for experts of most other fields of expertise.
I was asked to review McGrath's Twilight of Atheism a few years back for a magazine in Vancouver. I didn't get paid much for the reviews, but the editor only wanted 150 words, so…
hrynyshyn | January 29, 2007After Garry Trudeau swallowed the apocryphal story about Grand Canyon park rangers' inability to tell the truth about the age of their charge, one would do well to be skeptical about any future strips based on alleged true stories. Fortunately, yesterday's color Doonesbury is on safer ground. It will rank among my favorite, for obvious reasons.
There actually is some controversy over plans for the George W. Bush presidential library, which could cost $500 million, according to a New York Daily News story. Whether it actually costs that much (the most in history, but only about three times the…
hrynyshyn | January 13, 2007Gary Trudeau sticks it to the creationists in today's Doonesbury. The topic of the day is the sad fact that the U.S. National Parks Service sells in its Grand Canyon gift shop a book that offers a Biblical chronology for the world's creation, a fact that makes it very hard to explain how the canyon formed in a mere 6,000 years. Good old Bob Park at the University of Maryland has been following this sad case for three years now, but it's nice to see Trudeau bring it to a wider audience.
There's also this feature from The New York Times that follows a creationist rafting trip down the canyon…
hrynyshyn | January 2, 2007Can one reject the single most important idea in biology and yet still embrace science? Ronald Numbers, a former Seventh-day Adventist turned historian of creationism, says lots of people do. John Wilkins jumped on the Salon interview with Numbers first. But here's my money quote:
Well, most people who reject evolution do not see themselves as being anti-scientific in any way. They love science. They love what science has produced. It's allowed the conservative Christians to go on the airwaves, to fly to mission fields. They're not against science at all. But they don't believe evolution is…
hrynyshyn | December 29, 2006Every now and then someone with a substantial public platform says or writes something that transcends the stupid to the realm of the genuinely idiotic. Regular readers of the Island will know I am usually a little more respectful of those with whom I disagree, but I feel compelled to respond to Newsweek/Washington Post columnist Cal Thomas' latest offense to reason if only to provide some balance in the blogosphere. Also, it's not every day that every single phrase in a widely distributed, non-Ann Coulter column is so utterly wrong. Plus, the folks who syndicate Thomas describe him as "…
hrynyshyn | December 19, 2006The new head of the Episcopal Church is a trained marine biologist. The Episcopal Church is tearing itself apart. This is not a coincidence.
Katherine Jefferts-Schori used to study squid for a living. (Hey PZ, she's one of you!) But somewhere along the way, she succumbed to temptation and left her scientific exploration in favor of a more spiritual journey. Last year, she became the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, which to those unfamiliar with American ways of worship, is what the Anglican Church calls itself in the U.S.
She is not your typical Protestant. She's the first woman…