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Is Stephen Pinker’s Controversial Polemic in Defense of Scientism As Bad As They Say?

By Michael Schulson

…earch for meaning, purpose, and morality. Religion, of course, fits into science’s purview: To begin with, the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the origins of life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken. Now, instead of religious belief systems, the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview…

Rubio Leaves Science to the Theologians, or the Free Market. Or Something.

By Sarah Posner

…discovered a jumble of results, including the scientific answer that it’s about 4.54 billion years old, give or take a bit, and also that a site claiming the earth is about 6,000 years old comes up before the scientific answer. You could see how that could be confusing for someone who’s “not a scientist.”) But he does say, “I can tell you what the Bible says,” implying there’s a biblical answer that does—and should!—resolve the dispute. See, he’s…

Scientology: All-American or Aging Hoax?

By Gordon Haber

…e exaggerated. Of course it’s impossible to ignore what the media tells us about it—about the excesses of its leaders or the exploitation of its followers. Still, I wondered if the bias against Scientology were similar to the bias against Mormons or Muslims or Evangelical Christians, to the knee-jerk defining of faiths by their most extreme practices or adherents. This may not be quite as much of a stretch as it sounds. At the end of her book, Re…

Capricology: Tattoos, Blood, Cyber-Dating

By Anthea Butler

…what the Galactica remnant believed by the series’ finale. Since the last science class I took was in tenth grade, I can’t comment on the biology much less the neuroscience that separates humanity from artificial or sentient intelligence. But if we’re talking about the soul, the divine spark within, I bet most Americans are not ready to chalk it up to a sophisticated system of consciousness-enabling electrical processes. Caprica asks whether thos…

High Ark: A Geologist on the True Meaning of Noah’s Flood

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…orld throughout history. And perhaps most intriguing, he’s willing to talk about science as a human endeavor. I spoke to Montgomery by phone to find out more about these surprising aspects of his story. ______________ BWL: You write in your introduction that you started out to write a more traditional debunking of creationism’s flood geology, from your perspective as a geologist. And you ended up with something different. What happened? DM: I lear…

Climate Change Denial: A Guide for the Humanities

By Michael Schulson

…nd the Christian Broadcasting Network. Clearly this isn’t just a topic for science classes. It’s for humanities and social science subjects, too! In order to build on the NCSE’s noble efforts, here’s a brief guide to integrating the IPCC report into your non-science classes: History Ask your students to read Richard Hofstadter’s classic essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Discussion questions: In what way could skepticism about clima…

Way Beyond Atheism: God Does Not (Not) Exist

By Paul Wallace

…kins may change his mind about evolution, but nothing will change his mind about science. He will never question—in a serious way—the sufficiency of science as a guide to truth. Perhaps he thinks the success of science makes it a self-evident choice when it comes to grounding his worldview; what he does not and will not consider is the very real possibility that science is so successful precisely because it is so limited. To reject this possibilit…

Conservative Christianity and Its Discontents

By Karl Giberson and Randall J. Stephens

…e hoax of global warming,” he said in February, calling it more “political science” than science. Teaching the Impossible And what about higher education; the liberal, secular source of so much that Santorum finds disgusting? For those select few who do get an education, rather than working on a road crew, what should be taught in the classroom? “Darwin’s theory of evolution should not be taught as absolute fact in the science classroom,” he has m…

Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

By Joel Pitney

…f we want to talk about what Jesus actually spent most of his time talking about, he talked about loving other people and caring for people on the margins. Right. To me that’s far more important. The rule of love is what I want to live by. Unfortunately, it appears as if your view on the issue is in the minority right now, correct? At the General Conference, the more progressive voices don’t have enough of a majority to change the language in the…

Religion is Not about Belief: Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God

By Brian McGrath Davis

…cists were the experts of theological discourse, for it was reason and the sciences alone which could speak about God. In the age of Descartes and Newton, science became the master of theology; scientific rationalism was what Newton called the “fundamental religion.” Theological assertions were imbued with certainty and necessity: “Theology was not only becoming aridly theoretical,” but it was also “in danger of becoming idolatrous.” The keys to t…