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New Atheism Produces Another Curiously Uncurious Science v. Religion Book

By Michael Schulson

…tackle Big Bad Faith. More deeply, Coyne wants to frame our conversations about religion and science as, fundamentally, a conversation about ideas—specifically, good ideas (science!) versus bad ones (faith). For thinkers like Coyne, the power struggles and politics are distractions. Ultimately, it’s the quality of a person’s thinking that’s at stake. In some ways, I admire Coyne’s position. There’s a purity to this brand of intellectualism, which…

Aliens, Nanobots, & Microbes: The Science of Secular Apocalypse

By Michael Schulson

…right that the mental machinery that we have was not designed for thinking about probably most of science, and certainly really big phenomena like global warming. Beyond just sort of encouraging big-picture thinking, I don’t know. I really struggled in the last chapter—I was trying not to make policy recommendations that are too specific. Just like we’ve got the IAEA to monitor nuclear weapons, we should set up a similar entity to monitor biologic…

“We Blew it” on Climate Change, But May Survive Anyway: An RD Discussion with the First Transhumanist Candidate

By Andrew Aghapour

…le funding for science. Pick the candidate that’s going to be the most pro-science, and I mean pro-science in a philosophical way. [The candidate should be] ready to allow robots into our homes, to allow CRISPR technology that’s going to give our children ten more IQ points through genetic treatments. The question is: which politician is going to be the easiest one to guide us down this thorny path of evolution? If the right candidate reached out…

Ben Stein’s Intelligent Design Film Fans Flames

By Arri Eisen

…izing evolution without a designer, how many Americans just plain distrust science. Just look at how science is taught and experienced by the typical American: As though science is a collection of facts that exist in a moral vacuum independent of humans; science is something you memorize; science is mathematics and data; we don’t have time to do science today, which was just an experiment the results of which we already knew anyway. These periodic…

Race, Reparations and the Search for Our Molecular Soul

By Michael Schulson

…has nothing to do with you or me. And, for some of the people that I write about, that claim about the past being also in the present is elaborated on in these various reconciliation projects that I write about. They include the intent to have a new conception of diasporas; the use of genetic ancestry testing in a slavery reparations case about a decade ago; and efforts like this ceremony of remembrance that I write about, in which people are tryi…

How Would Religion Respond to Extraterrestrials? A Thought Experiment

By Ed Simon

…s who have never seen, for example, a fish. One of the most moving stories about religion and science is Arthur C. Clarke’s“The Star,” published in 1956. The protagonist is Jesuit priest who is also a scientist, on an interstellar expedition which discovers the remnants of a civilization destroyed millennia before in a supernova. Clarke recounts the priest’s deep faith, his interactions with the atheistic crew of the ship, and also his profound tr…

“I Had No Intention to Write Atheistically”: Darwin, God, and the 2500-Year History of the Debate

By Edward J. Larson

…on par with Monkeys.” In a later entry, he demanded: “Compare, the Fuegian & Orangutan, & dare to say difference so great.” As for the vaunted “mind of man,” Darwin concluded, it “is no more perfect, than instincts of animals.” Human thought itself (like animal instincts) he attributed to brain structure, chiding himself “oh you Materialist!” for thinking so. While Darwin avoided commenting publically on human evolution, his most visible scientifi…

What Role do Feelings Play in Conspiracy, Racism and Climate Denial? Welcome to Phoning It In, Episode 1

By Megan Goodwin

…are not separate. And that matters because it changes how we should think about secularism and science. DOS: Yeah. Nailed it. MPG: [Awards self one (1) gold star, even though the game is made up and the points don’t matter, leaves Donovan to award himself whatever stars he feels he deserves at this juncture; I don’t know his life] *** Challenge 2: Can I—an eager but perhaps, uh, overcommitted and therefore slightly distracted reader—understand ke…

Occultism and New Age Take Off in Iran: An Interview with Alireza Doostdar

By Alireza Doostdar

…d, I decided that these sections exceeded the book’s overarching narrative about science, rationality, and experimentation, and so I had to leave them out (I also wanted to avoid writing a book that was longer than it already is). I do hope to incorporate this material into future writing projects. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic? Scholarship on religion and politics in modern Iran rarely (if ever) mentions the occult…

Gluten-Phobia, Sacred Volcanoes, Undercover Atheists: The Best Religion and Science Writing of 2015

By Andrew Aghapour

…within these communities. [Aeon] (Bonus: our interview with Daniel Dennett about non-believing clergy.) The Science of Apocalypse We live in a time when sober scientific predictions border on eschatology. In her singular article, “The Really Big One,” Kathryn Schulz outlines how the Cascadia subduction zone is likely to cause the worst natural disaster in the history of North America. Disturbing, fascinating, and impossible to put down: here, scie…