Business Insider screws up evolution reporting

Business Insider (founded in 2009) is an up-and-coming website that seems to be a must-read for financial folks, rivalling the online Wall Street Journal. It’s like HuffPo, having some original content but also many links to other pieces. And the articles are short and easily-digested, just right for the harried capitalist who has to make […]

I get email: an Orthodox Jew questions evolution—YOU answer him

I have received an email from an Orthodox Jew in Israel who questions evolution.  He’s asked me five questions, which I’ve put below along with his email. I wrote him back several times, trying to ascertain if he was simply trying to waste my time by giving me “stumpers,”, or was really interested in the […]

Andrew Brown suggests that atheists are turning Muslims into creationists

It seems to me that the only reason the Guardian still employs Andrew Brown is that his ridiculous columns elicit blog traffic by those who wish to refute him. I read him for the same reason I smell the milk when I know it’s gone bad, and I’m rarely disappointed.  His latest piece, “Atheists need […]

Quote of the week: BioLogos insists that the creator is the Christian God

A few weeks back, Peter Hitchens (brother of the late Christopher) argued in his Mail Online column that the notion of intelligent design (ID, aka creationism advocated by Ph.Ds) wasn’t religious because it didn’t specify the designer. I think I laid that one to rest, for the history of ID clearly shows that the designer […]

Evolution and Christianity: 2. Mike Aus on their incompatibility

I wanted to post this the other day as a response to the appearance of new homeschool textbooks on evolution that, while conveying modern evolutionary theory, also try to harmonize it with religion. (Many American children are homeschooled by religious parents who don’t want them exposed to godless science). My first post on this issue […]

Boneheaded statement of the week

I’m reading an interesting book: a series of interviews by Steve Paulson of various bigwigs who talk about the relationship between science and religion.  It’s called Atoms & Eden: Conversations on Religion & Science (Oxford University Press, 2010). The interviewees are diverse and interesting: they include Francis Collins, Karen Armstrong, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Simon […]

Peter Hitchens: diehard antievolutionist

I’m not sure how famous or authoritative Peter Hitchens is in the UK (he’s virtually unknown in the U.S.), but after I wrote a piece on his dissing of Anthony Grayling’s new book, several readers informed me that P. Hitchens, unlike his brother, is a serious doubter of modern evolutionary theory.  I don’t want to […]

Mark Vernon praises antievolution book as “the most despised science book of 2012″

Good Lord, is Mark Vernon, of “holy rabbit” fame, still writing for the Guardian? And why? In their columns he regularly takes up the cudgels against science: as an ex-Anglican priest, he simply can’t help but cheer when someone disses science, no matter how bad a job they do.  And so each year Vernon gives […]

Oklahoma joins the benighted, tries to pass antiscience bill

Oklahoma may be about to join those states that, in an attempt to sneak creationism and global warming denial into the classroom, will enforce a “let a million criticisms flourish” bill on public school classrooms. The repeated failure of creationists and science denialists to force the teaching of antiscience in the classroom has, as you […]

Darwin Day resolution introduced in U.S. House

by Greg Mayer The New York Times reports that Rep. Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to support the designation of February 12, 2013 as Darwin Day. Holt, a former research physicist and Jeopardy champion, represents Princeton, New Jersey, where his supporters, with a slight exaggeration, sport bumper […]