Hitchens vs. the world

I haven't even been able to get through all 2 hours of the video, but Hitchens acquits himself well against 4 theists.
http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=175ad626166c55fdb819
Watch it.

Lively online atheist community

See ThinkAtheist for a lively online community. Lots of different media and topics.

They have a radio show which airs once a week on Saturday evenings, lots of video messages, and a lively message board.

Texas falls

I'm upset. Read this, from the NCSE.
It was looking good for a while.

This one's worth a giggle...

Nice.

YES! TX avoids diluting science as a concept

The ongoing battle in Texas to sneak creationist dogma into public school science has been shot down...again. Read here.

The key words: Strengths and Weaknesses...

Why is Texas so important? Because,

"What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. That state is a sizeable consumer of public school textbooks, and it's likely that if it waters down its science standards, textbook publishers all over the country will follow suit. This makes every American school hostage to the caprices of a few benighted Texas legislators."

Having lived in Texas for 10 years ('92-'01) I have anecdotes to back that up, but more importantly, the numbers back it up:
NPR

Too much god in BSG

Did anyone else watch Battlestar Galactica? There were many omens leading up to last night's finale that portended a holy power, but last night made it worse. It's still a magnificent show and it was quite a finale, but it was all explained by god, god, god. Even the evolution of mankind was brought about by the intervention of a holy power! Disappointing, that.

College professor PZ Meyers runs a blog entitled "Pharyngula," which is always full of good stuff. One of today's posts, about a confrontation with a pro-lifer, is a good read. It's about when life "begins."

Highlight:

this person wants a specific quote from a biology text that has the words "human life does not begin at conception" in it. That would be tough, because it's a sentence that rather boggles the brain of any developmental biologist — we also tend not to write sentences like, "human beings are not flies".

Whaddya think of these guys?

The Way of Yo seeks to unite the nonreligious, deists, and buddhists into some sort of uplifting, positive religion which has an "unknowable essence" as a core belief. Anyone encounter or study Yoists?

Do you know science?

A recently released study, conducted by Harris Interactive and paid for by the California Academy of Sciences shows that Americans as a whole don't know Jack about science. Correlation may not imply causation, but we're also consistently ranked as one of the most religious nations in the world.

Here's a more in-depth quiz asking what you know about science. I got a D. Tough quiz -- the verbiage can often be interpreted in more than one way.

Secular Coalition for America: Rise of the Godless

The Secular Coalition for America posted an item about the National Review, a journal read by politicians and power brokers, about the rise of the nonreligious as a political entity. You can read the original article after the jump.

Highlight:

"Look out, social conservatives. The secularist, humanist, freethinking nontheists and atheists are growing in number, and coalescing into a movement with a real agenda."

Program on Public Values finds secularity on rise in US

The Program on Public Values, affiliated with Trinity College in Hartford, CT, published a report that showed a twofold increase in those identifying themselves as "no religion."

The study found 15 percent of respondents identifying themselves as "no religion," as compared to 8.2 percent in 1990 and 14.1 percent in 2001.

Though Trinity is a Catholic school, the team conducting the survey is made up of sociologists, anthropologists, and profressors of religion.

Only 1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death.

If you feel a little to cheery about that news, read the comments on ABC News' site here to get depressed.

Official sermons, and my ignorance

There's been a lot of stink about Rick Warren delivering the Invocation the day of the inauguration of our next president. The result of that controversy is the choice of Reverend Robinson, gay minister, to do some kind of kick-off prayer.

My questions:
a) Is this official state business paid for by tax dollars under the justification that the new prez has the choice to have his faith be a part of it? If so, how is this happening? Shouldn't the financial burden be shouldered privately?
b) How many prayers are involved in the inauguration?
c) What's the difference between them?
d) What, exactly, is Rick Warren invoking?

I confess complete ignorance about all of this. I'd appreciate help in understanding the role of prayer in the Presidential inauguration.

Ricky Gervais weighs in

The debate is over.

great resource from NCSE -- free!

Download "15 Evolutionary Gems" here, brought to you by Nature magazine.

The table of contents:
Gems from the fossil record
1 Land-living ancestors of whales
2 From water to land
3 The origin of feathers
4 The evolutionary history of teeth
5 The origin of the vertebrate skeleton
Gems from habitats
6 Natural selection in speciation
7 Natural selection in lizards
8 A case of co-evolution
9 Differential dispersal in wild birds
10 Selective survival in wild guppies
11 Evolutionary history matters
Gems from molecular processes
12 Darwin’s Galapagos finches
13 Microevolution meets macroevolution
14 Toxin resistance in snakes and clams
15 Variation versus stability

Worth reading, and worth keeping on hand.

old news, but good to have in the archives

The President Elect's speech on the necessity of secularity in a government.

Science is winning out in Texas (so far)

The Battle of the Failure to Understand the Scientific Method continues in Texas, as the third draft of the TX state science academic standards, has been released. Some pro-creationists, similar to our semi-local battle in Dover, PA, are saying with their actions that it is so important that students get exposed to creationism that they're willing to destroy the students' concept of the process of science.

Recent battles have involved the phrase "strengths and weaknesses" in one standard about the scientific method. Each draft has read as follows:

DRAFT I:
"The student is expected to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing."

DRAFT II:
"The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information."

DRAFT III:
"The student is expected to analyze and evaluate strengths and limitations of scientific explanations including those based on accepted scientific data, and evidence from students' observations, experiments, models, and logical statements."

There are more changes, but the significance of the inclusion of those particular letters in that particular sequence says a lot about what the authors think. As a 6th grade science teacher, and knowing how influential TX standards are to standards across the nation, I'm going to continue to watch my former home state closely.

Right on, Silverman!

I was trying to put into words why I think it's okay for me to have an unusually good time at Christmas despite not believing in the Jebus. Then I read David Silverman's last post:


When you make unbelievers comply by force, they will comply the way they can without changing their views, and that's why Santa is more important than Jesus this time of year.

Beautifully said. I'm not going try to top that. And no, I'm not going to midnight mass, either.

Also: Dawkins weighs in on Christmas, Dvorkin just says no, Jim Holt asks us to prove a negative (the comments for this one are the best part).

Happy holidays from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

to all the atheist educators out there

If you haven't found it yet, visit the National Center for Science Education's site. They're fighting for the idea that science is science and what isn't, isn't. This usually takes the form of speaking out against, and mobilizing against, teaching of religious ideas in science classes.
They have an rss feed so you can add it to your feed reader, like Netvibes or bloglines.

Anti-religion ad on buses in D.C. attracting attention

Visit for the short article, but stick around for the comments. It's a lively discussion, and the nature of the web begs for us to contribute to others' work, so post your thoughts there!

The ad was posted by the Washington Humanist Association.