A Thinking Man

In 1968 the sociologist Peter Berger famously predicted that in the 21st century, religious believers would only be likely to be in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.  In 1710 Thomas Woolstan predicted that religion would be gone by 1900.  And many other thinkers (Voltaire, Jefferson, Marx, Engels, Freud) have all anticipated [...]

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Who will win this year’s bad faith award?
The New Humanist’s annual vote to discover who people think deserves a bad faith award is still open. If you haven’t cast your vote yet, do pop along to the site and see if anyone merits your selection.
Last year Sarah Palin romped home to victory for her [...]

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Are you spooked by the appearance of black cats?  Do you court disaster by walking under ladders of on cracks in the pavements?
There was a fascinating piece of research reported in the New Scientist recently which attempts to give an evolutionary explanation for the existence of superstitions.  Natural selection might explain why people sometimes believe [...]

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There have been repeated threats in the US to limit the teaching of evolution in state schools. Three leading Florida state legislators are preparing to challenge new state science education standards that will make the teaching of evolution compulsory for the first time in Florida’s history.

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Did you know that:

George Bush planned the September 11 attacks,
MMR injection triggers autism in children,
the ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa,
Creation Science disproves evolution,
homeopathy can defeat the AIDS virus,
Jesus and Mary Magdalene sired a dynasty of Merovingian kings,
MI5 killed Diana, Princess of Wales?

If you did know any of these things, you have been a [...]

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One of the most commented on newspaper articles in recent days was the online version of a report printed in The Sunday Times that Richard Dawkins is planning a lecture tour of America during 2008. The report itself is reasonably neutral and factual, but some of the comments can only be described as ‘interesting’.
Dawkins [...]

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“If they win, they win.  If they lose, they win!”
This statement was spoken with frustration and a degree of sarcasm in Christopher Brookmyre’s recent comic novel “Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks”.  In this book Brookmyre wittily explores and exposes the fraudulent activities of people involved in the world of the paranormal.  One of the major themes [...]

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I am sure that if you asked a group of respectable people if they got angry, many of them would deny that they did.  Although working class males are allowed to be angry, middle class males tend to want to avoid it, and it is certainly an emotion that society frowns on in women.
Despite this denial, anger [...]

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It’s now official.  It’s age rather than size that matters.  And toy boys are bad for the birth rate.
An analysis of over 10,000 randomly selected Swedish men and women born between 1945 and 1955 has revealed that couples produce most children where the man is older than the woman. 

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