Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
From last August there is a great Canadian article that lays out a good way to effectively communicate to people who have serious doubts about vaccines. It is worth reading in full, but since they have proposed seven steps, I’d like to chime on and comment on each myself. There was and still is a … Read more
A new paper has been published within the Personality and Social Psychology bulletin entitled … Not All Skepticism Is Equal: Exploring the Ideological Antecedents of Science Acceptance and Rejection We report three studies—including an analysis of large-scale survey data—in which we systematically investigate the ideological antecedents of general faith in science and willingness to support … Read more
American Atheists have their traditional seasonal billboard campaign in full swing, and as you can perhaps anticipate, the perpetually ready to be offended are (insert drum roll here) … offended at the very idea that the traditional Christmas story is fake news and did not actually happen. As pointed out by Newsweek, some being offended … Read more
Abuse is the theme this week. Over and over, stories of religious abuse emerge. People in positions of trust continue to abuse such positions and often the religious response is to cover it all up and pretend it has not happened. During the past seven days the following tragic stories have emerged. Item 1 – Pastor … Read more
A legal case that has been trundling its way through the US system has finally reached the US supreme court and had a hearing last Tuesday (5th Dec). The essence of this concerns a couple named Mr Mullins and Mr Craig, pictured above, who went into the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, near Denver back in 2012 owned … Read more
Vaccination not only works, but it works well. Smallpox is gone, and Polio, Tetanus, and Measles, have all been greatly restricted. Nobody would seriously advocate a return to the 18th century, a time when as many as 400,000 europeans died each and every year of smallpox alone, and yet the arise of an anti-vaccine movement … Read more