ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 116

School Voucher SCOTUS Case Isn’t About ‘Choice,’ It’s About Coerced Support For Religion

By Andrew L. Seidel Before walking over to the Senate to preside over Donald Trump’s impeachment, this morning Chief Justice John Roberts presided over one of the most significant cases before the Supreme Court, Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue. Some argue that this is a case about religious discrimination or school choice. It’s not. …

Trump to become the first president to speak in person at March for Life

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey President Trump announced Wednesday that he will attend Friday’s March for Life, the annual gathering of antiabortion protesters to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion decision. While other presidents have addressed the annual rally by phone or sent video greetings, Trump would be the first to …

Utah bans conversion therapy for LGBTQ children

By the Associated Press The discredited practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ children is now banned in Utah, making it the 19th state and one of the most conservative to prohibit it. Supporters navigated a winding path to passage and some dissent remains, but barring it in Utah could give a boost to similar efforts in other right-leaning states, …

Ozone-depleting gases might have driven extreme Arctic warming

By Giuliana Viglione Gases that deplete the ozone layer could be responsible for up to half of the effects of climate change observed in the Arctic from 1955 to 2005. The finding could help to explain the disproportionate toll of climate change on the region, which has long puzzled scientists. The Arctic is warming at …

To find intelligent alien life, humans may need to start thinking like an extraterrestrial

By Adam Mann Our hunt for aliens has a potentially fatal flaw — we’re the ones searching for them. That’s a problem because we’re a unique species, and alien-seeking scientists are an even stranger and more specialized bunch. As a result, their all-too human assumptions may get in the way of their alien-listening endeavors. To …

Another Anti-LGBTQ Bill Emerges in Tennessee

By Trudy Ring Just after Tennessee lawmakers passed a “license to discriminate” bill covering adoption agencies, the measure’s chief sponsor wants to move forward with legislation that would undermine local efforts to support LGBTQ equality. State Sen. Paul Rose, a Republican who calls himself a Christian conservative, is pressing the Senate to take up a bill, …

A church allegedly asked older members to leave. Leaders say that didn’t actually happen.

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey When a small church in the suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul shuts it doors in June, some of the members, who are almost all older than 60, are worried about where their funerals will be held. When it reopens perhaps a year later, the traditional hymns could be missing and a new …

A rare chemical that helped DNA form may have come to Earth on comets from newborn stars, astronomers find

By Morgan McFall-Johnsen Phosphorus, an element that’s key in forming DNA and fueling life on Earth, may have first arrived on the planet via comets from newborn stars. Since the element is extremely rare in the universe, its presence on Earth has been a long-standing mystery. But scientists at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) now …

The Age of Nones May Favor Churches that Welcome Doubters

By Ryan Burge The media have paid a lot of attention to the rise of the religiously unaffiliated in recent years, and for good reason. In 1990, just 1 in 20 adult Americans were not connected to a religious faith. Today, it’s closer to 1 in 4. The ripples of such a shift are still …

Religious wars: With the Christian right on the offensive, activists are fighting back

By Paul Rosenberg Last Thursday, Jan. 16, was Religious Freedom Day. As befits his mendacious nature, Donald Trump “honored” it by promoting two policies profoundly at odds with the original meaning of what religious freedom is all about: a license to discriminate with federal funds, both in employment and in provision of services, and new pressure on public schools to …