ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 157

How Has Climate Change Affected Hurricane Dorian?

By John Schwartz The links between hurricanes and climate change are complex, but some aspects are getting clearer. Tropical storms draw their energy from ocean heat — and more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the ocean. Storms that survive the cradle of formation can intensify …

Meet the ‘Giant Elephant Trunks,’ Mysterious Cosmic Structures 10 Times Bigger Than the ‘Pillars of Creation’

By Adam Mann Ursa Major, the Tadpole Galaxy, the Crab Nebula — when it comes to naming objects in space, it sometimes seems like astronomers wish they’d gone into zoology. Continuing in this long tradition, a researcher has recently identified mammoth column-shaped structures carved from gas and dust that he has called Giant Elephant’s Trunks. Regular-size …

A Mississippi wedding venue rejected an interracial couple, citing ‘Christian belief.’ Facing a backlash, the owner apologized.

By Allyson Chiu When LaKambria S. Welch drove to Boone’s Camp Event Hall on Saturday, she was in search of an explanation. Welch told The Washington Post in an email that her brother and his fiancee had recently been coordinating with the wedding venue in Booneville, Miss., about hosting their upcoming nuptials until they were …

The Latest Attempts to Get ‘In God We Trust’ Into Schools is a Coordinated Christian Nationalist Push [Part 3]

By Andrew L. Seidel Christian nationalism will greet schoolchildren returning to classrooms in 16 states this fall. New laws in Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida, and South Dakota encourage or require public schools to display the divisive national motto: In God We Trust. Piecemeal reporting on the laws gives the impression that state legislators around the country are spontaneously discovering the value of …

Conversion therapy center founder who sought to turn LGBTQ Christians straight says he’s gay, rejects ‘cycle of self shame’

By Marisa Iati McKrae Game wants people to know that he was wrong about all of it. He was wrong to found Hope for Wholeness Network, a faith-based conversion therapy program that seeks to rid people of their LGBTQ identities. He was wrong to create a slogan promoting the idea of “freedom from homosexuality through …

Why young white evangelicals aren’t likely to leave the Republican Party

By Jeremiah J. Castle, Ryan P. Burge, and Paul A. Djupe In 2020, will white evangelical Christians stick with the Republican Party, where they’ve long been a reliable voting bloc? Evangelicals made up just over one-third of President Trump’s 2016 coalition, and have been among his most loyal supporters. At the same time, researchers and observers …

Organoids Are Not Brains. How Are They Making Brain Waves?

By Carl Zimmer Two hundred and fifty miles over Alysson Muotri’s head, a thousand tiny spheres of brain cells were sailing through space. The clusters, called brain organoids, had been grown a few weeks earlier in the biologist’s lab here at the University of California, San Diego. He and his colleagues altered human skin cells into stem cells, …

Pennsylvania House wins appeal in atheist prayer-policy suit

By the Associated Press A federal appeals court is reversing a lower court decision and ruling that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ policy barring atheists from delivering invocations doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution. Friday’s decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the House’s policy of limiting prayers at the start of legislative …

The Defiance of Pakistani Atheists

By Kunwar Khuldune Shahid For Pakistani atheists, a hitherto intangible demographic, the 2010s was a decade that simultaneously gave them an identity and took it away. The voice they found in the digital sphere at the start of the 2010s, albeit under the cloak of anonymity, has largely been stifled. With the boom of the …

OPEN DISCUSSION SEPTEMBER 2019

This thread has been created for discussion on themes relevant to Reason and Science for which there are not currently any dedicated threads. Please note it is NOT for general chat, and that our Comment Policy applies as usual. There is a link to this at the foot of the page. If you would like …