ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 189

The Universe Probably ‘Remembers’ Every Single Gravitational Wave

By Rafi Letzter The universe might “remember” gravitational waves long after they’ve passed. That’s the premise of a theoretical paper published April 25 in the journal Physical Review D. Gravitational waves, faint ripples in space and time that humanity has only in the past few years managed to detect, tend to pass very quickly. But the …

Texas lawmaker calls vaccines ‘sorcery,’ verbally attacks prominent advocate

By Todd Ackerman Vaccine advocate Dr. Peter Hotez is accustomed to verbal attacks from anti-vaxxers, but on Tuesday the abuse came from an unexpected source: a Texas legislator. In response to a Hotez tweet that the latest increase in vaccine exemptions in Texas shows its children have been “placed in harm’s way for the financial …

It’s time for us to have an unapologetic atheist in the Oval Office

By Max Boot Among the 21 candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, virtually every ethnic, religious and sexual identity is represented. There’s a gay man, six women, three African Americans, a Chinese American, multiple Catholics and Protestants, even a Hindu. (Hindus are 0.7 percent of the population.) But there is one conspicuous absence: Not a single candidate publicly identifies as an atheist. That’s …

LDS Church Rescinds Hurtful Marriage Policy Without Apology

By Holly Welker On May 6, 2019, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rescinded yet another of its family separation policies, that of “requiring couples who have been married civilly to wait one year before being sealed [in the temple].” It’s unclear exactly why the policy was implemented sometime around 1960. Essentially, it withheld the …

Another Bat-Winged Dinosaur Has Been Found

By Ed Young Two years ago, a farmer from Wubaiding Village in northeast China came across a beautiful fossil. The only fossil animals that had ever been found at this site were a pair of salamanders, but when Min Wang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences saw the new specimen, he was sure it was a dinosaur. …

Long Before Lying to Congress, Barr’s Views on Church and State Should Have Disqualified Him

By Becky Garrison Last week Democrats accused Attorney General William Barr of shilling for Donald Trump following his testimony before Congress. While much attention has been paid to his defenses of Trump, there has been very little examination of how Barr’s background as a conservative Catholic informs his current political decisions. To shed some light on this …

We Are Taking Religious Freedom Too Far

By Margaret Renkl In 1976 I left a small Catholic grammar school, where we prayed aloud four times a day, to attend a large public high school where we didn’t pray aloud at all. The United States Supreme Court had banned school-sponsored prayer in 1962, but nobody was keeping me from praying. I prayed for …

Exclusive: Trump fixer Cohen says he helped Falwell handle racy photos

By Aram Roston Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters. Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession …

A Violent Splash of Magma That May Have Made the Moon

By Robin George Andrews The moon is far more than a largely dead orb. Our planet’s pale satellite is the creator of tides, the catcher of meteors and the only other world in the starry ocean where humanity has set foot. But scientists are still not entirely clear how it was made. Solving this mystery would not …

Pat Robertson: The Idea That Earth Is Only 6,000 Years Old “Does Not Compute”

By Hemant Mehta Pat Robertson has done it: He said something sensible. It’s such a rare sight to behold that we should all stop to admire it. It happened on today’s episode of The 700 Club in response to a woman named Sheila who said she learned in church that Creation occurred 6,000 years ago, but that didn’t …