ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 236

Supreme Court poised to drastically reverse LGBTQ equality

By Zack Ford There are now six different cases implicating LGBTQ rights sitting before the Supreme Court. While the conservative-majority Court has not yet agreed to hear any of them, a circuit split between two of the cases and the fact that President Trump’s transgender military ban is at the heart of another strongly suggest …

Evolution Is Still True, but…

By Glenn Branch November 12, 2018, was a date worth celebrating. It was the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Epperson v. Arkansas, which struck down a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in Arkansas’s public schools. In his opinion for the court, Justice Abe Fortas wrote, “there can be no doubt that …

Extinct ‘Siberian Unicorns’ Walked the Earth Alongside Modern Humans

By George Dvorsky Weighing up to 7,700 pounds, Elasmotherium sibiricum—an extinct hairy rhino popularly known as the “Siberian unicorn”—was thought to have disappeared as long as 200,000 years ago. An updated fossil analysis suggests this formidable species was still around some 39,000 years ago, and that Ice Age conditions, not human hunters, contributed to its demise. Paleontologists …

What’s next for NASA’s Mars InSight lander?

By Ashley Strickland On Monday, the NASA Mars InSight lander survived the “seven minutes of terror” during entry, descent and landing to safely arrive on Mars and took up permanent residence on the Red Planet. Unlike the rovers already on the Martian surface, InSight will stay put during its planned two-year mission. What will the …

AR State Sen. Urges Elected Officials to Join His “Christian Lawmakers” Group

By Hemant Mehta Last night, in an email sent to literally thousands of state legislators across the country, Arkansas State Sen. Jason Rapert invited everyone to join a new organization called the “National Association of Christian Lawmakers.” I guess maybe with an organization, some Christians will finally get elected in this country… Rapert says the group will formally launch in 2019 …

Donald Trump buried a climate change report because ‘I don’t believe it’

By Chris Cillizza President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change. Why, you ask? “I don’t believe it,” Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read “some” of the …

Richard Conn: The Earthbound Parent in conversation with Brenda Vongova

The Earthbound Parent demonstrates why all parents who value science and reason can help stop the centuries-old practice of religious indoctrination and offers advice on how to encourage children to discover the world and their place in it for themselves. Richard A. Conn, Jr. is an international lawyer and private investment fund manager. He has …

Genome-edited baby claim provokes international outcry

By David Cyranoski A Chinese scientist claims that he has helped make the world’s first genome-edited babies — twin girls who were born this month. The announcement has provoked shock, and some outrage, among scientists around the world. He Jiankui, a genome-editing researcher from the Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, says …

Democrats Finally Acknowledging Secular Voters

By David Niose The recent midterm elections reflect the increasing clout of secular voters, a group that has grown significantly in recent years, and at least one major party is starting to take note. According to polling data released by Pew, 17 percent of voters in 2018 were religiously unaffiliated, up from only 11 percent in 2006 …

Large Asteroid Packing 50 Megatons Of Force Might Come Crashing Down On Earth In 2023 — And That’s Not All

By Alexandra Lozovschi A large asteroid could be headed toward us in the near future — barreling through space on a risk trajectory that might cause it to collide with Earth. The news comes from the Express, which cites NASA sources, who revealed that the space rock could end up engaged in not one, but 62 different …