ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 25

OPEN DISCUSSION FEBRUARY 2021

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 that our Comment Policy applies as usual. There is a link to this at the foot of the page. If you would like to refer back to previous open discussion …

I had been indoctrinated

Sometimes, the simplest of things can go unnoticed until an unexpected occurrence reveals the obvious. In my case it was an examination of what was generating my anger after being asked a simple question regarding my beliefs. I found my anger came from frustration, the frustration of repeating belief as fact and never given the …

Because God Says So

I was raised Catholic, strict Catholic on both sides of my family. Nobody could answer why we believed what we believed, everything was because God says so or something along those lines. I always had doubts, but my faith didn’t take a hit until 2005. I was going to a non-denominational Christian Church that my …

VIDEO: No One Expects the Skeptic Inquisition!

Behind the magazine, there is the man. On Tuesday night, the skeptic community had a chance to look behind the cover of the foundational publication of the skeptic movement with a one-on-one chat with Kendrick Frazier, editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine since 1976. His conversation with CFI Insider host Melissa Myers is now available to watch online …

Addressing Vaccine Fears

Millions of doses of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines are making their way across the country, but still far too many Americans are unwilling to be vaccinated, whether they are staunch anti-vaxxers, driven by misinformation, or simply hesitant or scared. Claudia Wallis at Scientific American collects some evidence-based methods for overcoming vaccine fears. We’re doing our part, too. CFI’s …

Science in the Cabinet

With the appointment of a new director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, President Biden is also elevating the position to the cabinet level. (In contrast, President Trump left this position vacant for a year and a half.) Biden will nominate Eric S. Lander, currently the director of the Broad Institute of …

QAnon and On and On

We know the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was driven in large part by conspiracy theories, manufactured to convince a particular group of Americans that dark forces were aligning to rob them of their power and influence. (In order to operate large-scale Satanic child-slavery cartels, enabled by Bill Gates and 5G signals, maybe with the help …

We’ll Always Have Paris

Today, the new administration is set to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty among almost 200 nations to combat global warming. President Trump, who had declared climate change to be a “hoax,” announced the United States’s withdrawal from the agreement early in his term, making the U.S. one of only three countries to …

The Mob’s Founding Myth

The insurrectionists at the Capitol were fueled by a variety of lies, chiefly the false claim that President Trump had won the 2020 election. But the rioters were also largely unified—and believed themselves morally justified—under the banner of another falsehood: the myth that the United States is a Christian nation. “To me, God and country …

I was never exposed to true science

I was raised in a Christian home and attended Christian school. In this environment I was never exposed to true science. In fact, it was not until recently that I began to have a clear understanding of the Big Bang and Evolution which I learned by reading books by Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins. With …