ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 26

The Gene’s Eye View

With the publication of his groundbreaking book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins brought fresh clarity to Darwin’s big idea, reframing our understanding of evolution by natural selection by focusing on the gene, not the individual organism, as the primary unit of evolution. In a new video, the YouTube channel Stated Clearly illustrates this idea with its latest animation, …

Anti-Vaxxers’ Founding Fraudster

We know that vaccines are safe and that they most certainly do not cause autism, but of course the welcome introduction of COVID-19 vaccines also heralds a new wave of anti-vaxxer misformation and scaremongering. A recent NBC News piece by Dr. Lior Brimberg of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research dismantles the absurd and utterly …

Ex-Muslim Activist Arrested in Tanzania

Over the New Year holiday, the Center for Inquiry learned of the plight of Australian ex-Muslim activist Zara Kay, founder of the organization Faithless Hijabi. She was arrested in Tanzania and held in police custody for thirty-two hours without charge. There she was interrogated about her work to help women who are leaving Islam and …

Evolution Is Your Friend

Through online presentations, in-person and virtual workshops, and a trove of free resources, the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) gives teachers the tools they need to effectively teach evolution and answer its critics. TIES is kicking off 2021 with its first new webinar of the year tomorrow night. On Thursday, January 7, at 8 p.m. ET, …

The Monoliths Come Full Circle

Remember the monoliths? Those mysterious obelisks that kept appearing in seemingly arbitrary locations, such as a desert in Utah, near a fortress in Romania, and even one on a mountain in California that some folks tore down because they felt it was insufficiently deferential to Jesus. Of course now they’re so last year, but for a moment …

The Plague of Christian Nationalism

As an ideology that seeks political and cultural dominance for a particularly conservative brand of Christianity, Christian nationalism is an obvious threat to secularism, true religious equality, and the rights of the nonreligious. But it’s also a threat to public health and science in general. A new study by sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry …

OPEN DISCUSSION JANUARY 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 …

VIDEO: The Translations Project on CFI Insider

In many parts of the Muslim word, it is prohibitively difficult to access books written in the local language that explain and celebrate science—especially in places where scientific concepts such as evolution are perceived by religious extremists as threats to their authority. The Translations Project is working to break down barriers and open minds by producing free …

Skepticism, Truth, and Trust

The danger of science-denial has been on full display in 2020, and much of that denial came from the White House. At Skeptical Inquirer, William London (also a new Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) surveys the damage done to the scientific landscape as we’ve endured four years of assaults on truth itself—during a pandemic, no …

Lowering the Barr

Last week, President Trump announced in a tweet (of course) the departure of Attorney General William Barr, reportedly because the president felt that Barr was insufficiently committed to overturning the results of the presidential election. While reticence about subverting democracy is a good thing, we can’t say we’re sad to see him go, for Barr made …