New Scientist

I dropped my sub to Science News, so now New Scientist is my main source for news about science. I have mixed feelings about NS. It's a bit too flashy for my liking. To give a kind of example of my problems, here are comments on an article on anthropomorphism.

First, a definition of anthropomorphic for Dictionary.com:

1. ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human, esp. to a deity.
2. resembling or made to resemble a human form: an anthropomorphic carving.

Now, from the New Scientist article:

There's no doubt that anthropomorphism is ingrained in human nature.Some of the oldest known pieces of cave art show figures who are half-human, half-animal, suggesting the trait may have been present in our ancestors at least 30,000 years ago.

We have no idea what this figure represents, because we don't have enough information about the artist and his (or her) culture. Most likely it says something about humans and animals and maybe about religion, but what?

The article gives a photo of an ancient Egyptian relief, with two animal-headed gods. This is captioned:

Humanized mythic figures have appeared throughout history.

Granted the gods have human bodies, but their heads -- the location of eyesight, hearing, speech and the brain -- are animal. Like the cave painting, this probably says something interesting about humans, animals and the divine. But I don't know what. NS could have checked with an Egyptologist.e both human and animal aspects?
Then there is an explanation for why people attribute their own ideas to God:

The results...might simply confirm that some people use God to elevate their own beliefs... To Epley, it signified something more profound: the less evidence we have for another's beliefs -- and for God we have very little indeed -- the more likely we are to project our own beliefs into the voids.

People who belong to established religions have a great deal of information about their God or gods. It comes from sacred texts, doctrine, theology... If people ignore all this and project their personal beliefs on God, the problem is not lack of available knowledge.