Would This Have Happened If The Religious Conservatives Had Their Way?

"The CDC reports that pregnancy in teens aged 15-19 has fallen by 46% from 2007 to 2015.  The CDC did not discuss the specific reasons for this decline. However, there are probably three major contributors:"

 Good News: Teen Pregnancy Is Down 46% Since 2007

The Cases For And Against Addiction Being A Disease

"I agree a single-factor theory is not helpful to explain addiction behaviour. Many diseases are similar in this, having a large number of risk and contributing factors. Addiction can be viewed as a treatable disease, but the person is central in managing the behaviour."

Is Addiction a Disease?

The Big Bang Theory Is An Example Of How Science Works

"Like the slow, creeping heat death of the universe predicted by the Big Bang model, in which the Universe expands forever until what's left is too devoid of energy to sustain life, the Steady State theory gradually fizzled out in scientific circles. Hoyle, however, defended his theory until his dying day in 2001, never accepting the overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang."

The Idea That the Big Bang Destroyed

It's Time To Dump The Term "Spirituality"

"Replacing 'spirituality' with 'emotionality' comports, I think, with how we nonbelievers conceive of our 'nonmaterialism'. The practice of science, and the curiosity that drives it, isn’t emotional: looking for the laws of physics isn’t an emotional experience. Having wonder about the laws of physics is an emotional experience."

Can we please abandon the word “spiritual”?

Jerry Coyne Critiques Sean Carroll's Free Will Opinion

"To his credit, Sean doesn’t try to offer up an alternative definition of free will like some compatibilists do, but merely says that using the language of 'choice' is a useful convention, even if it’s not true that we 'could have decided otherwise'."

Sean Carroll on free will

The Key To Changing The World

What is the key to changing so much that is wrong with our present world?  Is it starting a Third political party by running a candidate for President of the USA without first making waves at the local level?  How about beginning at that local level?

Why Is It Easy For Humans To Believe In A God?

The question of why do so many humans believe in a god, in spite of no evidence in support of a god, has been a question that is begging for a evidenced-based answer.  Below is my clear and concise answer to the question.

Gullibility + Church Economics = "Supernatural" Visions And Healings

"Michael O’Neil, a miracle researcher and author who runs the website MiracleHunter.com, told CNA that the approval is significant. It means that the messages from the apparitions are not only approved for the faithful to read, he explained: the bishop is saying the events were in fact actual miraculous apparitions."

As a skeptic, I am ready to accept all of this as "supernatural" with sufficient evidence.  What do we have here?

The Age Of Stupid

This is a nice article presenting the history of the hubris and ignorance of humanity, as well as what are the characteristics of a "Good" scientist.  Too bad the author, who is a retired scientist, added an unnecessary and inappropriate comment regarding our scientific acceptance of global warming.

The Age of Stupid has stretched from the Dawn of Man to the Present Day

A Look At Falsifiability And Verification In Science

"This suggests that while Popper’s idea of falsification is a good one, it is far too difficult for scientists to implement regularly in practice. Science plods along just fine without adhering to Popper’s overly burdensome guidelines."

Falsification: Was Karl Popper Wrong About Science?

A Classical Argument From Ignorance Debunked

'We can never understand the size of our ignorance."

“A Universe That’s Understandable Points to God,” but How Understandable Is the Universe?
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Exploiting Scientific Complexity And Poor Communication For Ideological Purposes

"A recent article in the Guardian discusses how scientists and experts should communicate risk and certainty to the public. The author, Jack Stilgoe, makes some good points, but unfortunately frames it as part of a defense of Jill Stein."

Communicating Risk and Certainty