William Dembski’s new job

I first encountered the work of William Dembski during the time I was engaged in efforts to counter the intelligent design movement. He struck me as a smart guy who was trying to have his feet in two boats. He sought to be accepted by the scientific community by spouting sophisticated intelligent design stuff, while at the same time not alienating the fundamentalist Christian base that has no patience for anything that counters biblical orthodoxy. It is, of course an impossible task to bridge the two worlds as can been from his tortured attempts at bridging the Genesis story with evolution, that culminated in his laughable effort to explain how Adam and Eve killed the dinosaurs. [Read more…]

The decline of religiosity in the working class

Charles Murray’s new book Coming Apart supposedly deals with the increasing divergence within the white community over the period 1950-2010. It compares two groups of white people in the 30-49 age range: upper middle class (defined as those with a least a bachelor’s degree and working as a manager or similar high-status professions) with working class (no more than a high school degree and those who work in blue-collar, service or low-skill jobs). [Read more…]

Lose the young, then lose the women

Now that he has put in place policies that are alienating young Catholics, Pope Ratzi is turning his attention to turning off women. As if the church’s policies opposing contraception were not enough, he now reprimanded a large group of US nuns known as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and appoint a bishop as overseer of their activities because they “had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”” [Read more…]