Another way how life may have begun

Religion thrives on mysteries, those things that seem so inexplicable that we do not know how to even begin investigating them, what questions to ask, and what tools to use to study them. We are tempted to just throw up our hands. Puzzles, on the other hand, are those things for which we do not as yet have answers but do know what questions to ask, have hypotheses about what might be going on, and can investigate systematically. [Read more…]

Summers over

So Larry Summers will not be the next chair of the Federal Reserve. He has withdrawn his name from contention, stating that the confirmation process would be too acrimonious. Whether he chose to do this on his own or whether president Obama nudged him to do so because he could not afford another bruising fight with Congress and his own party supporters who objected to Summers is not clear. [Read more…]

US and Israeli hypocrisy on full display with Syria

It should have come as no surprise that US secretary of state John Kerry scurried over to Israel as soon as he could after reaching a deal with the Russians that averted the bombing of Syria, at least for now. Israel and its lobby in the US had been going flat out for the US to bomb Syria. AIPAC went all-out in support of the congressional resolution authorizing bombing Syria, after being signaled by the Obama administration that it needed help in getting the legislation passed. Back on September 5, when it looked like Congress was going to balk at going to war, the lobby went into overdrive. [Read more…]

Israel going against the trend?

In general, I find that the next generation to be more tolerant, more accepting of diversity, less religious, and less warlike than the earlier ones, which gives me some hope for the future. But on a recent visit to Israel, Philip Weiss finds (admittedly based on personal experiences and not as part of a scientific survey) that the younger generation there was more warlike about Syria than the old-timers. [Read more…]

How not to explain the lack of responsiveness to prayers

One of religion’s weakest points is that of prayer. People are urged to pray to their gods and invariably these prayers end up at least partly being requests for things or other forms of divine intervention. Naturally, prayers are not answered (except by sheer coincidence) so it becomes the task of religious leaders to rationalize away this seeming lack of responsiveness on god’s part. [Read more…]

Why is the US always looking for places to bomb?

Bill Maher is puzzled by it.

New rule: 12 years after 9/11, and amidst yet another debate on whether to bomb yet another Muslim country, America must stop asking the question, “Why do they hate us?” Forget the debate on Syria, we need a debate on why we’re always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we’re starting to look not so much like the world’s policeman, but more like George Zimmerman: itching to use force and then pretending it’s because we had no choice. [Read more…]

On the nature of science

In setting standards for their science curricula, state and local boards of education invariably have to deal with the question of the nature of science because having students understand it is usually one of the mandates given to the drafting committees. This becomes especially necessary in order to know how to best respond when efforts are made to insert religious ideas into the science curriculum or to undermine those scientific ideas (like evolution) that are viewed by religious people as being opposed to religion. [Read more…]