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YouTube videoThis is too funny. Penn and Teller send an assistant to get gullible joiners to sign a petition banning dihydrogen monoxide, plain water.Warning: Some bad language (including the name of their show, Bull**it.)

I was raised Baptist - a mixed marriage- Southern Baptist and Primtive Baptist. I never belelived in God until was 18. My personal experience came just as I was studying science -and beginning to wonder about the patterns in the world and the universe and how they could have been there by chance. I went to a revival I did not want to attend. I had a mohawk. I went to the church in a black Leather Jacket with Highly Toxic and a skull and corss bones painted on the back in flourescent orange on the back. The people at...

There are 13 measures on the statewide ballot this fall in California. Those advocating a “yes” vote on any of them have an uphill battle. And if you think it is too early to be talking about the next election, well, that proves the point. We just had the June primary and that was the fifth statewide election since 2002. Part of the issue, of course, is voter fatigue. But there is something deeper going on. Voters are still very distrustful. Polls indicate that Californians still believe that the state is headed in the wrong direction. This is strange because,...

snip..."The debate in the science community is over,'' Gore insists, but in the inimitable words of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a classical liberal, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." More than 17,000 scientists, to date, have signed a petition sponsored by Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences, refuting Gore's claims that global warming is human-induced. The petition states: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of...

Even though a FoxNews poll shows that a wide majority of Americans oppose the Ports deal and it is obviously unpopular politically, these figures are both unsurprising and meaningless. The main reason the poll is both unsurprising and meaningless is that if you asked any American the question, "Would you want your company to be acquired by a foreign (nevermind Arab) firm?," the poll results would likely be very similar. In other words, not many people voluntarily like it when foreign firms buy American firms (even though in this case, it's a British firm being bought). Secondly, Americans are rightly...

MOSCOW - Russian officials furiously denied allegations linking companies and politicians to corruption in the United Nations' oil-for-food program for Iraq, saying Friday that the report implicating them relied upon forgeries and false statements. Elsewhere, the head of Sweden's AB Volvo said the company had drawn the conclusion that payments to the regime were "the way to do business in Iraq." And in Italy, a prominent politician accused in the scandal said he received "neither a drop of oil, nor a single cent." Companies and officials from governments around the world promised to investigate accusations of massive fraud that extended...

Hi, I am the Founder of the Reed College Freethinkers, a college atheist, agnostic, humanist, liberal Christian, and Separation of Church and State group, based in Portland, Oregon. We noticed that the majority of freethinkers are liberals, or at least those who seem to speak out tend to be left-of-center. While I consider myself to be a moderate, I was wondering if anyone knows of any prominent (or fairly prominent) conservatives/Republicans who also espouse some brand of freethought? If so, could you please list the person and contact information, if possible. Or feel free to contact me directly at reed.freethinkers@gmail.com.

...Marquis, my local PBS outlet has stepped up its usual quackery standard from Deepak Chopra by featuring a Dr. Christiane Northrup to plug up their current fund drive. It took me less than 30 seconds to discover the sham nature of their offering. Northrup touts her book "Mother-Daughter Wisdom" and a "Legacy Kit" as bonuses to those who join PBS at the rate of $275 a year. In her appearance on screen for PBS, Dr. Northrup told of a bereaved daughter who found pennies in various places around the house after her mother died, and considered those to be "messages"...

I am a lifelong skeptic. I am also a Christian believer. Skeptics Club is aimed at those who are by inclination the former but who would like, if possible, to be the latter as well. Some otherwise sophisticated believers seem unable to understand skepticism. If they can't, that's okay. Yet I believe many people can only come to faith by exploring their doubts. As for me, most faith claims strike me as dubious, at least at first, before I've had a chance to investigate them. Fair warning: This site is designed for true skeptics who are nonetheless exploring faith. None...

I don't know how many of you had the opportunity to read the front-page, above the fold article published in today's edition of the New York Times, which dealt specifically with the concerns surrounding the first (democratic) elections held in Iraq since 1954. It was an telling article, mainly-at least, from my perspective-because it was an indication that John Burns-a British journalist whose previous reportage from that country stood out for its clarity of purpose and sharp divergence from the standard "America is bogged down in an irretrievable quagmire" line-had finally subscribed to the press corp's generalized hostility for Operation...

Though all God's children started pretty much with the same blank slate, the Western branch of the family has--over time and with gusto--immersed itself in science, growing to cherish its potency and, perhaps for that reason, permitting it a comfortable coexistence with religion. Where conflicts have arisen between science and religion, our scientific empiricism--which is a source of our tolerance and of our ability to resolve conflict (mostly) without coming to blows--has usually ensured that our intellectual principles are not stifled by our prayers. To be sure, the very empiricism that safeguards science has also been benign for religion, as...

Physicists Matt Young and Taner Edis are the editors of a new volume whose contributors are working scholars in the sciences touched by the newest expression of “creation science”: Intelligent Design (ID) Theory. Why Intelligent Design Fails is a patient assessment of all the scientific claims made in connection with ID. The half dozen science-enabled spokesmen for ID are the indispensable core group of an international neo-creationist big tent. Goals of the American movement are sweeping: they begin with a highly visible, well-funded, nationwide effort to demean evolutionary science in American school (K-12) curricula. ID is offered as a better...

(n.) Nothingness; nihility.(n.) The doctrine that nothing can be known; skepticism as to all knowledge and all reality.(n.) The theories and practices of the Nihilists....That aspect too often goes un-addressed among us. Even churches that are referenced in the New Testament reveal that many came not to believe from faith alone, but through their own works. When even an apostle preached the Word to them, they studied the written word to see if his words rang true. When they found that his teachings matched that of the prophets, they came to believe and were baptized. When you begin to work...

Papers have been flapping with new headlines about the latest in a long line of alleged dinosaur ancestors of birds. This one is claimed to be a sensational dinosaur with feathers on its hind legs, thus four ‘wings’.1 This was named Microraptor gui—the name is derived from words meaning ‘little plunderer of Gu’ after the paleontologist Gu Zhiwei. Like so many of the alleged feathered dinosaurs, it comes from Liaoning province of northeastern China. It was about 3 feet (1 meter) long from its head to the tip of its long tail, but its body was only about the size...

In April 1999, when I was on a lecture tour for my book Why People Believe Weird Things, the psychologist Robert Sternberg attended my presentation at Yale University. His response to the lecture was both enlightening and troubling. It is certainly entertaining to hear about other people's weird beliefs, Sternberg reflected, because we are confident that we would never be so foolish. But why do smart people fall for such things? Sternberg's challenge led to a second edition of my book, with a new chapter expounding on my answer to his question: Smart people believe weird things because they are...

I failed a test for precognition when I was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia. The test involved predicting which cards would appear next in a randomly shuffled deck. I guess I should have known—or perhaps I shouldn't have known? Of course, you've heard all the jokes: If phone psychics really know what's going to happen, shouldn't they call their clients rather than wait for their clients to call them? And whoever believes in psychokinesis, please raise my hand. Still, a 2001 Gallup poll found that Americans continue to be credulous about the reality of psychic phenomena. About half...

Aliens Cause Global Warming A long read, but filled with interesting anecdotes from people like Feynman and Teller. I must say, he sounds pretty conservative. My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today.

This week's page will be devoted entirely to religion. I've reached the point where I just have to unload on this subject that until now I've felt was just outside of the matters that the JREF handles. Since religion shows up as a part of so many arguments in support of other fantastic claims, I want to show you that its embrace is of the same nature as acceptance of astrology, ESP, prophecy, dowsing, and the other myriad of strange beliefs we handle here every day. Previously, I've excused myself from involved discussions of this pervasive notion, on grounds that...

Proof An Intentionally Untechnical Essay No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. ---Henry David Thoreau Sometimes, as scientists and philosophers, we tend to become a bit pedantic in our use of certain words, especially those we are particularly fond of. One of those words is proof. Ever since the philosophies of Hume and Kant undermined the foundations of knowledge, there has been a steady disintegration of confidence in all sources of knowledge, but especially in the sciences. It is not at all uncommon today to hear scientists say things like, "nothing is ever...

Environment and Science: Danes Rebuke a 'Skeptic' A branch of the Danish Research Agency has concluded that Prof. Bjorn Lomborg, an author whose upbeat analysis of environmental trends has been embraced by conservatives, displayed "scientific dishonesty" in his popular book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist." Professor Lomborg, who has a doctorate in political science and teaches statistics at the University of Aarhus, has portrayed the book as an unbiased scientific refutation of dire pronouncements by environmental groups. But it has been attacked as deeply flawed by many environmental scientists since its publication in English in 2001 by Cambridge University Press. Many...