Free Republic

I don’t deliberately avoid organic foods or markets, but I don’t seek them out either. Claims that organic food tastes better or is more nutritious are not supported by evidence and certainly don’t justify the far higher prices. Mostly, I’m put off by assertions that organic food is pesticide-free, safer and more planet-friendly. Those assertions are simply false advertising; deliberate misinformation. Mom’s Organic Market shopping bags provide an excellent example. They’re emblazoned with six “Bee Informed” messages that help customers Bee the Change, Give Bees a Chance, and Save the Bees from a looming Armageddon attributed to synthetic pesticides. The...

Believe it or not—and I suspect most readers will not—there’s a liberal war on science. Say what? We are well aware of the Republican war on science from the eponymous 2006 book (Basic Books) by Chris Mooney, and I have castigated conservatives myself in my 2006 book Why Darwin Matters (Henry Holt) for their erroneous belief that the theory of evolution leads to a breakdown of morality. … The left’s war on science begins with the stats cited above: 41 percent of Democrats are young Earth creationists, and 19 percent doubt that Earth is getting warmer. These numbers do not...

Looking for patterns in life and then infusing them with meaning, from alien intervention to federal conspiracy. Superstitions arise as the result of the spurious identification of patterns. Even pigeons are superstitious. In an experiment where food is delivered randomly, pigeons will note what they were doing when the pellet arrived, such as twirling to the left and then pecking a button, and perform the maneuver over and over until the next pellet arrives. A pigeon rain dance. The behavior is not much different than in the case of a baseball player who forgets to shave one morning, hits a...

Morality is both a universal and a surprising fact about human nature. When I say that morality is universal I am not referring to this or that moral code. In fact, I am not referring to an external moral code at all. Rather, I am referring to morality as the voice within, the interior source that Adam Smith called the “impartial spectator.” Morality in this sense is an uncoercive but authoritative judge. It has no power to compel us, but it speaks with unquestioned authority. Of course we can and frequently do reject what morality commands, but when we do...

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4

Empirical science and religion differ in some fundamental ways. Scientists look for questions to ask. Priests (preachers, rabbis, etc) just provide answers. Science has theories that are subject to change. In 1896, physicists believed that atoms were the smallest particles of matter. A year latter J.J. Thomson overturned this theory by reporting his discovery that atoms were actually comprised of smaller charged particles he called "protons", "electrons" and "neutrons". Later research demonstrated that Thomson's particles were comprised of even smaller particles. Religion has truths that are to be accepted without question. Those who question these truths may be treated as...

The trial of Holocaust denier Ernest Zundel in the Mannheim state court on charges of libel, incitement and disparaging the dead provides us with another opportunity to examine who the deniers are, their goals and how we should respond to them. Coming after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent statement on Iranian national TV that leaders in the West "have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," this is especially important. Zundel, who failed to obtain Canadian citizenship, was deported from Canada last year to his native Germany. He immigrated to Canada...

In his latest book, The Science of Good & Evil, Skeptic Magazine publisher Michael Shermer suggests that the 9/11 terrorist attacks might somehow be justifiable. He should issue a public apology for trying to minimize the evil of these actions and ignoring the human pain they caused. On page 81, Mr. Shermer writes: "September 11, 2001, comes to mind here. United States President George W. Bush described what happened that day as an act of pure evil. Yet millions of people around the world celebrate that day as a triumphant victory over what they perceive to be an evil American...

Seebach [the interviewer]: In the first part of the book you talk about the development of morality within other species and then in the human species. Shermer [the author being interviewed]: I start off with a naturalistic approach to the origins of morality as if we were talking about the origins of any characteristic in humans. You have the immediate historical cultural origins, then we have a deeper level - "Where did that come from?" There has to be an "original origin," and for that we need evolutionary theory. So I turn to the higher primates as a way of...