In a recent post I defined scientism as: “A set of beliefs, focused around a narrow interpretation of materialism, that purports either to be a true defense of “real” science or science per se, but is closer to a type of religion.” For my definition of science I quoted Wikipedia: “an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.” [...]
I saw a blog by Jerry Coyne which referenced an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In particular there is a chart that shows a surprising percentage of adults who have false beliefs about science: 33% of adults don’t think the Earth goes around the Sun once per year. 49% think that “ordinary” tomatoes don’t have [...]
If you’ve watched any of the late night talk shows this week, you’ve probably heard jokes about NASA crashing a rocket into the moon. Letterman quips that we’re following the Iraq strategy – bomb first, look for evidence later.  So wait… we’re bombing the moon? That couldn’t be right! So I went online to find [...]