Fact check: The Inquisition convicted Galileo of heresy, not science fraud
Reading Time: 6 minutes Catholics even today can’t seem to give up the conceit that legendary Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) wasn’t persecuted by the Church in the 17th century for heretical religion but, instead, for bad science. As if. No matter that the Inquisition, the Church’s f
Why do believers cling to religion even after escaping it?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Whatever we’re doing now to ensure church-state separation clearly isn’t working as the Founding Fathers intended. The problem is that even former true believers still have religion on the brain—literally—as do continuing true believers. I’ll explain later. The upshot is that
Research: Child sex abuse is not more common among priests
Reading Time: 4 minutes I’ll admit that I once suspected that there was something uniquely and inherently debased about Catholic clerics—a bias that only hardened as the avalanche of priestly pedophilia scandals crashed in wave after horrifying wave across the planet during the past few decades. But
Truth loses, capitalism wins in Fox News defamation settlement
Reading Time: 4 minutes The legal settlement in which Fox News this week agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million was a victory for profit-obsessed American capitalism, not journalistic truth. The irony is that bald-faced lying for profit at the expense of truth is what landed Fox News i
Faith: a ‘gateway drug’ to real-world tragedy
Reading Time: 6 minutes I’m a child of the ’60s, an era when the term “gateway drug” was commonly evoked by anti-drug zealots in reference to marijuana. And it was probably true, but only in the sense that young people who were scofflaw enough to try smoking pot in that era—it was a legally very ris
Is our well-meaning obsession with purifying terminology getting out of hand?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I hate to admit it—really, really hate to—but I think Florida’s migrant-abusing Gov. Ron DeSantis and hard-right Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson may have a point: the ever-shifting obsession with purifying terminology is getting out of hand in America. Which, condoning Ron’s a
Who’s the worse fraud, Trump or Madoff?
Reading Time: 3 minutes As Donald Trump braces for his historic “perp walk” in Manhattan’s courthouse Tuesday amid a flurry of security preparations and supporters’ melodramatic claims that his indictment for business-fraud-related charges is all a big nothingburger, an important question remains: H
The evolution of cuteness: Why kittens and puppies beat babies, paws down
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve long suspected I have a character flaw: I am far more charmed by kittens and puppies—in fact by any non-human baby animals—than baby humans. It’s a kind of intra-species treason, I suppose. For one thing, kits and pups are far more entertainingly interactive far earlier
Guns and religion: The nexus of the AR-15’s obscene popularity
Reading Time: 5 minutes Turns out Barack Obama was right about guns and religion. During his successful 2008 presidential campaign, he alluded to white, blue-collar manufacturing workers in America who were terribly incensed that their well-paying jobs and comfortable lives had vaporized in globaliz
The terrible ‘blast effect’ of AR-15s
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s about time. Finally, a major news outlet—The Washington Post—had the temerity to show, in 3D, the obscene damage inflicted by high-velocity, needle-nosed bullets from AR-15-type long guns as they blast into and tumble through bodies, leaving “gaping holes” where they exi
College activists aren’t ‘snowflakes,’ they’re warriors against bigotry
Reading Time: 7 minutes There’s been a lot of talk in the last few years about how college campuses are overrun with lefty “snowflakes”—students and professors (and even administrators)—who try to shut down free speech because they can’t handle opinions that contradict their existing beliefs. I beli
Fox News’ and Trump’s pants are (still) on fire
Reading Time: 9 minutes If doctors practiced their craft like Fox News pundits do theirs, they would long ago have lost their privilege to treat patients. Which brings me right to the point: Why shouldn’t licensing of journalists be required, as other professionals, such as doctors, already are in m