critical thinking
The future-history we want, and the future-history we deserve
Is it any wonder that we’re lousy at imagining any futures but complete apocalypse or vague utopia?
So this is 90 seconds to midnight
Reading Time: 4 minutes On January 24, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially moved the hands on the Doomsday Clock, which for three quarters of a century has been used to depict humanity’s risk of global disaster from nuclear war. When the clock was first
‘Pluck yew’
Reading Time: 4 minutes Pluck yew. If you believe what you read on the internet and are a sucker for an amusing story, you might think that the most widely used curse in modern America—and its physical manifestation (i.e., “flipping the bird”)—evolved from this supposedly ancient, undecipherable epi
Strange New Worlds: Star Trek’s return to humanist form
Reading Time: 9 minutes I almost didn’t watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which started airing this month. I’m glad I did: it’s deservedly being called the best of the recent Treks, and there’s a lot to be said about this series as a humanist. I had reason to be reluctant. The franchise hasn’t be
Why aren’t schools robustly teaching critical thinking? No time
Reading Time: 5 minutes American public schools are teaching our kids too much and too little simultaneously. It’s too much what to think and not enough how—like how to think critically, analytically, about all the factual information they’re being taught. The critical “how” responsibility of educat
Go ahead, ask any schoolkid to name just one historical heretic
Reading Time: 4 minutes Quick! When in your American schooling up to higher education did you ever learn about the rich, global history of religious skepticism? “Never” is the correct answer. You might have been taught a thin sprinkling of heresy, perhaps, glancing for a moment on the lurid burnings
Against doomism
Reading Time: 4 minutes Doom-laden scenarios get the most attention, but slow, bumpy progress toward a better world has always been more likely.
Atheism is inherently reasonable. That’s why believers don’t ‘get’ it
Reading Time: 4 minutes I’m a nonevangelical nontheist. That’s because I totally accept the fact it’s virtually impossible to convince adult true believers that the divinities they worship, for all intents and purposes, simply can’t be confirmed to exist. With that view, it seems silly trying to con
If the dead visit our dreams, what does it mean?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Of several hypotheses of the genesis of supernatural religion in humankind, ancient interpretation of dreams is a top contender.
Spain, US growing more secular at similar, relentless rates
Reading Time: 4 minutes America for decades has lagged behind Western Europe in growing more secular. Now we seem to be catching up with Spain, though.
How a critical thinking deficit aids fascism…and religion
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why do so many Americans embrace such outlandish and patently false ideas these days? Partly because they were never taught critical-thinking skills.
Of faith and fetal cells, COVID and cannibalism
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Catholic Church has been surprisingly nuanced in weighing fetal-cell use in coronavirus vaccines vs. life-saving vaccine efficacy in advising faithful.