Dr. Richard Dawkins is Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, The Ancestors’ Tale, and The God Delusion
The God Delusion, by the Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is based on his controversial BBC documentary, The Root of All Evil? Dawkins presents his view of religion as a cultural virus that, like a computer virus, once downloaded into the software of society corrupts almost all programs it encounters. (more…)
Over the past decade the relationship of science and religion has been under close scrutiny, with people on both sides developing various positions on how two of the most powerful institutions in the today’s world — one ancient, one modern — can co-exist. (more…)
Dr. Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a columnist for Scientific American, and author of Why People Believe Weird Things, How We Believe, and The Science of Good and Evil.
Evolution happened, and the theory describing it is one of the most well founded in all of science. Then why do half of all Americans reject it? (more…)
On May 19th, the film version of the wildly popular book by Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (over 40 million copies in 25 languages sold), will be released to considerable fanfare and media hype. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, head of doctrinal orthodoxy for the Vatican, issued an official statement on behalf of the Catholic Church, calling the novel “a sack full of lies” and urging Christians not to read the book or see the movie. (more…)
Sometime this century the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all other natural factors. Over the past decade, the world has seen the most powerful El Niño ever recorded, the most devastating hurricane in 200 years, the hottest European summer on record, and one of the worst storm seasons ever experienced in Florida. (more…)
Anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt argues that culture is the product of deep biological mechanisms that came into being by an evolutionary process. Central to Dr. Goldschmidt’s thesis is the recognition of the separate evolutionary origin of what we call love: sexual and nurturant. (more…)
One of the greatest thinkers of our age tackles one of the most important questions of our time: why people believe in God and how religion shapes our lives and our future. In this lecture, based on his new book of the same title, Dr. Dennett shows that for the vast majority of people there is nothing more important than religion. (more…)
The concept of additional spatial dimensions is as far from intuitive as any idea can be. In this lecture based on her new book, Dr. Randall employs creative analogies to explain how our universe may have many unseen dimensions. (more…)
How do we as individuals respond when precipitated into a crisis by the break-up of a relationship, a job loss or setback, or just growing dissatisfaction with ourselves? Experience shows that we can tolerate putting our failed old ways up for grabs for about six weeks, within which time we either work out new coping skills or else revert to our old ways. (more…)
The hottest cultural controversy of 2005 was the Intelligent Design challenge to the theory of evolution, being played out in classrooms and courtrooms across America. The crux of the argument made by proponents of Intelligent Design is that the theory of evolution is in serious trouble. (more…)