Face to faith • David Bradnack - The Guardian • 6th Sept 2008

Had I but tried to understand mankind as diligently as I tried to understand your God, I would not in my grey hairs be given over to such bitter anger about the spiritual and intellectual energy that in my teens and 20s I put into trying to believe what I thought I had to believe for the salvation of my soul. My salvation finally came when, well into adulthood, I found that there was at least one intellectually respectable way of explaining that whatever happened about AD33 was not a resurrection as understood by the pious, and that the gospels are not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain • The Onion • 6th Sept 2008

DAYTON, TN—A steady stream of devoted evolutionists continued to gather in this small Tennessee town today to witness what many believe is an image of Charles Darwin—author of The Origin Of Species and founder of the modern evolutionary movement—made manifest on a concrete wall in downtown Dayton.

Bettany and Connelly to Star in Creation • Coming Soon • 5th Sept 2008

Real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly have signed on to play a married couple in Creation, Jon Amiel's project about the life of Charles Darwin, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Large Hadron Collider readies for world's biggest experiment • The Australian • 5th Sept 2008

IT is the most ambitious and expensive civilian science experiment in history, using the biggest machine yet built.
It has sparked alarmist fears that it might create a black hole that will tear the Earth apart, and it has triggered two last-minute legal attempts to stop it.

Trichoplax Genome Sequenced: 'Rosetta Stone' For Understanding Evolution • Science Daily • 5th Sept 2008

ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2008) — Yale molecular and evolutionary biologists in collaboration with Department of Energy scientists produced the full genome sequence of Trichoplax, one of nature's most primitive multicellular organisms, providing a new insight into the evolution of all higher animals.

Participating In Religion May Make Adolescents From Certain Races More Depressed • Science Daily • 4th Sept 2008

ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2008) — One of the few studies to look at the effects of religious participation on the mental health of minorities suggests that for some of them, religion may actually be contributing to adolescent depression.

Opening minds • Sue Blackmore - Guardian • 4th Sept 2008

Should science teachers in Britain challenge their students' religious beliefs? Is it their right? Is it even their duty?

I say yes. This is (amongst much else) what education is for; to teach children how to think for themselves. And thinking for yourself is challenging, especially if your previous beliefs were based on dogma and ancient books.

Mammoths moved 'out of America' • BBC NEWS • 4th Sept 2008

Scientists have discovered that the last Siberian woolly mammoths may have originated in North America.

Their research in the journal Current Biology represents the largest study of ancient woolly mammoth DNA.

The scientists also question the direct role of climate change in the eventual demise of these large beasts.

They believe that woolly mammoths survived through the period when the ice sheets were at their maximum, while other Ice Age mammals "crashed out".

Origins - The BIG Questions: 2008 Skeptics Society Conference • Skeptic.com • 3rd Sept 2008

Organized by the Skeptics Society and running from October 3-4, 2008, this conference brings together some of the world's greatest minds to discuss some of the world's greatest questions at the California Institute of Technology.

How 'Secondary' Sex Characters Can Drive The Origin Of Species • Science Daily • 3rd Sept 2008

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2008) — The ostentatious, sometimes bizarre qualities that improve a creature's chances of finding a mate may also drive the reproductive separation of populations and the evolution of new species, say two Indiana University Bloomington biologists.

Scientists Develop New Computational Method To Investigate Origin Of Life • Science Daily • 3rd Sept 2008

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2008) — Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. The team's method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first.

Palin: average isn't good enough • Sam Harris, Los Angeles Times • 3rd Sept 2008

She's not qualified to be president, and in picking her, McCain shows that he has little respect for the presidency.

Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview • Nico Pitney and Sam Stein, Huffington Post • 2nd Sept 2008

Three months before she was thrust into the national political spotlight, Gov. Sarah Palin was asked to handle a much smaller task: addressing the graduating class of commission students at her one-time church, Wasilla Assembly of God.

Faith schools may be Blair's most damaging legacy • Polly Toynbee, Guardian • 2nd Sept 2008

Labour's new rules mean that anyone who works in these institutions may have to get down on their knees to keep their jobs

Pakistan investigates 'honor killings' of 5 women • The Associated Press • 2nd Sept 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan opened an investigation Monday into the killings of five women who tried to choose their own husbands, after a provincial lawmaker defended their deaths as a "centuries-old tradition."

'Rare' mammoth skull discovered • BBC NEWS • 2nd Sept 2008

The "extremely rare" fossilised skull of a steppe mammoth has been unearthed in southern France.

The discovery in the Auvergne region could shed much needed light on the evolution of these mighty beasts.

Many isolated teeth of steppe mammoth have been found, but only a handful of skeletons exist; and in these surviving specimens, the skull is rarely intact.

Gaming Evolves • Carl Zimmer - New York Times • 2nd Sept 2008

NEW HAVEN — By day, Thomas Near studies the evolution of fish, wading through streams in Kentucky and Mississippi in search of new species. By night, Dr. Near, an assistant professor at Yale, is a heavy-duty gamer, steering tanks or playing football on his computer. This afternoon his two lives have come together.

Monogamy gene found in people • New Scientist • 2nd Sept 2008

There has been speculation about the role of the hormone vasopressin in humans ever since we discovered that variations in where receptors for the hormone are expressed makes prairie voles strictly monogamous but meadow voles promiscuous; vasopressin is related to the "cuddle chemical" oxytocin. Now it seems variations in a section of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in people help to determine whether men are serial commitment-phobes or devoted husbands.

Cosmic crash unmasks dark matter • BBC NEWS • 1st Sept 2008

Striking evidence has been found for the enigmatic "stuff" called dark matter which makes up 23% of the Universe, yet is invisible to our eyes.

The results come from astronomical observations of a titanic collision between two clusters of galaxies 5.7 billion light-years away.

Astronomers detected the dark matter because it separated from the normal matter during the cosmic smash-up.

Human geography is mapped in the genes • New Scientist • 1st Sept 2008

The genes of a European person can be enough to pinpoint their ancestry down to their home country, claim two new studies.

By reading single-letter DNA differences in the genomes of thousands of Europeans, researchers can tell a Finn from a Dane and a German from a Brit. In fact a visual genetic map mirrors the geopolitical map of the continent, right down to Italy's boot.

Better Know a Lobby - Atheism • The Colbert Report, Lori Lipman Brown • 31st Aug 2008

Stephen asks Lori Lippman Brown, director of Secular Coalition for America, what atheists yell during sex.

God Only SEEMS Nonexistent! • EdwardCurrent • 31st Aug 2008

Our Lord goes to extraordinary lengths to create the illusion that he does nothing. Why? Because he can do anything!

Theocratic Sect Prays for Real Armageddon • AlterNet • 31st Aug 2008

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.

Friend or Foe? Crows Never Forget a Face, It Seems • New York Times • 31st Aug 2008

Crows and their relatives — among them ravens, magpies and jays — are renowned for their intelligence and for their ability to flourish in human-dominated landscapes. That ability may have to do with cross-species social skills. In the Seattle area, where rapid suburban growth has attracted a thriving crow population, researchers have found that the birds can recognize individual human faces.

Secularists have a right to maintain their ethos • Independent ie • 31st Aug 2008

SO CARDINAL Sean Brady still expects us to believe that the Catholic Church has no desire to interfere in the political process. The Church's often-repeated mantra to that effect is about as objective and accurate as the mendacious and misleading statement that secularism is hostile to religion.

McCain's VP Wants Creationism Taught in School • Wired • 30th Aug 2008

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in science classes.

Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of the Human Mind • Scientific American • 30th Aug 2008

As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species—at least by our own definition of intelligence.

MythBuster Adam Savage: 3 Ways to Fix U.S. Science Education • Popular Mechanics • 30th Aug 2008

When Jamie Hyneman and I speak at teacher conventions, we always draw a grateful crowd. They tell us Thursday mornings are productive because students see us doing hands-on science Wednesday nights on our show MythBusters, and they want to talk about it. These teachers are so dedicated, but they have difficulty teaching for the standardized tests they're given with the budgets they're not given. It's one reason the U.S. is falling behind other countries in science: By 2010, Asia will have 90 percent of the world's Ph.D. scientists and engineers. We're not teachers, but our show has taught us a lot about how to get people interested in science. Here are three humble suggestions that might help reinvigorate American science education.

Prickly fish add genetic heft to Darwin's theory on its 150th anniversary • The Canadian Press • 30th Aug 2008

VANCOUVER — A tiny, prickly fish is helping B.C. researchers understand how organisms evolve in response to new or changing environments.

Scientists say that's a key factor in forecasting how different species might deal with climate change and other human-imposed environmental conditions.

Genesis and the origin of the Origin of the species • Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Times Online • 29th Aug 2008

The argument that God exists based on design figures nowhere in the Hebrew Bible

'Armored' fish study helps strengthen Darwin's natural selection theory • PhysOrg • 29th Aug 2008

Shedding some genetically induced excess baggage may have helped a tiny fish thrive in freshwater and outsize its marine ancestors, according to a UBC study published today in Science Express.

Measuring three to 10 centimetres long, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the past 20,000 years - a relatively short time span in evolutionary terms - freshwater sticklebacks have lost their bony lateral plates, or "armour," in these new environments.

No atheist burials in Co Donegal • BBC News • 29th Aug 2008

A Donegal atheist had to be buried in Londonderry because the county has no facilities for non-religious burials.

Journalist Roy Greenslade's mother was buried in Ballyowen cemetery in Derry on Tuesday after a humanist service.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali & The Big Ideas Forum • Ayaan Hirsi Ali - ABC FORA • 29th Aug 2008

Somali-born writer, activist and feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali is best known for her explosive 2007 memoir, Infidel, which recounts a repressed and brutal childhood in a Muslim family, including being genitally mutilated by her devout grandmother. Having publicly lambasted both Islam and the prophet Mohammed, she has been the target of numerous death threats, and when she spoke recently at the Sydney Opera House, security was so tight that her presence at the event could only be announced that same morning.

Beetle drive • The Economist • 29th Aug 2008

ONE of the lies regularly promulgated by creationist ideologues is that you cannot see evolution in action right now. For microorganisms this is obviously untrue. The evolution of new viral diseases, such as AIDS, is one example. The evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is another. But bacteria and viruses breed fast, so natural selection has time, within the span of a human life, to make a difference. For species with longer generations, examples are less numerous. But they do exist.

Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts • Sally Quinn - Washington Post • 28th Aug 2008

Bob Tiernan is an agnostic. "I'm not a hard-core atheist", he says. He was raised a Catholic and went to Jesuit College and law school. He is a practicing lawyer who specializes in issues involving separation of church and state. He is also a Democrat. This week he was in Denver to protest what he sees as the dangerous mixing of religion and politics, and the sad exlusion of non-believers in a party known for its inclusiveness.

Manitoba dig uncovers 80-million-year-old sea creature • CBC News • 28th Aug 2008

A public dig organized by the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre has turned up the biggest fossil find in Manitoba in nearly 30 years.

The summer dig near the centre in Morden, Man., that is still underway has already unearthed a mosasaur, an 11-metre-long ancient sea creature estimated to be 80 million years old.

Museum in censorship row over Darwin sign • Northampton Chronocle • 28th Aug 2008

Censorship of an exhibition on evolution at a Northampton museum has led to claims organisers are pandering to Christian fundamentalist sensibilities.

An information sign, which is part of Abington Park Museum's display about Charles Darwin and fossils, was covered up after a visitor's complaint.

Atheism could be science's contribution to religion • Matthew Cobb, Jerry Conye • 27th Aug 2008

SIR — We were perplexed by your Editorial on the work of the Templeton Foundation ('Templeton's legacy' Nature 454, 253–254; 2008). Surely science is about finding material explanations of the world — explanations that can inspire those spooky feelings of awe, wonder and reverence in the hyper-evolved human brain.

It's no wonder evangelical atheists need to shout so loud • Calgary Herald • 27th Aug 2008

The shining example of free thinking said to characterize the French Enlightenment was Voltaire. In the face of dogmatic clerics, both Protestant and Catholic, he urged reasonable people everywhere to "crush the infamous thing."

His argument was as obvious then as it is today: organized religion not only divides humanity into believers and infidels, it authorizes the former, with a beatific smile, to extinguish the latter. Often religion claims to be doing so for the good of the infidel.

B.C. health official says mumps outbreak began with unimmunized religious group • Canadian Press • 27th Aug 2008

AGASSIZ, B.C. — A British Columbia health official says a spreading mumps outbreak began with a Fraser Valley religious group that shuns immunization.

"It's part of their belief system that this is not the right thing to do," said Dr. Elizabeth Brodkin, medical health officer for the Fraser Health Authority. Brodkin said Tuesday that people who aren't vaccinated are at highest risk to contract the viral disease that's passed from person to person through saliva.

Science Has No Place in Politics • Live Science • 27th Aug 2008

Recently, the two men who want to be next president of the United States appeared in a televised two-hour forum on faith, hosted by megachurch minister Rick Warren.

Religion has been problematic for both candidates in their campaigns. Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made controversial, conspiracy-laden statements about AIDS and racism, while John McCain's spiritual advisor Rod Parsley claimed that America's "divine purpose" is to destroy Islam, which he considers a "false religion."

Porn pastor's wife vows to stand by him • News AU • 26th Aug 2008

THE wife of fraud pastor Michael Guglielmucci has vowed to try to save their marriage, despite the humiliating revelations of his cancer hoax and pornography addiction.

Speaking exclusively to The Advertiser, Amanda Guglielmucci, 29, defended her husband, who faked a two-year battle with cancer.

Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic' • The Independent • 26th Aug 2008

The Catholic Church is under growing pressure to abandon the "homophobic" exhumation and reburial of the body of one its most famous cardinals, in defiance of his wish to lie for eternity next to the man he loved.

The heretic • Laura Miller - Salon • 26th Aug 2008

Aug. 25, 2008 | The bronze figure of Giordano Bruno that stands at the center of Rome's Campo de' Fiori may be the most successful commemorative monument in the world. The average statue in a park or square usually rates no more than a glance: Either you already know who the guy is, or you don't care. But the hooded and manacled effigy of Bruno, with its haunted stare, immediately catches the eye, and the gruesome story attached to it -- Bruno was burned at the stake in that very spot, for the crime of heresy -- cements him in memory. Practically every tourist who comes to Rome tromps through the Campo and hears that story, even if they've never heard of Bruno before. The students who commissioned the statue in the 1880s, as an emblem for freedom of thought and the division of church from state, really got their money's worth.

Monkeys Enjoy Giving To Others, Study Finds • Science Daily • 26th Aug 2008

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2008) — Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have shown capuchin monkeys, just like humans, find giving to be a satisfying experience. This finding comes on the coattails of a recent imaging study in humans that documented activity in reward centers of the brain after humans gave to charity.

Michael Coren: Stéphane Dion finds God • National Post • 25th Aug 2008

Last week, the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition — Liberal chief Stéphane Dion — sat down with me for a one-hour interview on my TV program, The Michael Coren Show. Within the first 10 minutes of the discussion he made several mentions of God. These weren't passing phrases or clumsy slang but obvious, absolute references to the entity so fashionably unfashionable in left-wing circles these days. You could have knocked me down with a Gospel tract!

The Darwin Lectures • Radio New Zealand National • 25th Aug 2008

150 years ago, Charles Darwin's ideas about evolution were first announced in public - to a meeting of the Linnean Society in London. Oddly, almost no one noticed!

Imagine No Religion' signs to go up around town • AZ Central • 25th Aug 2008

A national organization that promotes freedom from religion and separation of church and state is hoping to get Phoenix commuters talking with five controversial billboard ads that will go up this week.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., paid advertising company CBS Outdoor to put up five signs that read "Imagine No Religion."

Richard Dawkins on Talkback Radio • Richard Dawkins, BBC Radio Belfast • 24th Aug 2008

Richard Dawkins was interviewed about 'The Genius of Charles Darwin' TV program on 'Talkback' August 5th, 2008. Part 1 is the interview, and part 2 consists of call-ins to the show, some being relevant and some discussing other topics.