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Something has been disobeying the laws of physics, and that something is very, very small. Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have found that muons, subatomic particles related to electrons but about 200 times heavier, are not behaving the way they’re supposed to when put through a magnetic field. That means that something else, …

When he’s not going after snake oil salesmen on social media, Nick Little is the driving force behind the Center for Inquiry’s bold and pioneering legal efforts, working to defend the separation of church and state, fight for the equal status of the nonreligious, and protect consumers from being swindled by pseudoscience. On the CFI …

Facebook is riddled with ads for various health and wellness products, and too often they make promises that range from dubious to outright ridiculous. CFI Legal Director Nick Little stumbled upon one such ad on his own Facebook feed from a company advertising its ability to determine one’s intolerances to various foods and substances by …

COVID-19 has claimed nearly three million lives around the world, but the virus didn’t do it alone. Peter Hotez, Baylor College professor of pediatrics and molecular virology, writes at Scientific American that responsibility for the mass death of the pandemic can be pinned on antiscience, the movement that rejects mainstream science in favor of “unproven …

Last week, Texas Democratic State Rep. James Talarico delivered an opening prayer to the state legislature that referenced not just God and Jesus, but all manner of deities, faiths, and even the Big Bang. This infuriated his colleague, Republican Rep. Jonathan Stickland, who said he was “disgusted such blasphemy was spoken in the chamber.” We …

When the next British census is published, it is expected that for the first time ever, fewer than half of Britons will describe themselves as Christian. Recent surveys already show that the religiously unaffiliated make up a slim majority of the British population. Naturally, Richard Dawkins has had an outsized role in these changes, such …

Midway through the process of writing this article, I received the following message from a fellow translator.  “Does a printed book version of The Illustrated Magic of Reality exist in Arabic?,” they asked, referring to an edition of Richard Dawkins’s book The Magic of Reality, specially illustrated by Dave McKean. “If it didn’t, then I would be very …

Scotland has repealed its centuries-old law against blasphemy, but the road to getting to the repeal has been rather bumpy and twisted. We celebrated the news that a repeal of the law had been proposed, but it soon became apparent that the bill that would quash the blasphemy law was problematic in itself. The Hate …

If prayer has any effect on the real world, surely the most likely to benefit from its power would be the men who lead congregations of believers in prayer every Sunday. In a new study, the results of which were published in the Journal of Religion and Health, researchers in Poland assessed the efficacy of …

Some people believe they can read your thoughts, communicate with the dead, or even move objects with their minds. A precious few are so certain of their extraordinary abilities that they are willing to have them tested by independent investigators. The possibility of pocketing a quarter-million dollars probably helps. The Center for Inquiry’s Investigations Group offers …

While science thrives on asking questions and challenging dogmas, this is kryptonite to religion; and the more fundamentalist and oppressive the religion, the more it is threatened by free inquiry. The Center for Inquiry’s Secular Rescue program exists to help those secular writers and activists who find themselves in peril because of their dissent. Matthew Cravatta, director …

Science gives us hope, but the danger of science-denial has been made startlingly clear during the coronavirus era of this larger post-truth epoch. So we turn once again to Richard Dawkins to mount a spirited defense of science as the best means we have of arriving at the truth. “What is profoundly troubling … is …