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Politics Science

Making America Dumb Again

The Republican Party is making this country more ignorant, bigoted, and intolerant every day.  Their adamant refusal to compromise, their denial of evidence regarding our climate, and their blatant pandering to the evangelicals is hurting our country.  Our political system hit a nadir last week when, during a nationally televised debate, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump bragged […]

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Science Travel

An adventure at the bottom of the Earth, Part 3

To read Parts 1 and 2, click here and here. After lunch the following day, our ship arrived at Cierva Cove.  I was one of the first in line for the Zodiac ride because the cove was stunningly gorgeous.  We were surrounded by enormous icebergs that seemed like skyscrapers, compared to our little inflatable Zodiac.  The […]

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Science Travel

An adventure at the bottom of the Earth, Part 2

For Part 1, click here. Excited at the end of our first day in Antarctica, we set sail through the Gerlache Strait, a channel that separates the Palmer Archipelago from the Antarctic Peninsula.  We were lucky enough to see stunning scenery in the form of dozens of enormous tabular icebergs.  Tabular icebergs are slabs of ice that once […]

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Science Travel

An adventure at the bottom of the Earth, Part 1

At the start of December, I traveled to Buenos Aires to begin the first leg of a journey following Arizona State University’s Origins Project on a cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula.  I had booked the trip in order to participate in their event “Science and Adventure in Antarctica“, and ended up dragging my dad with me for […]

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Politics Science

When did “The law applies to everyone” become “persecution”?

Increasingly, when laws restrict Christians from imposing their childish beliefs upon others, or practicing their bigotry, they claim to be persecuted.  Recently this cultivated whining was in the spotlight, when Kim Davis was jailed for actually persecuting gays when she refused to sign their marriage licenses.  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee even tweeted at the time that her jailing was […]

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Politics Science

When will our politicians stop pandering to the ignorant?

The Republican Party is overtly anti-science.  The current group of candidates for President of the United States is comprised of people who reject reason and evidence in favor of detrimental myths and superstition.  Our Founding Fathers deliberately made the United States a secular nation—something that was unprecedented at the time—and yet today’s Republicans pander to the lowest common denominator of our […]

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Politics

Kim Davis’ jailing is about bigotry, not religious freedoms

Today, Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee will travel to Kentucky to support Kim Davis at an “#ImWithKim Liberty Rally”.  His support of a woman who refused to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples (due to her belief in a homophobic deity) shows that once again, Huckabee and the Christian right have gotten it all wrong.

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Science

We should all be anti-anti-vaxxers

In June this year, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 277, a law that made vaccines mandatory, eliminating the right to abstain due to religious or conscientious reasons.  Now, only medical exemptions are granted.  While this law is undoubtedly great, it has been highly polarizing, for reasons that are honestly difficult to understand.

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Politics

If I rob a store and assault a police officer, do I get a plaque too?

A year after he robbed a store and then assaulted a police officer, Michael Brown has a permanent plaque in Ferguson, Missouri. While police brutality is a serious issue, the fact is that there is absolutely no evidence that Brown’s killing had anything to do with race, or with overzealous law enforcement…

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Science

Can we finally admit that pseudoscience is not worthy of respect?

Despite the advances that we have made in our understanding of the natural world, a shocking number of people still are fleeced by charlatans regularly.  With everything that we know, people such as Deepak Chopra and Dr. Oz continue to spout off meaningless woo—and inexplicably are not regarded as the crazy people that they truly […]