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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
Last weekend, Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson spoke at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, D.C. and mentioned a debate he had with an atheist (whom Carson would not name). Then, Carson— a retired neurosurgeon— displayed an utter lack of understanding of biology
On Sunday, Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press. Among other things, he claimed that “Science is not as settled” on the issue of climate change. This is problematic, to say the least. Climate change and evolution are two facts that people love to deny, even though both are literally supported by all of the evidence.