Unto Us a Child is Born: Exactly when were the Gospels written?

Gospels

Given the date, it is perhaps appropriate and traditional to mull over some seasonal aspect. For this year, I’d like to ask a question regarding the timing of the authorship of the Gospels. These are the alpha sources for much of our cultural inheritance. I’m not going to simply quote some dates at you, nor … Read more

Weekly Weird Religious News

weird religious news

Now that the holiday season is in full swing do we find that the religious community stops making utterly absurd claims and suggestions? Oh come now, I’m sure you can guess the answer. Least I am now holding you in suspense because you are not sure what the answer might be, then here now (below) … Read more

How do you persuade an Anti-Vaxer to change their mind?

vaccines

From last August there is a great Canadian article that lays out a good way to effectively communicate to people who have serious doubts about vaccines. It is worth reading in full, but since they have proposed seven steps, I’d like to chime on and comment on each myself. There was and still is a … Read more

Climate: How have humans transformed the planet?

vegetation biomass

Rather obviously our planet contains rather a lot of vegetation. What is also understood to some degree is that this vegetation does influence our climate (Hint: plants absorb CO2). What is perhaps not so well appreciated is that humans have had a rather profound influence upon the currently existing quantity biomass. Well yes, we all … Read more

Output from the 2017 AGU meeting – Scientific Activism

AGU

Once a year the Comic-Con of the Earth, space and climate sciences holds a meeting, and in 2017 it was in New Orleans. This is the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. As a result Reporters will inevitably suffer the horrendous stress of being sent to hang out in New Orleans for the weekend (oh the … Read more