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Uncertainty

Survey Says

According to a recent survey by CivicScience, a majority of Americans are opposed to teaching Arabic numerals in school. 56% of respondents answered no, while ony 29% answered yes. 15% had no opinion.

Additionally, a majority of Americans are opposed to teaching the creation theory of Catholic Priest Georges Lemaître. This time 53% said no, only 20% said yes, and 27% offered no opinion.

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200 users have voted.

Hedgehog Metacognition

Ars Technica summarizes a new study from University College London that seeks to understand why some people don't learn from their own mistakes.

One common feature of radicalism is a confidence in the rightness of your ideas, even if they go against those of society at large.

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175 users have voted.

The Drake Equation

The discovery last week of Kepler-452B, an earthlike planet orbiting a sunlike star in the habitable zone (sometimes known as the Goldilocks zone), has once again raised the question of whether we can find intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy.

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403 users have voted.

Are We Entering a New Mini Ice Age?

Climate change deniers are positively ecstatic about a new model of solar activity presented last week at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, North Wales.

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386 users have voted.

Does the Bible Claim pi Equals Three?

Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high. A line of thirty cubits would encircle it completely.

1 Kings 7:23

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399 users have voted.

A Pragmatic Faith

In my first post for this blog I talked about pragmatism in politics. Research suggests that pragmatism is better than ideology at producing the mindset needed to make good decisions. Can we apply the same principle to religious faith?

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403 users have voted.

Olbers' Paradox

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble,” Mark Twain once said. “It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

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445 users have voted.

Hedgehogs and Foxes

More than a half century ago, philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a little essay he called The Hedgehog and the Fox. The title is based on a line from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows only one big thing." Berlin used this as an analogy for how different writers and thinkers approach the world. Plato and Dante, for example, were hedgehogs, always keeping within one overarching framework. William Shakespeare, on the other hand, was a fox, exploring many ideas and themes throughout his writing career.

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504 users have voted.

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