In an essay titled Christianity Was Not Responsible for Modern Science, Richard Carrier loosely defines delusion as an easily falsifiable belief held disproportionately to the evidence. Carrier’s essay, which appeared in the 2010 book, The Christian Delusion, Why Faith Fails, easily discredits the fantasy that Christianity begat science. I recently…
Author Guy P. Harrison
Some beliefs, although strange and bizarre, are benign, even humorous. Those who think NASA faked moon landings and Astrology is scientific are probably not hurting anyone, they’re just fooling themselves. But people who deny vaccines to children, practice faith healing or use alternative medicine could be causing real harm. In this podcast author Guy P. Harrison discusses his new book, 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think are True. The book is an examination of unusual claims and extraordinary beliefs. Guy is an award winning writer and enthusiastic promoter of science and reason. He’s the author of Race and Reality: What Everyone Should Know About Our Biological Diversity and the book 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God.
Reason is a common theme in the skeptical community. For instance, several atheist groups held the Reason Rally this last weekend in Washington D.C., billed as the largest secular event in history. Author and Neuroscientist Sam Harris, one of the “Four Horsemen” of the new atheism movement, is founder and…
Carl Sagan wrote many popular science books, and he narrated and co-wrote the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. He also wrote the novel Contact, which was made into a 1997 film of the same name. He was born on this day in 1934, and many of his…
