I often rant on science and religion here, and one subset of science and religion issues I have a special interest in is how such matters play out in an Islamic context. If you happen to have an interest in science and religion in Islam, I highly recommend Salman Hameed’s Irtiqa blog. Hameed is an … Irtiqa

One of the both frustrating and rewarding things about teaching physics is how much I have to work against the grain of everyday common sense thinking. The obvious example is how almost everybody, unless they’re corrupted by having physics beat into their head for years on end, has an Aristotelian conception of force, inertia, and … Blobs of substance

Stanley Fish reviewed Terry Eagleton’s atheist-bashing book in the New York Times this week. I read the review, and emailed a friend that “it seems to be about a book talking nonsense about science, written by somebody clueless about science, reviewed by someone equally clueless about science.” I was going to leave it at that, … Taibbi on Fish and Eagleton

Since at least the European Enlightenment, there have been defenders of a distant, remote version of God. Deists don’t generally have a lot of influence on popular religion, but mainly provide a way of maintaining both intellectual respectability and the ability to call oneself devout. A common argument in the service of deism is that … A disproof of God

In public controversies over science, there’s a lot of interest in questions concerning the origins of things. Evolution, cosmology, the origin of life—these are considered big questions. I see this in the classroom as well. I like to devote a fair bit of time to questions by students, which can range far beyond what’s in … Overdoing Origins