Most Americans reject young-earth creationism. But the share of Republicans who believe that humans evolved fell from 54% in 2009 to 43% last year. Democrats, do not look so smug: your lot are likelier to believe in UFOs, ghosts and astrology. Also, that the moon landings were faked, that the CIA introduced crack to inner cities and that America’s government conspired in the September 11th attacks. It’s enough to make an ape weep.
Also see Majority of young adults think astrology is a science
I first read L. Sprague de Camp’s SF classic Lest Darkness Fall (written in 1939) more than 40 years ago. It still has not grown old. Tonight I ran across this passage:
Tipsy taboo. I particularly noticed:
A handful of scholars permit alcohol as long as it is not made from grapes and dates, because these are specifically mentioned in the Koran.
I had run across this concept exactly once before, in Poul Anderson’s 1971 novel Operation Chaos. From a scene in chapter 5:
“I believe you are concealing something,” went on the emir. He gestured at his glasses and decanter, which supplied him with a shot of Scotch [This is a world of magic], and sipped judiciously. The Caliphate sect was also heretical with respect to strong drink; the maintained the while the Prophet forbade wine, he said nothing about beer, gin, whisky, brandy, rum, or akvavit.
Higgs boson physicist shunned in Pakistan
Adbus Salam, who died in 1996, was once hailed as a national hero for his pioneering work in physics and his contribution to Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Now his name is stricken from school textbooks because he was a member of the Ahmadi sect that has been persecuted by the government and targeted by Taliban militants, who view them as heretics.
Officials at Quaid-i-Azam University had to cancel plans for Salam to lecture about his Nobel-winning theory when Islamist student activists threatened to break the physicist’s legs, said his colleague Hoodbhoy.
The newest George Lucas production, Red Tails, forces a Star Wars nerd to come to terms with a troubling philosophy
From faith stems nuance. From myth, generalities. And, sadly for us, the spirit of myth is winning: We revere Star Wars because to our minds—modern machines that equate religion with superstition and are willing to disregard imperfections in science but never in dogma—the movies represent transcendentalist humanism at its best, a perfect manifestation of that noxious label, “spiritual,” that people use to describe themselves when they’re too dull to believe in religion and too dim to understand science. This is why the Force has become the organizing metaphor of our time; there’s no better one for those who believe that if we only open our hearts and understand people are all the same and all good we’d be enlightened enough to lift rocks with a tilt of our heads.
Just how idiotic is this logic will become evident when we examine the controversy known in geekdom as the “Han Shot First” incident….
(My emphasis)
By way of the Episcopal Cafe.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 