As my 'science & religion' co-teacher Laura Sizer can testify, I try my best to avoid any discussion about free will. Its totally fine if I don't have free-will - but please don't tell me that I don't have it. So to my horror, the lead story in Science Times today is about free-will:
Free Will: Now you Have it, Now you Don't (NYT 1/2/07)

Its actually a good summary of the debate and it quite rightly points out that if people are uncomfortable about evolution, wait till they hear questions about free will:

“Is it an illusion? That’s the question,” said Michael Silberstein, a science philosopher at Elizabethtown College in Maryland. Another question, he added, is whether talking about this in public will fan the culture wars.

“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?”

Daniel C. Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Tufts University who has written extensively about free will, said that “when we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality, we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair.”

Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.

“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it,” he said.

Follow your will and read the full article as it takes you through lab experiments, cosmology, and computational concepts about free will.
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PLEASE NOTE: This story turned out to be completely false! Thanks to Michael Shermer for tracking the story down. It appears that Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) pretty much made up the story for their political own political gain. Here is Michael Shermer's take on it:

Then why did PEER issue that statement in the first place? In my opinion, this is why:

PEER is an anti-Bush, anti-religion liberal activist watchdog group in search of demons to exorcise and dragons to slay. On one level, that’s how the system works in a free society, and there are plenty of pro-Bush, pro-religion conservative activist watchdog groups who do the same thing on the other side. Maybe in a Hegelian process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis we find truth that way; at least at the level of talk radio. But journalistic standards and scholarly ethics still hold sway at all levels of discourse that matter, and to that end I believe we were duped by an activist group who at the very least exaggerated a claim and published it in order to gain notoriety for itself, or worse, simply made it up.

To that end I apologize to all of our readers for not fact checking this story before publishing it on eSkeptic and www.skeptic.com. Shame on us. But shame on you too, Mr. Ruch, and shame on PEER, for this egregious display of poor judgment and unethical behavior.

HERE IS THE ORIGINAL (INCORRECT) STORY AS IT WAS PUBLISHED HERE:
Is agnosticism on the age of Grand Canyon deliberate or an oversight? Its scary if its deliberate. In any case, here is a press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER):

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology", stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment'".

and this is what makes it problematic:

Park officials have defended the decision to approve the sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View, claiming that park bookstores are like libraries, where the broadest range of views are displayed. In fact, however, both law and park policies make it clear that the park bookstores are more like schoolrooms rather than libraries. As such, materials are only to reflect the highest quality science and are supposed to closely support approved interpretive themes. Moreover, unlike a library the approval process is very selective. Records released to PEER show that during 2003, Grand Canyon officials rejected 22 books and other products for bookstore placement while approving only one new sale item - the creationist book.

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Its not in science classrooms yet, but ID movement is certainly gaining ground in England - a depressing way to start the new year:

THE government has cleared the way for a form of creationism to be taught in Britain’s schools as part of the religious syllabus.

Lord Adonis, an education minister, is to issue guidelines within two months for the teaching of “intelligent design” (ID), a theory being promoted by the religious right in America.

Until now the government has not approved the teaching of the controversial theory, which contradicts Darwinian evolutionary theory, the basis of modern biology.

Adonis said in a parliamentary answer: “Intelligent design can be explored in religious education as part of developing an understanding of different beliefs.”

He announced that the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is to hold discussions with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the assessment regulator, and said local advisory councils would decide whether particular schools should teach the theory.

Read the full story from Sunday Times: Creationism gains foothold in schools

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Iranians are upset over the failure of 35 Iranian scientists to obtain Egyptian visas for a recent meeting in Alexandria of researchers hoping to work on the Synchrotron Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) project. Eight countries are now members of this consortium - an interesting mix of countries: Jordan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine and Turkey (yes...this is really the list). The Iranian parliament is expected to vote sometime next year on a proposal to formally join the project in which its scientists have participated since 2001. So...Middle East peace will be achieved through a Synchrotron - at least its a new idea. But this visa issue may influence Iran's decision to join-in. According to Science (Dec 15, 2006), some miscommunication on both sides about timings was responsible for visa denials.

The synchrotron machine is donated by Germany and will be located at a site 19 miles outside Amman, Jordan. It is expected to start working in 2010 and is intended as both a platform for research and a model for research cooperation. You can find more info. about SESAME here

This building, located 19 miles outside of amman, Jordan, will house the SESAME particle accelerator.

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A place like Digg.com can generate a amazing amount of traffic in a one-day pulse. What if you could make that happen on a more regular basis? This short article talks about one approach:How to Build a ‘Digg Culture’ on your BlogThe key sentence is this: "If you are able to convert your incoming readers from Digg into regular readers you then have a unique opportunity to get repeat appearances on
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God is indeed using some old recycled arguments (Stalin, Hiter, etc), but does have a point about asking Dawkins to relax a bit. You can read the full letter here: A Christmas thunderbolt for for the arch-enemy of religion


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Quite appropriately, the battle over bacterial flagellum - oh that key piece of evidence for ID-ists, is now on YouTube...so now the Time's Person of the Year can weigh in directly.

Here is the Flagellum evolution video
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This is a cool visual of expansion of religions. Very aptly advertised as: "See 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds..."
History of Religion

and here is 5000 year Imperial History of the Middle East - yes compressed in 90 seconds (take that you history courses!!)
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On Carl Sagan's 10th death anniversary, couple of his quotes related to science & religion and his views on afterlife:

The following two quotes are from the May 1981 issue of U.S. Catholic, and the interview was titled: God and Carl Sagan: Is the Cosmos Big Enough for Both of Them?
On the issue of "first cause":

I would say the question of a "first cause" is only a speculation. It is perfectly possible that the universe is infinitely old and therefore uncaused. In fact, there are detailed cosmological models that hold such a view and that are consistent with everything we know. To my mind, it seems not fully satisfactory to say that there was a first cause. That seems to postpone dealing with the problem rather than solving it. If we say "God" made the universe, then surely the next question is, "Who made God?" If we say "God" was always here, why not say the universe was always here? If we say that the question "Where did God come from?" is too tough for us poor mortals to understand, then why not say that the question of, "Where did the universe come from?" is too tough for us mortals? In what way, exactly, does the God hypothesis advance our knowledge of cosmology? What predictions does it make on which the hypothesis will stand or fall?

Q: In the final analysis, what does Carl Sagan, scientist, explainer of science, and embodiment of "creative skepticism" believe?

Sagan: My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of our species.

From his last essay, In the Valley of Shadows (1996 article in the Parade magazine and also reprinted in Billions and Billions), when doctors had told him that he had less than 3-months to live:

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

From Ann Druyan's Epilogue to Billions and Billions:

Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever.

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Ok..so not directly science & religion, but this still touches on the issue of origins (and its really cool!). Using Spitzer Space Telescope (it works in the infrared), astronomers have found possible signs of first stars in the universe that lived about 13 billion years ago. Why do astronomers care about this? Almost all elements other than hydrogen and helium (these were produced in the Big Bang) have been processed inside stars or in the explosions of dying stars. But stars are great at recycling - the next generation of stars is born out of gaseous material ejected by dying stars. Thus all the stars that we see contain at least some recycled material - observed in the form of elements heavier than hydrogen & helium (our Sun is a third generation star). But there has to be a first generation of stars made up purely of hydrogen and NO processed elements.

These stars, for various reasons, are expected to be much bigger than the stars we see today. These are also expected to live a very short life time (perhaps less than a million years) thus quickly providing processed material for the next generation of stars. The Spitzer observations have either found light from these first generation stars, each about 1000 times as massive as our Sun, or this light is from some early black holes. This is one of those rare instances where the possibility of black holes is less exciting than the discovery of stars. You can read the full story here:
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The focus may still just be on applied sciences...but at least its a start.

From Science (Dec 8, 2006)

Saudi Arabia, which spends less on research and education per capita than almost all other countries, announced last week that it will commit $2.6 billion to build the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in the desert. Undergraduate degrees in diverse fields including biotechnology and computer science will be offered beginning in 2008, with enrollment restricted to Saudis and some foreign "outstanding Muslim students," says a Saudi official. There are no plans yet for a Ph.D. program.

This is the latest step in a recent push for scientific development in the Arab world. But the bottleneck is not money, says Rabi Mohtar, an agricultural engineer at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is working with the Qatar Foundation to boost science in the region. The lack of prestige and opportunities in the sciences drives the vast majority of Arab researchers abroad to study and work. However, "having big educational investments will hopefully raise the level of public awareness," he says, and may entice Arab scientists back home.

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If you want to know how Sam Harris (the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason") and Richard Dawkins (the author of "The God Delusion") celebrate Christmas...
An Atheist Can Believe in Christmas (from New York Times - 12/17/06)

and a relevant cartoon:


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Still smarting from last year's court decision against the teaching of Intelligent Design in Dover, PA, William Dembski (one of the main ID proponents) has been regularly attacking the presiding judge of the trial. In reaching a new low, he has come up with an animation that he is offering as a Christmas gift. You can check out the animation here, and this is what he has to say about it on the website Overwhelming Evidence:

Christmas came early this year!

From Bill Dembski:

"The Judge Jones School of Law" is the brainchild of brilliant professional flash animator (I think of him as the "Rembrandt" of flash animation; for now he will remain anonymous until he sees the fallout from his handiwork) as well as of me and my lovely wife Jana (who came up with the name). We present this as a Christmas gift to students everywhere. Around Christmas last year, Judge Jones did you the disservice of shafting you royally. This time it's your turn to laugh at his expense. Yes, the humor is adolescent, but overwhelmingevidence.com is a site for adolescents, and you are, after all, the ones who got shafted, having to endure the imbecility that is Darwinism at school by being forcefed this materialist ideology in the name of science.

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Proposed course requirement at Harvard in the category of reason and faith has been dropped.

And in case you missed Steven Pinker's views on this, you can read them here: Less Faith More Reason

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Finally a video game that we can all appreciate. From the creators of the Left Behind book series, comes this new video game called Left Behind: Eternal Forces:

The game is set in New York City after millions of Christians have been transported to heaven. Players are charged with recruiting, and converting, an army that will engage in physical and spiritual warfare with the antichrist and his evil followers.

Here is the relevant CNN story and you can find more information about the game here.


Not to be left behind (ha ha), here is a new video game where a rabbi is having a crisis of faith.
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Planetboredom.net is seeing a huge traffic spike on Alexa this week. If you look at Planetboredom.net, you can see it is just a set of links to videos - no magic here. But there are four things that they are doing well:They are choosing compelling videos.The home page gives you lots of options. You are probably going to find smething interesting to you very quickly. They are updating
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You just can never tell what will resonate. The video has been viewed over 300,000 times. The site is called LineRider.com.The only way to find out if something resonates is to try it.
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First of all, go look at this site:http://www.msdewey.com/Then go took at its traffic on Alexa:Alexa reachAll this traffic for a search engine. A completely normal search engine. The thing that is unique is the User Interface. It appears that pure novelty is driving the traffic. Now, if they had something really amazing for people to see once they arrived, this would be a win. What it means to
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Looking for a way to drive traffic to your website? Consider creating a short video. There is a Website called Campaignforrealbeauty.com that offers a great example of the process. They produced a video and released it on YouTube last week. Here is the video, entitled "The Evolution of Beauty":As of today there have been over half a million views. According to This article on ABC, this video on
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Nice video:The unlikely millionaireIt's never to early to start.
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ClustrMaps"See at a glance where your site's visitors are located: instantaneously, even when the numbers are enormous! Visitors don't need to click on anything: just viewing your page is sufficient."
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I received this note the other day:i read thru the Robot Nation series back in 2003 and found it very compelling. you elaborate on themes that Asimov touched on in the robot series. anyway, i am quite fond of your work and was recently inspired to launch my own $1,000,000 idea. the concept is pretty simple.www.dailyvitamint.complease check out my site. i'd welcome your feedback.I did check it out
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One question that frequently comes up, especially for people who are creating their very first web site, is this: "how do I get links to my new site"? If you have already created a couple of your own sites, and if you have friends with their own sites, this problem is easier to solve -- you and your friends can all link to the new site immediately. Once you have done that, your next step is to
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It is called the ChipIn Widget:chipin.com/It is pretty self-explanatory when you look at the web site. I have a friend who has used it and likes it. I have not used it myself. Does anyone have recommendations on other ways to handle money like this?
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TMZ.com has come onto the radar of most people in the last month or so because of buzz, and that shows one way to get recognition for your web site. Buzz works. TMZ has a lot of video stuff, and they have broken several big "stories" over the last couple of weeks, and they get recognition for that. It is the same recipe that brought recognition to the DrudgeReport.com site back in the Monica
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