Category: Humanism and Science

In his 2012 memoir Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie, borrowing the words of Saul Bellow, posited that the writer’s task is to “open the universe a little more.” This has always struck me as beautiful and true as well as simple. It would also do as a nice description of the scientist’s job. Herein lies that …

Humanists have an identity problem, and it’s a problem at multiple levels. I remember very clearly the first time I told my Mormon brother that I was a humanist in a discussion on Facebook.

It is astonishing how so many science popularizers are able to take a bit of scientific evidence and elevate it into an earth-shattering discovery–or at least a revolutionary principle. The “God gene” hypothesis is probably the best example of the practice: the notion that a specific part of the human anatomy, which may be genetically …