Is a Global Climate Treaty Still Worth Fighting For?
Governments, businesses and civil society have much to gain from a spirit of determination within the international community
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The Thanksgiving Myth: Not a Bad Start
The first feast related to our current national holiday, which we call Thanksgiving, was celebrated in either October or November of 1621. The feast included around 50 English Separatists (of Mayflower fame) held at their Plymouth Plantation, and nearly 100 Wampanoag Indians. In addition to Wampanoag oral history, there are just a few original sources…
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Stephen Prothero: A Multireligious Thanksgiving
From CNN’s Belief blog: A few years ago, I came across a high school textbook on U.S. history that stumbled badly when it tried to describe the first Thanksgiving. Because of a serious misunderstanding of the First Amendment, the authors thought they couldn’t even refer to God in their textbook. So they ended up telling…
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NASA Astronaut Celebrates Thanksgiving in Space
Thanksgiving is a special time for most Americans, but only one citizen will have a truly out-of-this world holiday experience. NASA astronaut Kevin Ford will celebrate Thanksgiving in space while orbiting about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Ford commands the International Space Station’s Expedition 34 mission, and he’s the only American aboard the…
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‘Anti-Thanksgiving’ Event at UVA Raises Conservatives’ Eyebrows
The American Indian Student Union at the University of Virginia has upset some conservative students on campus with an “Anti-Thanksgiving” event. The student group planned and advertised the “Anti-Thanksgiving” event as a potluck where students would “share free food.” They also recently held a screening of “The Only Good Indian,” a film about a Native…
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Church Uses Facebook for Sacramental Scrutiny at Its Peril
For all Il Papa’s social media encouragement the last few years, the Roman Catholic Church continues to struggle with digital ministry practice, particularly where new media intersects the Church’s medieval sacramental structure. In 2011, a new smartphone app aimed to support preparation for and the practice of confession ended up generating more confusion than contrition…
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To Teach Evolution, You Have to Understand Creationists
If we hope to understand creationism, we need to abandon the trope that only the ignorant can oppose mainstream evolutionary science. It is a comfortable delusion, a head-in-the-sand approach to improving evolution education in the United States. In the end, it stems from a shocking ignorance among evolutionists about the nature of creationist beliefs.
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Neanderthals May Have Sailed to Crete
Neanderthals, or even older Homo erectus (“Upright Man”) might have sailed around the Mediterranean, stopping at islands such as Crete and Cyprus, new evidence suggests. The evidence suggests that these hominid species had considerable seafaring and cognitive skills. “They had to have had boats of some sort; unlikely they swam,” said Alan Simmons, lead author…
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Humans Used Spears for Hunting 200,000 Years Earlier Than Believed
Human ancestors were making spears to hunt 500,000 years ago – 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, a study has revealed. The collaborative study, published in the journal Science, found the stone-tipped weapons at the South African archaeological site of Kathu Pan 1. Attaching stone points to spears (known as “hafting”) was an important advance…
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Bill McKibben Proposes Fossil Energy Divestment Drive
The highly influential environment activist Bill McKibben is proposing a fossil energy divestment campaign, on the model of the international anti-apartheid dis-investment campaign that successfully brought pressure on South Africa’s white-only regime. McKibben was among the organizers who brought the planned Keystone pipeline to a standstill last year, and he has been the leading figure…