ArchiveArticles
How to Ruin a Generation: Give Everyone Smartphones
What is all of this digital content doing to the souls of kids? To everyone?
Monday Micro Softy 55: “It Happens Every Spring”
Baseball, that is. Here’s a puzzle that takes in baseball's favorite season, summer
How To Write a Time Travel Story That Keeps Making Sense: Part 2
In this sixth and final installment, I show how narrowing a rather than escalating it, avoids unwanted paradoxes
Does Quantum Mechanics Help Us Make Sense of the Soul?
Quantum mechanics seems to be the game-changer that Albert Einstein (1879–1955) feared it would be. It is certain to liven up discussions about the soul
Does It Matter WHY a Chatbot Slanders You?
Google’s AI chatbot service blames users’ questions and unfixable software for the bot’s shocking defamation of a man’s character
And — No Surprise, Really — Now It’s WILD Animals’ Rights
Like many progressive activists, Michael Burrows is far less concerned with our welfare than that of animals. He even opposes conservation efforts because these involve human control
Skeptic Michael Shermer’s (Non)-Vision of the Soul
Responding to Michael Egnor at COSM 2025, he said that the soul is an explanation but not a good explanation for our relationship to our bodies
COSM 2025: Entanglement in Physics —What It Means for Materialism
Physics is sometimes weirder than we imagine or physicists can explain. It does not favor a tidy materialist explanation of our cosmos
New Allegations Claim Meta Dismissed Risks to Children
New complaints, same story: Meta cares more about business growth than protecting kids
Does Neuroscience Show That We Are Mere Biological Machines?
At COSM 2025, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor assembled his strongest evidence for no
Micro Softy 54: A Plane Problem for Aspiring Engineers
The senator is leaving Washington to avoid the governor and their planes are headed in opposite directionsToday’s Micro Softy tests whether you are clever enough with math to code computers or be an engineer. Here’s the story: Senator Kornn did not like Governor Friar. Both were from Texas. When Kornn learned that Governor Friar was visiting Washington, DC, Kornn said “This town’s not big enough for the both of us.” So Kornn decided to leave DC for that period. Kornn and Friar get on planes at the same time. One was at Reagan International Airport in DC and the other was at the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Airport. So each was flying to the other’s airport. Both planes took off at the same time. After a while, Kornn looked out of his first-class window and saw Read More ›
Are Human Beings Machines? Surgeon and Historian Go Head-to-Head
At COSM 2025, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer faced off on some of the most critical questions of our lives
Straight Talk About AI From a Valley Tech Exec
Microsoft vice-president Uli Homann lays out what it can — and can’t — really do for you
Bonnassies, coauthor of French bestseller, interviewed on Humanize
The science world appears to be moving away from the assertive atheism of James D. Watson, who died earlier this month
Tortured, Contradictory: The Legacy of James Watson
A noxious atheist, Watson unwittingly pointed the way toward scientific evidence of a creator
How To Write a Time Travel Story That Keeps Making Sense, Part 1
Here in Part 5, I offer an approach that allows for time travel without obvious giant plot holes
U.K. Hospices Collapsing as Government Pushes Assisted Suicide
Assisted suicide/euthanasia will surely be seen as a splendid way to save money by erasing expensive patients, even if not terminally ill
Current Science Is Sending Alarming Signals of a Declining System
Retractions have increased five-fold (and that's just the tip of the problem) while the Big Five science publishers continue to make huge profits