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Extremely low sea ice levels in the Arctic and Antarctica signal a "new normal" that may accelerate global warming and disrupt ocean currents, on top of the consequences for people and wildlife that rely on the ice

Two weeks ago, I referred to the "soft eugenics" of RFK Jr. and MAHA. This week, he and Dr. Oz provide new examples, one about autism, the other about public health.

The post MAHA and “soft eugenics” revisited: The “autism tsunami,” Dr. Oz, and your “patriotic duty” to stay healthy first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A team of NASA scientists proposed a new initiative at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2025 LPSC). Known as the Commercial Hall Propulsion for Mars Payload Services (CHAMPS), the

How can you fairly compare one telescope to another? It’s all in the (angular) resolution.

In the next couple of days, when I finally get time to write, I’m going to point out several articles in the MSM which are gleeful about the supposed return of religion to America.  The New York Times, for example, is laden with pieces about how we’re afflicted with a God-shaped hole in our souls that must be filled by religion. They have, in fact, published several excepts (which I’ve criticized) of Ross Douthat’s new book Believe: Why Everyone Should Believe in God, and now you can find his goddy lucubrations at The Free Press as well. The New Yorker also gave his views a lot of space, views that I summarized and criticized here. An excerpt from that post:

I swear, NYT columnist Ross Douthat must have a huge publicity machine, because his latest book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, is appearing everywhere, usually as excerpts.  The point of the book is to assert that religion’s decline in America is slowing, and that readers having a “God-shaped hole,” denoting a lack of religious meaning in their lives, should not just become religious, but become Christian. (Douthat thinks that Catholicism is the “right” religion, and of course he happens to be Catholic).

And by “believe,” Douthat doesn’t just mean adhering to a watered-down form of Christianity that sees the New Testament as a series of metaphors. No, he really believes the tenets of his faith, including the miracles of Jesus, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and the existence of Satan and the afterlife. (See my posts on this delusional book here.) It is a sign of the times that this book, which calls for people to embrace claims that are palpably ridiculous and totally unevidenced—unless you take the New Testament literally, which you can’t because it’s wrong and self-contradictory—is getting not only wide press, but approbation.  Even the New Yorker summary and review of the book, which you can read by clicking below (the screenshot links to the archived version here) is pretty mild in its criticism. Author Rothman is a nonbeliever, and gives good responses to Douthat’s “evidence” for God, but at the end says the he “respects [Douthat’s effort to persuade.”  What does that mean? He respects Douthat’s efforts to proselytize people with a divisive and harmful faith, and to believe stuff without evidence? Well, the New Yorker has always been a bit soft on faith (despite the fact that most of its writers are atheists), because some of their rich and educated readers have “belief in belief”.

All the attention devoted to the “resurgence” of religion in American seems to come from a 2024 Pew survey of “nones” (people who aren’t affiliated with a conventional church), a group that’s been increasing for a long time,  Nones include atheists, agnostics, people who consider themselves spiritual, pantheists, and God-believers who don’t fit in anywhere.

Look! A drop in one year!

 

As you see, the rise in “nones” has been pretty steady since 2007, nearly doubling in percentage by 2022. But from 2022 to 2023, the number of nones fell by 3%.  That fall is what seems to have excited lots of believers (or “believers in belief”), who are pumping out articles on the resurgence of religion in America and excitedly writing books and articles dissecting why God is back.

Now this fall may be real, but I doubt it will continue, if for no other reason than, as Steve Pinker has pointed out, science and rationality continue to take up the space that used to be God’s purview, at least in the West.  My own prediction is that, given a few centuries, America will be about as atheistic as Scandinavia, with “religious” observances confined to weddings, holidays, and the like.

What does the fall mean? Well, it could reflect a rise in wokeness, an ideology that nicely accommodates religious belief. It could reflect the fact that we had a pandemic, or that American economic and social well being fell during this period. It’s well known that when well-being falls, religiosity rises and “none-ness” is likely to fall. (Marx was perhaps the first to realize this but it’s been modernized and verified by the work of Norris and Inglehart, whose thesis is summarized in this book, summarized thusly:

This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values, and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations.

The U.S., by the way, doesn’t rank very highly in either happiness or well-being (including income inequality), possibly explaining why, though we have a substantial amount of secularity, it’s much lower than in countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland, which are also less religious.

At any rate, the slight fall in the graph above has given rise to a huge amount of press explaining and extolling America’s return to God.  We are told, for example, that we harbor a “God-shaped hole”: a longing to find meaning in life that can be fulfilled only by accepting a divine being. (Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a prominent exponent of this view,and it may have worked for her.)

All I’m saying is that I predict a spate of articles in the press touting America’s return to God and explaining our “God-shaped hole.”  And, as far as I can see, it all comes down to that 3% drop in “nones” over one year. There may be more to these claims that I don’t know, but I don’t think America is reverting to conventional religious belief.

John Avise has started a new Sunday series: photos of dragonflies and damselflies. John’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Dragonflies in North America, Part 1 

This week I begin a series of posts on Dragonflies and Damselflies (taxonomic Order Odonata) that I’ve photographed in North America.  I will go down my list of species in alphabetical order by common name.  I also show the state where I took each photo.

Band-winged Dragonlet, Erythrodiplax umbrata, male (Florida):

Band-winged Dragonlet, female of the brown form (Florida):

Band-winged Dragonlet, young male (Florida):

Black Saddlebags, Tramea lacerata, male (California):

Black Saddlebags, female (California):

 

Blue Corporal, Ladona deplanata, female (Georgia):

Blue Dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis, male (California):

Blue Dasher, female (California):

Blue-eyed Darner, Aeshna multicolor, male (California):

Blue-eyed Darner, male in flight (California):

Blue-eyed Darner, female (California):

Blue-eyed Darner, mating pair (California):

Scientists have known for a while that Mars currently lacks a magnetic field, and many blame that for its paltry atmosphere - with no protective shield around the planet, the solar wind was able to strip away much of the gaseous atmosphere over the course of billions of years. But, evidence has been mounting that Mars once had a magnetic field. Results from Insight, one of the Red Planet's landers, lend credence to that idea, but they also point to a strange feature - the magnetic field seemed to cover only the southern hemisphere, but not the north. A team from the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics thinks they might know why - in a recent paper, they described how a fully liquid core in Mars could create a lopsided magnetic field like the one seen in Insight’s data.

You never know when a central supermassive black hole is going to power up and start gobbling matter. Contrary to the popular view that these monsters are constantly devouring nearby stars and gas clouds, it turns out they spend part of their existence dormant and inactive. New observations from the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft opened a window on the "turn on event" for one of these monsters in a distant galaxy.

In a recent paper, a team of researchers indicated that photosynthetic bacteria could exist just beneath the snow and ice around Mars' mid-latitudes. If true, this could be the most easily accessible place to look for present-day life on Mars.

The solar system is currently embedded deep within the Local Bubble, a region of relatively low density stretching for a thousand light-years across. It was carved millions of years ago by a chain of supernova explosions. And the evidence for it is right under our feet.

Dumbest Thing of the Week: Turned to Stone; News Items: Where Did Earth's Water Come From, EPA Data on Emissions, Is Your Red My Red, Evolution of Complex Life, Crow Math Skills; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Separate the Art from the Artists, Does the Moon Rotate; Science or Fiction

As you’re digesting this Eastern weekend, how about putting some wildlife photos together for this feature?

Today we have some coyote videos from Kathy Mechling and a few Easter flowers from Patricia Morris. Their captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

First, the wild d*gs (coyotes) from Kathy. Sound up!

Some of our more charismatic neighbors here in the Illinois Valley in SW.  Oregon.

First: find both coyotes:

Second: the second coyote is a little more obvious:

The reveal. She was curled up there all along:

Lagniappe: the pair harmonizing with distant fire engines:

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As I don’t know from flowers, readers will have to identify them for themselves. These were sent on March 21:

It might be hard to believe amidst a blizzard but spring is coming.  Just a few domestic flowers from central coast California to prove my point and cheer your day.

YouTube will almost certainly take down this video of Bill Maher’s entire show from yesterday, so I’m putting it up early today. Listen while you can! I’ve given the schedule below.

Intro (Maher monologue): 0-7:17

Douglas Murray: 7:17-18:15 (He talks about the topic of his new book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization.

Panel: Author and libertarian Matt Welch and Democratic Senator (Minnesota) Tina Smith: 18:17-47:03

Second comedy bit (Maher monologue; “New Rules”): 47:06-57:51

Douglas Murray is always good value, especially when he talks about Israel and Palestine (as he does here), and the “New Rules” bit is pretty good. They should have given him more time.

WELL, THEY TOOK IT DOWN. But you can at least hear Maher’s “New Rule” segment, which is about “The Not-Working Class”

and here’s the short intro:

and here is the non-broadcasted “overtime”. The first topic of discussion is the UK Supreme Court’s new ruling that there are two sexes and no more.

Researchers have developed a new coronagraph that could make it possible to see distant exoplanets obscured by light from their parent stars.

A new study by biomedical engineers and neuroscientists shows that the brain's visual regions play an active role in making sense of information.

A device has enabled people to see a new a shade of blue-green, which they say is more intense than any experienced before

According to a recent study by the non-profit Explore Titan, a nuclear-fission propulsion spacecraft could enable the first crewed mission to Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

In our neighborhood of the Milky Way, we see a region surrounding the solar system that is far less dense than average. But that space, that cavity, is a very irregular, elongated shape. What little material is left inside of this cavity is insanely hot, as it has a temperature of around a million Kelvin.

New research finds that despite large rivers and seas of liquid methane, Saturn's moon Titan seems mostly devoid of river deltas, raising new questions about the surface dynamics on this alien world.

Whenever there’s even a slight chance that an exoplanet shows signs of biological activity, people understandably get excited – but it’s never been aliens, and we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, not this time or the next, says Chris Lintott