One of the many egregious moments in the new Ben Stein anti-evolution film "Expelled" is the truncation of a quote from Charles Darwin so that it makes him appear to give philosophical ammunition to the Nazis. Steve Mirsky reports in the Scientific American's 60-Second Science podcast. Listen to this podcast: Download this podcast > Subscribe to 60-Second Science: RSS | iTunes Podcast Transcript: This is Scientific American ’s 60-Second Science . Hi, Steve Mirsky here. I’m going over our usual one minute. By now, you’ve probably heard of Expelled , the new Ben Stein anti-evolution crockumentary. It officially opens today as I speak, that’s April 18th. Because of my job, I’ve had the misfortune of sitting through this film twice now. As least I was getting paid. The film tries very hard to connect Darwin with the Holocaust. Toward the end, Stein reads the following quote from the book Descent of Man : “With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated....

By Chuck Lunney I’m sure that many readers have heard that Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. It’s supposed to be a day when believers of all faiths gather to kneel down and pray for healing, hope and peace (at least, I certainly hope that’s what most people would pray for). I do appreciate the sentiment, and I know prayer makes those doing the praying feel better, but unfortunately prayer is one of the most objectively ineffective and useless forms of assistance. Other than making those doing the praying “feel better,” numerous studies have shown time and again that prayer fails to benefit those who are prayed for, and at best it is no better than a placebo. As an atheist, that just seems like a tremendous waste of time and personal effort, which I’d prefer to see spent in a more unselfish and demonstrably beneficial way. For the last two years I’ve participated in the National Gift of Life Day (see www.centerforatheism.org ), which is an organized effort to get atheists, agnost...

The founder of a Christian school is confronted after 13 Undercover catches him soliciting sex from a parent, who's trying to get her daughter a high school diploma. At graduation ceremonies he talks about God, but you'll hear the founder of a Houston-area Christian school not only talk about sex, but ask for it on tape. It's the middle of the day when a white pickup truck pulls into the back of a motel on 1960. Then it goes to the very back to park for a long while. We already know who the driver is. His name is LaVern Jordan and he runs Parkway Christian School . Dolcefino: "What were you doing there at the La Quinta." Jordan: "I wasn't doing anything at the La Quinta sir." Dolcefino: "Were you there?" Jordan: "I was there." Dolcefino: "What were you doing there?" Jordan: "I was just driving around. Why?" Of course when Mr. Jordan was parked all that time, we were undercover just a couple of cars away. Dolce...

About 90,000 pages of manuscripts, field notes, photographs and sketches connected with Charles Darwin are being placed online, where they can be viewed free. Among the gems are his first formulation of the theory of natural selection, his first written doubts that species were fixed and touching correspondence from his wife on religious faith. The huge set of documents and images is part of the Darwin Online project , based in Cambridge, which claims to be the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue created. Many of items were previously available only to scholars with access to the Cambridge University Library. The project began in 2002 and this is the last major set of additions. Dr John van Wyhe, Darwin Online's director, said: "[The documents] have been known to scholars, but for the first time they are available to everyone for free online." One set of pages that is likely to attract considerable interest is Darwin's scrawled first draft of his theo...

FORT RILEY, Kan. — When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending. But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement. Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement. Last month, Specialist Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation , an advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Kansas, alleging that Specialist Hall’s right to be free from state endorsement of religion under the First Amendment had been violated and that he had faced retaliation for his views. In Novembe...

Twelve criminal convictions for abusing members of his former flock hit ex-Baptist pastor Royden Wood of London Ontario like a shot to the gut. "Needless to say, we're stunned," Wood, 57, former senior pastor of the now-defunct Ambassador Baptist Church , said on the steps of the London courthouse yesterday, his wife Linda at his side. "For those who wanted revenge, may they be blessed in their revenge," he added. Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton ruled yesterday Wood was guilty of 12 of 13 charges. They included nine involving physical assaults on three boys, members of the conservative church's alternative school from 1985 to 1987, and three sex-related charges involving two female congregants. The decision came after a bizarre trial in which the former church leader defended himself without a lawyer. Asked outside court if he thought he was guilty, Wood replied "I absolutely do not." "Once they get a roll on, you know, some people hav...

The jury in the Troy Deal online predator case began to hear the words on Wednesday. For several hours, Calhoun County Circuit Court jurors heard explicit testimony from transcripts which prosecutors allege were from conversations between Deal, 35, of Battle Creek , and people he believed were 14-year-old girls. The girls were actually undercover officers from the Office of the Michigan Attorney General and the Wayne County Sheriff Department. Over several months before he was arrested in July , Deal allegedly used his computer to suggest performing various acts with the young girls, including threesome sex, bondage and submission. "I like a slut to do what she is told and like doing it," Deal wrote on April 10, 2007, according to James May, an agent for the AG's office. "Do you like being collared. You will be my submissive slut. I will just call you slut until you earn another name." Deal, at the time of his July arrest, was the director of youth ministrie...

Did you hear about the state legislator who last week blasted a Lutheran minister during a committee hearing for spewing dangerous religious superstitions, and then attempted to order the minister out of the witness chair on the grounds that his Christian beliefs are "destroying what this state was built upon?" Of course you didn't, because it didn't happen and would never happen. Not to a Christian, not to a Jew, not to a Muslim or to anyone who subscribes to any faith. Such an attack would rightly be considered scandalously out of bounds in contemporary society. But you probably also didn't hear about what actually did happen: Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, "What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy ex...

By: Sajia Hall As an organizing member of AHA , the UW-Madison organization for Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics, Nick Jikomes hears arguments against atheism all the time. One of the most common is that atheism requires belief and is therefore a religion. Jikomes, however, has an answer. “There’s a common witticism that saying atheism is a religion is like saying bald is a hair color,” he said. “What people often mean by that is that atheism requires faith, which is just not the case. Atheists believe in reasoned arguments, and evidence is our basis for establishing whether something exists.” Jikomes, a second-year genetics major, regularly organizes meetings and lectures on atheism-related topics. “I can’t be 100 percent sure that God doesn’t exist—to say so would be absurd, because you can’t disprove anything with absolute certainty,” he said. “I can’t disprove the Christian, Muslim or Hindu gods. I can’t disprove the Roman or Greek gods, or even the Smurfs. But it doesn’t take a ...

'Fitna' has been reinstated on LiveLeak . Bravo. Long live free speech. Reaction from Iran http://www.reuters.com/article/worldN... Iran leads the world in executing children http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/06/2... Swiss foreign minister wears headscarf in Iran http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/0... Wife-beating in Islam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGA8i... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp3Eam... Hamas bunny threatens to kill Danes over cartoons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0U2ce... You can download an audio version of this video at http://patcondell.libsyn.com/

A tainted legacy While the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland reached a $56.4 million global settlement in 2005 with the victims of childhood sexual abuse by its priests, one religious order opted for a different tactic. The Salesians of St. John Bosco , whose Western Province is based in San Francisco , has been the most aggressive church group fighting lawsuits against its priests, said Rick Simons, a lawyer who handled many cases against the diocese and religious orders. The order said one victim fabricated stories and had other cases dismissed -- not because its priests didn't commit abuse, but because the Salesians didn't have "notice" of the abuse, Simons said. For the order to be held liable in a civil trial, they had to know that abuse was occurring and not take preventive action, according to California law. "They are far and away the worst," Simons said of the Salesians. "They are the largest order, but they are also the absolute worst when it ...