NewsTrust - Science and Religion - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Medical News: HBV Rebound Common for Some Patients - in Infectious Disease, Hepatitis from MedPage Today

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

medpagetoday.com - By Michael Smith - Mar. 13 (News Analysis) - Indeed, in nearly two of every five patients who experience rebound there is no sign of genetic resistance,

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How Conservative Politicians Wait for God to Fix the Economy, With Frightening Results

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - Sep. 30 (News Analysis) - A study released last fall suggests that the theology embraced by American religious conservatives may render them immune to evidence and reason when it comes to economic management. The study found that a sizable minority share a uniquely faith-based view of how the economy functions, believing that both good and bad outcomes are an expression of God's will, and are therefore beyond the reach of mere mortals.

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Wedges reaffirmed

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

thebulletin.org - By Robert Socolow - Sep. 27 (Special Report) - Robert Socolow reaffirms his Stabilization Wedges Theory regarding climate change, contrary to reports a few months ago that he now feels the wedges theory is a mistake. This lays the science out quite well, and also how to proceed forward in a way everyone can agree on. Here's a quote: "Confronted with unwelcome news, human beings often shoot the messenger. Consider two earlier occasions. Galileo argued that the Earth wasn't at the center of the universe. For this, he was excommunicated. Darwin argued that human beings were part of the animal kingdom, and he was cruelly mocked. The idea that humans can't change our planet is as out-of-date and wrong as the Earth-centered universe and the separate creation of Man, but all three ideas have such appeal that they will fade away only very slowly."

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$43 million tax break approved for Ark Encounter theme park

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Lexington Herald-Leader - By Beth Musgrave - May. 19 (News Report) - A controversial biblical-themed amusement park received approval Thursday for up to $43 million in Kentucky tax incentives over a 10-year period. The Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority, which oversees tax credits for tourism and film-related projects, unanimously approved the tax credit for the Arc Encounter project, which is scheduled to break ground in August outside Williamstown in Grant County.

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Doomsdayers put faith in Apocalypse now redu

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Australian Broadcasting - By Cassie White - May. 19 (News Report) - If you have seen the billboards while driving to work, then you will know tomorrow is Judgment Day - well, that's according to US evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping.

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Texas GOP Fights Catastrophic Wildfires With Prayer and Global Warming Denial

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Bill McKibben - Apr. 28 (News Report) - Praying for rain will be little help while Texas politicians work to deny global warming and prevent the changes that might actually deal with their troubles.

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Louisiana Student Gears Up For Attack On State’s Anti-Science Law

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AU.org - Apr. 04 (News Report) - A Louisiana law designed to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools is under attack from someone who knows best why it’s dangerous: a high school student.

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Texas Bill Would Outlaw Discrimination Against Creationists | Mother Jones

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Josh Harkinson - Mar. 17 (News Report) - Last week, Republican State Rep. Bill Zedler introduced HB 2454, a bill that would establish new workplace protections for proponents of intelligent design.

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Judge Blocks Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Aug. 24 (News Report) - A federal judge has blocked President Obama's executive order restoring funding for embryonic stem cell research. On Monday, US District Judge Royce Lamberth said the funding violates a 1996 law prohibiting federal money for any research that destroys or threatens human embryos. Obama's order had overturned a move by his predecessor George W. Bush to further restrict stem cell funding.

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Christians Reexamine Morality of Birth Control, Christian Marriage

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

crosswalk.com - Aug. 01 (Other) -

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The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

skepticalscience.com - By Graham Wayne - Jul. 18 (Investigative Report) - I’ve always thought it rather specious to demand conclusive causative evidence that anthropogenic CO2 causes climate change. Skeptical Science has frequently demonstrated how good a case science can make for anthropogenic climate change (ACC), including a round-up of multiple lines of empirical evidence.

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Kurtz launches venture to explore morality, values in secular society

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Buffalo News - By Jay Tokasz - Jul. 10 (Special Report) - Paul Kurtz, who clashed with the new leadership of organizations he founded for skeptics and humanists worldwide, has separated from those groups to start a venture that will publish a magazine and focus on research into human values. The University at Buffalo philosophy professor emeritus has attracted dozens of intellectuals to assist with his new nonprofit organization, the Institute for Science and Human Values. Kurtz, 84, built a reputation around the world as a leader among skeptics and humanists, while promoting science and reason as guideposts for moral living. He resigned in May from the boards of the Center for Inquiry, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism — all organizations he founded in Amherst. He also stepped down as editor in chief of Free Inquiry, the magazine he started in 1980.

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Louisiana Oil Spill Day Of Prayer: Bobby Jindal Orders June 27 As Day For Religious Perseverance

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Elyse Siegel - Jun. 25 (News Report) - On Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) issued an order designating June 27 a "Statewide Day of Prayer" for perseverance through the BP oil spill that continues to devastate the country's Gulf Coast region.

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Mr. Freshwater’s Classroom Crusade

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

AU.org - By Rob Boston - Mar. 01 (Special Report) - Jenifer Dennis remembers the shock she felt when she looked at her son Zachary’s arm one night in December of 2007. A section of the 13-year-old’s arm was covered with welts and blisters in the shape of a cross. “I compare it to a sunburn, curling iron burn or an oven burn,” Dennis said. “It was a red raised area that was swollen…. He had trouble sleeping that night.” When Dennis found out how her son was injured, her shock turned to anger: Zachary told his parents he had been burned at school by John Freshwater, an 8th grade science teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

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Swedish group renames hymen 'vaginal corona' -

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

thelocal.se - Dec. 08 (News Report) - A Swedish sexual rights group unilaterally proclaimed a new English term for what it considers one of the most misunderstood parts of the female anatomy. “The mythical status of the hymen has caused far too much harm for far too long,” the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) said in a statement. “The new term in English is vaginal corona.”

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Study spoiled by scarcity of 'porn virgins'

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

montrealgazette.com - By Charlie Fidelman - Dec. 05 (News Report) - A Montreal researcher's study of the impact of pornography on men is making headlines around the world.

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God, the Army, and PTSD

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Review - By Tara McKelvey - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

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Scientists in a flap over dinosaur nesting

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

bozemandailychronicle.com - By Gail Schontzler - Aug. 11 (News Report) - The science of the living and the science of the dead clashed Monday at a Museum of the Rockies symposium on dinosaur nesting and whether the creatures brooded on their nests like gigantic chickens. It was all very civilized, but it was hard not to miss a few feathers flying.

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The Healing Power Of Prayer?

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - Jun. 21 (News Report) - Health and religion have always been intertwined, most obviously through prayer on behalf of the sick. Does intercessory prayer for sick people actually help heal them? For thousands of years some people have believed so. But new Brandeis University research in the Journal of Religion this month shows that over the last four decades, medical studies of intercessory prayer—the prayer of strangers at a distance—actually say more about the scientists conducting the studies than about the power of prayer to heal.

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Report: Violence common among Scientology managers

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

seattlepi.com - Jun. 21 (News Report) - The leader of the Church of Scientology struck his subordinates numerous times and set an example for physical violence among the tightly controlled religion's management team, four former high-ranking executives told a newspaper for a story published Sunday.

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Brains of Steele

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Chip Giller - Mar. 16 (News Report) - OMG. RNC Chair Michael Steele (i.e., the titular head of the GOP) says that global warming is really "global cooling." Sam Stein at HuffPost excavates Steele's thoughts on global warming from his little-noticed stint as guest host of a conservative talk radio show on March 6:

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The Wholesale Sedation of America’s Youth

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

csicop.org - By Andrew M. Weiss - Feb. 20 (Investigative Report) - In the winter of 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a study indicating that 200,000 two- to four-year-olds had been prescribed Ritalin for an “attention disorder” from 1991 to 1995. Judging by the response, the image of hundreds of thousands of mothers grinding up stimulants to put into the sippy cups of their preschoolers was apparently not a pretty one. Most national magazines and newspapers covered the story; some even expressed dismay or outrage at this exacerbation of what already seemed like a juggernaut of hyper-medicalizing childhood. The public reaction, however, was tame; the medical community, after a moment’s pause, continued unfazed. Today, the total toddler count is well past one million, and influential psychiatrists have insisted that mental health prescriptions are appropriate for children as young as twelve months. For the pharmaceutical companies, this is progress. In 1995, 2,357,833 children were diagnosed with ADHD (Woodwell 1997)—twice the number diagnosed in 1990. By 1999, 3.4 percent of all American children had received a stimulant prescription for an attention disorder. Today, that number is closer to ten percent. Stimulants aren’t the only drugs being given out like candy to our children. A variety of other psychotropics like antidepressants, antipsychotics, and sedatives are finding their way into babies’ medicine cabinets in large numbers. In fact, the worldwide market for these drugs is growing at a rate of ten percent a year, $20.7 billion in sales of antipsychotics alone (for 2007, IMSHealth 2008).

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Abstinence-Only Clowns?! Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Amanda Terkel - Jan. 16 (Special Report) - Thanks to George W. Bush and a complicit Congress, we currently spend $1.5 billion a year to fund abstinence-only until marriage sex education in our public schools. And yes, that money goes to people like Derek Dye, as he is employed by the Elizabeth New Life Center that received a $800,000 CBAE grant in 2007 to promote abstinence until marriage.

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The Top Ten Power Brokers of the Religious Right

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Rob Boston - Nov. 10 (Investigative Report) - "The Religious Right is not dead," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "AU's new survey of its funding and power should help dispel the myth that the Religious Right is on the ropes. Forces determined to merge government with their narrow version of religion are alive and kicking, and it behooves us all to understand their goals and tactics."

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Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - Oct. 26 (News Report) - Those who worship a higher power often do so in different ways. Whether they are active in their religious community, or prefer to simply pray or meditate, new research out of Temple University suggests that a person's religiousness – also called religiosity – can offer insight into their risk for depression.

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