Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Welcome to Monday, August 22, 2022: National Pecan Torte Day. Warning: my insomnia is worse than ever, and if you get any value from this battered brain today, you’ll be lucky. It’s also National Bao Day (steamed dumplings), World Plant Milk Day, Take Your Cat to the Vet Day (they’re probably not open on Sunday), … Continue reading Monday: Hili dialogue
Good morning at the end of the work week, a term that barely has meaning any more. It’s Friday, July 3, 2020, National Chocolate Wafer Day. It’s a holiday for most Americans, or at least a day off, because Independence Day, tomorrow, falls on a Saturday. It’s also National Eat Beans Day, National Fried Clam … Continue reading Friday: Hili dialogue
Yesterday I decided I was going to write about the psychological toll of the lockdown, at least on me, and then Andrew Sullivan beat me to the punch in his Friday New York Magazine column (h/t Simon; click on the screenshot to read it). It’s his usual tripartite Friday production, this week discussing his increasing … Continue reading The psychological toll of the lockdown
I’m gonna gripe about modern rock music again and contrast it with the music produced between the early Sixties and mid-Seventies, which I consider the apotheosis of rock—just as I see the apotheosis of jazz lasting from the mid-Thirties to the early Sixties, ending with Coltrane. Since their apogees, both genres have gone downhill. And … Continue reading Why great rock—and its performers—are doomed
It’s supposedly my day off, though with the weather being Arctic, there’s not much to do outside—or even a reason to go outside. But I’ve read a few things that I’ll recommend if you too are housebound today. First, a good column—especially the first part—from Andrew Sullivan in New York Magazine (h/t Simon). It’s worth keeping … Continue reading Weekend reading
Damon Linker, author and senior correspondent at The Week, is also a Catholic, which, it would seem, makes him less than objective as a reviewer of Christopher Hitchens’s new book of essays, And Yet . . . . Linker has also criticized New Atheists on several occasions, chastising us for not being sufficiently lugubrious (you know the … Continue reading Damon Linker reviews Hitchens’s new book of essays in the NYT
I’ve criticized Damon Linker’s atheist-bashing before (see here), but in today’s New York Times he shows that he’s an equal-opportunity basher. In the Sunday Book Review, Linker evaluates, favorably, a new book by investigative reporter Gerald Posner, God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican. Posner’s book, which came out Feb. 3, is doing … Continue reading “God’s Bankers”: a new book exposing the corruption of the Vatican bank
I’m giving the good news to you first, as there’s bad news immediately to come. A Pew Survey released today, which polled more than 35,000 adults, shows that the proportion of Christians in America is dropping sharply, while the “unaffiliated” are taking their place. As the report notes, The Christian share of the U.S. population is … Continue reading The good news: big attrition of Christians in the U.S., atheists and agnostics increasing
