by Quinn O'Neill There’s been a lot of talk about reforming American K-12 science education and it’s getting difficult to take it seriously. Educators, scientists, and politicians have been sounding alarm bells over the state of American science education for decades. In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education revealed the US to be…

by Quinn O'Neill For parents wishing to introduce their children to a scientific worldview, two new books may make the job a bit easier. Daniel Loxton’s book “Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be” recently won the 2010 Lane Anderson Award in the young reader category. It was also a finalist for…

by Quinn O'Neill Eager hands caressed the small of her back, made their way over the crest of her buttocks, and temporarily cupped them like a pair of cantaloupes. Sadly, this isn’t an excerpt from a cheesy Harlequin romance, it’s airport security in 2011. The buttocks were mine and I didn’t enjoy the experience at…

by Quinn O'Neill In a recent article for Big Think, David Ropeik argues that the risk posed by unvaccinated people is sufficient to justify coercing them into vaccinating. Measles is a potentially deadly disease and outbreaks are occurring due to declining vaccination rates, he reasons. “What does society do when one person’s behavior puts the…

by Quinn O'Neill The latest battle in the long standing war between evolution and creationism was lost in Louisiana last week. 17-year-old Zack Kopplin spearheaded a valiant effort to repeal Louisiana’s Science Education Act, an Act that opens the door to the teaching of Creationism in science classrooms. Tragically, the bill was shelved and the…

by Quinn O'Neill As an atheist, I sometimes get asked if I’m afraid of what'll happen when I die. Naturally, I'm not afraid of going to Hell or any other supernatural place and I'm not afraid of being dead, but admittedly, there is something that scares me. I'm afraid that I could someday exist in…

by Quinn O'Neill Science and technology play increasingly important roles in our lives. Advances in medicine, transportation, and communications have made life a lot easier but at the same time contribute to new problems like pollution, habitat loss, and dwindling resources. Our best chances for overcoming these problems may also lie in science and in…

The year is 3010 and an interesting new species has evolved: a muscular, knuckle-walking primate with sparse body hair and a strikingly human face. It appears to be deformed, with extra non-functional limbs in various anatomical positions–like something out of a sci-fi horror story or a genetic engineering experiment gone wrong. The creatures are vicious.…

Aesthetic experience affects the senses, emotions, and intellect. It’s often associated with works of art, like paintings, dance, or music. Such experience is unique and personal; it depends not just on the artwork itself, but on the meaning that we attach to it and the feeling that this generates. Van Gogh’s painting, Starlight over Rhone,…

Recently, my mother came to visit for a week. She bought some butter while she was here, since I didn’t have any. I don’t normally eat butter, but I do now. In fact, I’ve been eating it at every meal and putting it on everything I eat. I’d forgotten just how delicious it is. I…

In my last essay “A Rational Approach to Irrationality,” I argued that not all forms of religious criticism are equally effective. Judging from the comments and blog articles posted in response, I seem to have hit a nerve. The respected evolutionary biologist and blogger Jerry Coyne took me to task in his article, “Should religion…

Intense battles are being waged over religion and its rightful place in society. There are debates over evolution and creationism, conflicts over the teaching of evolution in schools, and disagreement on matters of religious accommodation. People are passionate about their positions and the debates often get nasty. However, I think that the respective sides have…

Marriage can mean many different things to different people. For some, it’s all about the wedding – often an event with the pomp and opulence of a fairy tale ball. For others, it’s about the legal arrangement and the accompanying benefits, which could mean anything from health insurance to citizenship. Still for others, the most…

A mysterious, white-haired man casts a cautious glance over his shoulder and steps onto a train. Like a man on the lam, he has no fixed address and lives out of the rucksack that he carries. The man could be a character in a Hollywood film, maybe one of the Bourne series, but he isn’t.…

by Quinn O'Neill Climate change, pollution, and dwindling natural resources are growing concerns. “Green” products are widely popular and discussion of environmental issues is constant in the media. Increasingly, people are recycling and reusing, and thinking twice when they reach for plastic bags. Despite increased public awareness of environmental problems, the role of livestock is…

We humans have serious problems. Thousands of us starve to death every day, the planet is becoming progressively less habitable, and we're killing each other on a regular basis. Our way of life is detrimental to our well-being, and current trends don't bode well for posterity. It's time for change. I propose the following three-part…

How would you choose to die if you could choose your own death? This isn’t a question that gets asked very often, but it’s an interesting and important one to consider. It’s probably safe to say that most of us would choose to die without suffering, at the end of a long life. To some…

by Quinn O'Neill As the swine flu fiasco fades into the past, many people are breathing a sigh of relief; some because they were worried about getting sick, and some because they were sick of hearing about it. Since it all began, I’ve spent innumerable hours reading about the virus and vaccine. I read the…