Robert A. Delfino (St. John's): Science and the Inescapability of Metaphysics. From New Scientist, seven theories of everything: We still don't have a theory that describes the fundamental nature of the universe, but there are plenty of candidates; and is our universe just one of many? The idea divides physicists, but now one researcher has found the first hint that the multiverse really exists. Is the universe rational? The deep law that shapes our reality: Quarks to card games, traffic to economics — does the success of random matrix theory hint at a deep pattern in nature underlying all these, and more? Odds are, it's wrong: Tom Siegfried on how science fails to face the shortcomings of statistics. Dan M. Kahan (Yale), Hank Jenkins-Smith (Oklahoma), and Donald Braman (GWU): Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus. Some aspects of science defy the mind's ability to understand — what kind of meaning can we give them? "The universe is perfectly set up for life" is a terrible justification for God's existence. A review of Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion by Francisco Ayala (winner of the 2010 Templeton Prize). Michael Ruse on a scientific defense of the Templeton Foundation. Ronald Aronson on the false choice between god and science. Massimo Pigliucci examines the alleged parallels that religious scholar, Huston Smith, draws between science and religion. Pocket protectors and politics: Is (Stephen Jay Gould’s) science political? From TED, Sam Harris on how science can answer moral questions (and three responses and a reply). An interview with David Goodstein, author of On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (and more). A review of The Making of Modern Science: Science, Technology, Medicine and Modernity: 1789-1914 by David Knight.
