By Dr. Robert Thorson Throughout the world, the forces of religious fundamentalism are challenging the forces of secular democracy. In the Middle East, the conflict boils into civil war. In the United States, the conflict merely simmers beneath recent Supreme Court rulings involving abortion and contraception making headline news. Consider the latest Gallup poll on […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The Broadwater Energy corporation wants to build an enormous floating liquefied natural gas terminal in the middle of eastern Long Island Sound. Most of the gas will be used to generate electricity, mostly for the New York metropolitan area. Residents and regulators are hotly divided on this issue. I’m not. It’s […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson I may be one of the few people left on Planet Earth who shudders slightly whenever they hear the phrase “global warming.” Its mention triggers a flood of inconvenient thoughts that must be allowed to subside before I can proceed with logical thinking. Paraphrasing Elizabeth Barrett Browning: How do I misunderstand […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson America should change its national anthem from the “Star Spangled Banner” to the equally familiar “America the Beautiful”; especially its first verse. I realize that this will take some getting used to. But times have changed. The glorification of war — of “rockets’ red glare,” and “bombs bursting in air” — […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Take a deep breath. That’s oxygen going in. Now exhale. That’s carbon dioxide going out. Did you just pollute the atmosphere? I don’t think so, unless you have halitosis. Yet attorneys from 12 Northeastern states and several environmental organizations are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency to classify CO[subscript 2] — […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson When I was a kid in the late 1950s, I remember being riveted by the case of Piltdown man, “one of the most famous scientific frauds in history.” Though the hoax is a century old, it remains an excellent “cautionary tale to scientists not to see what they want to see.” […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson On Feb. 8 the Kansas State Board of Education tossed out a science curriculum that questioned the basic tenets of evolution. It affirmed that students were free to learn the truth: that the birds and bees and flowers and trees evolved from earlier forms via natural selection, and that human beings […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Looking for that perfect holiday gift? I recommend a fairly new book, “Merchants of Doubt,” by the historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Its pages expose and dissect members of a remarkably successful covert profession: professional deniers. These specialists are similar to courtroom expert witnesses, being properly credentialed, […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson In what is being hailed as one of the most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Nature writer Rachel Carson would have been pleased and amused. The major legal hurdle in the court’s 5-4 decision […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Look carefully at the head of any U.S. nickel. The graven image of Thomas Jefferson is being forced to stare at the words “In God We Trust.” If Jefferson were with us today and able to inscribe his own coin, I think he would prefer “In Nature We Trust.” This would […]