"...too many dingbats think that somehow the theory of evolution is a fact."

I find it ironic that religion-hating, professional neo-atheist Richard Dawkins was interested in buying the letter; Einstein was, of course, also critical of "professional atheists" and "fanatical atheists":

I would say it's the product of government paternalism. In America, it's something which, unfortunately, afflicts *both* establishment liberalism and conservatism.

No, we are not our government. In a republic, the people are represented by those in government. But the people and the government are not one and the same. Thus ends this civics lesson.

Agreed. He who pays the piper calls the tune — whether it's government or corporate agendas.

All of that's well and good. But I consider Eisenhower to be the TRUE pro-science president, for warning against the increasing centralization of scientific research in the federal government, which ultimately has a corrupting influence on science:

Oh yeah, utilitarianism. Good gold standard there. As long as you're not the healthy patient whose organs are being involuntarily harvested to save two other patients.

So you decide what technology should and shouldn't be used based on what "religious nuts" say about it, or what controversy they will "turn it into"? Even if it means that people's lives could be saved by said technology?

Here, I'll go ahead and post it, since I know I'm not the only one who thought it. (Serge from Caprica.)

I'm currently reading Gene Healy's "The Cult of the Presidency." So these pictures are a special kind of terrifying for me right now.

So... your prescription for jumpstarting innovation is to create tyranny.

You want to jumpstart American innovation? Instead of figuring out new and creative ways for government and big business to "collaborate," do something about this:

You are, of course, completely correct. Every political movement will have its reactionaries and tribalists who dismiss the concerns of "the other side." Here's a good balanced article discussing that issue:

"I don't really think of it as post-apoclayptic. The whole apocalypse thing, to me, is sort of secondary. It's really just about the loss of everything we know. It's not the end of the world, it's just the loss of everything we know, and trying to reconnect from there." —Billy Burke

"... at the center of it, there's a man with terrible crimes in his past, who gets blown up at the end. But we don't see a body. I couldn't help wondering if both Solomon and Jex survived, and if we'll see them both again."

No, not quite. Let's put it philosophically. Atheism is the belief that the proposition "God exists" is false.

Stop trying to ruin people's fun. It's much simpler, and more self-gratifying, to merely look at a small percentage of people's stupid comments on some internet ad and deduce: "OMG RELGIOUS PEOPLE ARE SO DUMB!!!"

I wouldn't worry about it. Sam Harris rejects the existence of free will. Therefore, there can be no moral responsibility for any of our actions. So even if Harris could find the foundations of morality in science (which he can't and will never be able to) there are no binding moral duties, because, for Harris, free…

Firstly, as someone else noted, I think, the headline distorts what the Dalai Lama said. He said that "grounding ethics in religion in no longer adequate" (which, ironically, is something that a lot of believers wouldn't disagree with, like Catholics and Orthodox Christians who argue ethics not from scripture but from…

Charlie, I'm amazed that not once in this post do you talk about the one "frontier" that America constantly invests in: the military-industrial complex. Just take a tour of Wired's Danger Room blog for a day to see all the new and creative taxpayer-funded weapons we'll be deploying in some third-world country in the…