Science and Culture

Science and Culture Today (SCT) provides original reporting and analysis about evolution, neuroscience, bioethics, intelligent design and other science-related fields, including breaking news about scientific research. It also covers the impact of science on culture and conflicts over free speech and academic freedom in science. Finally, it fact-checks and critiques media coverage of scientific issues.

Archives

Stephen Hawking’s Party for Time Travelers? No One Came

_{Science & Culture
November 11, 2026}

Shortly before his retirement, Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) held a party for time travelers, with the usual trappings, except for one thing.

Robert J. Marks Asks: Where Is Heaven?

_{Science & Culture
November 8, 2026}

The talk considers multiple dimensions from mathematical and theological angles to ask whether Heaven might exist in dimensions beyond the ones we can perceive.

C. W. Howell Scrubs Fabricated Behe Quote from Dissertation Without Coming Clean

_{Science & Culture
October 22, 2026}

The ethical thing would have been to apologize and admit the seriousness of his mistake. His smoking gun, after all, wasn’t just a dud. It was imaginary.

Choose Your Own Doomsday: Select from These Alarming Options, Scientists Say

_{Science & Culture
October 18, 2026}

In one scenario based on a sci-fi movie, something called "The Shimmer is interfering with the fundamental patterns of life, redefining evolutionary code."

Improved Social Science? Don’t Laugh, It Could Happen

_{Science & Culture
October 13, 2026}

The theme is not unfamiliar: neither the falsehood nor the reasons for it are news. But three efforts at reform are worth knowing about.

With Our Exceptional Place in Nature, Human Reason Is Much More than Machine “Reason”

_{Science & Culture
October 13, 2026}

Skeptical Hume held that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,” and can “never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

Beware of These Two Sources of Bad Medical Advice

_{Science & Culture
September 30, 2026}

The bots are more likely to accept planted nonsense if it appears in clinical documents — not unlike some people we know, to be honest.

Remarkable Engineering and the “Two Brains” Myth

_{Science & Culture
September 28, 2026}

Did two brains evolve into one? This is not a left brain/right brain thing. It is more like claims for a reptilian brain underlying our mammalian one.

How Best to Appreciate Paleolithic Cave Art

_{Science & Culture
September 19, 2026}

Of course, the experience wouldn’t be really complete without simulating the threat of a cave bear trapping the artists.

AI Hysteria: Take a Deep Breath and Ask, “Who Benefits from Apocalyptic Claims?”

_{Science & Culture
September 11, 2026}

Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit and posted at X last Tuesday, to over 25 million views, that “No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

For Labor Day: Alfred Russel Wallace, Scientist and Working Man

_{Science & Culture
September 7, 2026}

Unlike Darwin, Wallace grew up among the middle class and had to work for a living. This dictated the contours of his life and research.

That Was Fast: From Life’s Origin to Cyanobacteria in a Billion Years

_{Science & Culture
September 5, 2026}

That’s now just 1 billion years for all the apparatus to hit on the lucky combination randomly, unless we start with design principles.

NYU Press Pulls Anti-ID Book with Fabricated Quote from Michael Behe

_{Science & Culture
August 25, 2026}

“What happened is deeply ironic. This book was touted by the publisher as showing how ID's skepticism of Darwinism contributed to a ‘post-truth’ society."

Study of Biological Origins Is Entering a Surreal State

_{Science & Culture
August 14, 2026}

No biological history and no biological beginning: are you seeing the trend? Both seem to be responses to being battered by the evidence.

Common Descent on the Road to Incomprehension

_{Science & Culture
August 13, 2026}

In 2025, Haber proposed that there JUST IS NO “true history of life.” Don’t look for it, as if one could actually find it, because it doesn’t exist.

Testing Phylogenetic Hypotheses: A Question for You

_{Science & Culture
August 12, 2026}

You can read this proposition a dozen times over and still be unable to say what it disallows in phylogenetic inference.

This Is Your Brain Under Anesthesia

_{Science & Culture
August 12, 2026}

Even with lighter anesthesia, the stuff of nightmares is unlikely. Your mind is still there, just not taking calls.

Intelligent Design’s Summer Reading Sale — 40 Percent Discount While It Lasts!

_{Science & Culture
August 4, 2026}

You’re heading to that beach vacation. Or maybe like us in Washington State, you’re sneezing and coughing from the sunbaked wildfire smoke.

Hey Octopus, How Did You Get to Be So Smart?

_{Science & Culture
July 23, 2026}

With the asocial brain hypothesis, researchers ask us to think beyond traditional explanations for why some animals display unexpected intelligence.

When Orcas Play — With a Dead Sunfish

_{Science & Culture
July 23, 2026}

While the orcas’ sunfish-exploding behavior is remarkable, it is consistent, after all, with their reputation as the “wolves of the sea.”