25 Blasphemous Quotations  By Atheist Ireland | Published: January 2, 2010

God: theism or atheism?

• The brownnoser
• The polymath
• The pulseless
  
• The diverter
  
• The pariah
• The defiant
  
• The unprepared

The future success of online teaching and learning depends on developing course design and pedagogical models that serve the interests of both students and faculty. Participants in the Engaging Ideas Workshop adopt a common set of content, design and pedagogical principles in their online courses and to work together as a professional community to improve this model through experimentation, research and collaborative discussion.  Participation in this workshop is voluntary and alternative course models outside of this workshop are encouraged. 

Love in the Time of Darwinism  Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Autumn 2008

Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood's milestones--high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers--happily--in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early twenty-first century what adolescence was to the early twentieth: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import...

Playboy's philosophy may not have been Aristotle, but it was an attempt, of sorts, to define the good life. The Maxim reader prefers lists, which make up in brevity what they lose in thought: "Ten Greatest Video Game Heroes of All Time," "The Five Unsexiest Women Alive," "Sixteen People Who Look Like They Absolutely Reek," and so on.

Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? --Science News

Human free will might seem like the squishiest of philosophical subjects, way beyond the realm of mathematical demonstration. But two highly regarded Princeton mathematicians, John Conway and Simon Kochen, claim to have proven that if humans have even the tiniest amount of free will, then atoms themselves must also behave unpredictably.

Infant Transplant Procedure Ignites Debate
Ethicists Question Strategy in Which Hearts Are Removed Minutes After They Stop Beating
By Rob Stein -Washington Post

Surgeons in Denver are publishing their first account of a procedure in which they remove the hearts of severely brain-damaged newborns less than two minutes after the babies are disconnected from life support, and their hearts stop beating, so the organs can be transplanted into infants who would otherwise die.

The Boundaries of Organ Donation after Circulatory Death
The New England Journal of Medicine

In the August 14, 2008 issue of the Journal, Boucek et al. report on three cases of heart transplantation from infants who were pronounced dead on the basis of cardiac criteria. Moderator Atul Gawande, of Harvard Medical School; George Annas, of the Boston University School of Public Health; Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania; and Robert Truog, of Harvard Medical School discuss key ethical aspects of organ donation after cardiac death.

Perspective Roundtable: Organ Donation after Cardiac Death (Flash Video)
1. Introduction
2. Criteria for Death
3. Dying vs. Dead
4. Rethinking the Dead Donor Rule
5. Public Trust
6. Consent and Prognosis
7. Conclusions

Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - NYTimes.com

Children like Nadia lie at the heart of a passionate debate about just what it means to read in the digital age. The discussion is playing out among educational policy makers and reading experts around the world, and within groups like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association.

As teenagers' scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading -- diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

Seven reasons why people hate reason - opinion - 14 July 2008 - New Scientist

From religious fundamentalism to pseudoscience, it seems that forces are attacking the Enlightenment world view - characterised by rational, scientific thinking - from all sides. The debate seems black and white: you're either with reason, or you're against it. But is it so simple? In a series of special essays, our contributors look more carefully at some of the most provocative charges against reason. The results suggest that for all the Enlightenment has achieved, we still have a lot of work to do.

For Marriage, the Honeymoon's Over - ChronicleReview.com

If professional philosophers did their jobs, analyzed concrete philosophical problems, and won media attention for their conclusions, we wouldn't be sentenced to the cable simplicities of right-wing marriage pundits, or the often ahistorical rights-focused arguments of same-sex-marriage champions. We'd be forced to think hard about what marriage has been, is, and should be, before deciding to whom we're willing to sell tickets.

Toward a Type 1 civilization By Michael Shermer -LA Times
Along with energy policy, political and economic systems must also evolve.

Our civilization is fast approaching a tipping point. Humans will need to make the transition from nonrenewable fossil fuels as the primary source of our energy to renewable energy sources that will allow us to flourish into the future. Failure to make that transformation will doom us to the endless political machinations and economic conflicts that have plagued civilization for the last half-millennium.

We need new technologies to be sure, but without evolved political and economic systems, we cannot become what we must. And what is that? A Type 1 civilization. Let me explain.