Tag: science

Here’s how Christian fundamentalism is turning people away from religion — and toward science

AlterNet logoChristianity is on the way out, according to surveys Americans who identify as Christian have dropped by 12 percent in the last decade, and those who identify as having no religion have increased 9 percent.

The Daily Beast cited multiple researchers who have examined the evolution of religion and the turn toward science. Christian fundamentalism is adding to the problem as some sects devolve back to the 1600s when science and religion were mutually exclusive.

“Those who have remained faithful are more fundamentalist than ever,” said the Beast. “Moderate Protestantism has declined, while conservative evangelical religion has increased as a percentage of America’s religious, with immediate political consequences: Donald Trump would not be president had conservative evangelicals and Catholics not rallied to his side, despite his many personal transgressions and evident lack of faith.” Continue reading

The Government Just Stomped on Science—Right When We Needed It Most

The following article by Tanya Basu was posted on the Daily Beast website November 19, 2017:

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH BROCKWAY/THE DAILY BEAST

Emily Slonecker is a second year PhD student student at the University of California, Irvine studying developmental cognitive research. She currently earns about $19,000 per year after taxes. The new tax plan, however, would drop her income from her work at the lab to about $16,000 a year in one of the most expensive places to live in America, or about $1300 a month. With her fixed monthly expenses ringing in at $1680, however, Slonecker is nowhere close to making the money she needs to live—and that doesn’t even begin to cover the loans she’s accumulated from her undergraduate years. “But that’s a whole other can of worms,” she brushed off. “If this thing passes and the school is unable to find a loophole, I will have to walk away from the path I have dreamed about my entire life, as will many students. I don’t know anyone who can survive on a negative net income for six years.”

Slonecker’s dire situation worries of her living costs might be the classic story of the poor graduate student: making ends meet with a patchwork of teaching jobs, grants, and, most importantly, scholarships waiving tuition that make spending long hours in the lab a fair tradeoff. Continue reading “The Government Just Stomped on Science—Right When We Needed It Most”