Your humanist community for scientific, skeptical, secular, and rational inquiry
By Seanna Watson Twenty years ago, we were on the cusp of a new millennium. (Yes, I know that there are pedants who assert that the actual start of this millennium was January 1st, 2001, since there was no year “zero.” But I think most people were on the side of the “odometerists.” What they…
By Sandra Dunham I have enjoyed the dramatic sound of this term since I first heard it studying undergraduate economics in the 1980s. Throughout the ensuing 30+ years, I have seen this tragedy play out many times and I am currently witnessing it firsthand with CFIC. The tragedy of the commons is a concept that was popularized…
A donkey comes to two bales of hay, equally far from him and equal in size, quality, etc. He does not know how to decide between the two bundles of enticing food, and starves to death while vacillating endlessly between the two options. What should the donkey have done? Fields to think about: decision theory,…
Read More “Buridan’s Ass, or How to be Rational by Being Arbitrary” »
by Christjahn Beck Hi, my name is Christjahn Beck and I’m an alcoholic. This very familiar greeting formula is the way that I introduced myself to rooms full of strangers for a short time in my life. I am also a recent transplant from the United States to Canada, the child of two ministers, and…
Read More “Sobriety, Addiction Treatment, and Secular Exclusion” »
By Diane Bruce Gender dysphoria, also known by the terms gender incongruence and transgenderism , is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its International Classification of Disease as “a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex.” In North America, the term gender dysphoria is more common, and is used in the latest version of the…