NEWS AND EVENTS
Farewell to Kevin Brown: On December 31, 2024, a gentle heart and a brilliant mind departed from our world after a courageous battle with cancer. A celebration of life is being held (in Ottawa), 11:00 am, Saturday February 22.
Ottawa Skeptics in the Pub (February 4): Tired of listening to people making unlikely claims or promoting outlandish theories? Come out and meet friendly skeptics, atheists, humanists, and freethinkers at Skeptics in the Pub.
March 9: Hold the date for CFIC’s Annual General Meeting: CFIC will hold our Annual General Meeting on March 9, 2025, at 3:00 pm EDT. (Note that where jurisdictions adopt daylight savings time, it begins on March 9.)
Podcast for Inquiry Recent Episodes:
- Gaia Vince identifies the four horsemen of the Anthropocene
- Canada has not reconciled with its Indigenous peoples, say Maureen Bulbrook and Christina Ninham
- Paco Calvo considers the possibility of plant intelligence
- Heresy: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God, with Catherine Nixey
SCIENCE
QuickLinks: AGW, bird flu and COVID, research, animal behaviour
SECULARISM/HUMAN RIGHTS
Contribute to a More Secular Canada: Change takes time, but it does happen.
We Have Ways of Making You Pray: Religious coercion remains a fact of life in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Loss of Religion in Canada: Canadian society has been in a rapid transition into a secular state.
House of Commons Recommends Ending Religious Privilege: Looking forward to the end of religiously privileged tax exemptions for charities whose primary purpose is proselytizing.
Human Rights News Updates: Update on Omer and other news from CFIC’s Human Rights Chair. Read more.
Importing Political Toxicity: Growing numbers of Canadians appear vulnerable to the sentiments that now define political division in the U.S. Read more.
QuickLinks: Outspoken atheists killed in Sweden and still under threat in Nigeria; child marriage in Iraq; Nazi monuments in Canada
CRITICAL THINKING
Keith’s Conundrums: And now? Commentary from last month. Also, a consideration about the semantics and epistemology of “and.”
QuickLinks: Peter Principle endures, zombie facts, research credibility, psychics, “wellness”
February Dates of Interest: Charles Darwin’s 216th birthday, Freedom to Read Month, Black History Month, Psychology Month, and Social Justice Day.
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