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On the day the iPad was launched, Apple sold over 300,000 of the tablet computers. Since then, over 3 million iPads have been sold. Our society is infatuated with technology, and this affects us in ways both obvious and subtle. Here I want to examine how our adoration of technology influences the way we think about science, and in turn how we see our whole world. I should note that I write this as a scientist, and someone with a long-time interest in, and fascination with technology. Because the words science and technology are often paired, their meanings tend to be conflated. But science can be pursued with few technological spin-offs (as is the case with astrophysics, for example) and technology can be developed without the use of science (as was the case with the early technologies developed by trial and error in prehistory). Certainly scientific discoveries can often be used to develop new technologies, and existing technologies can be evaluated scientifically. But science itself...

I just finished reading Chris Hedges' 2008 book, I Don't Believe in Atheists . The image on the left is from a YouTube video of an interview Hedges gave on CBC's The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos, which gives a pretty good overview his argument. One side point: while the book is a great read, its title is oddly misleading, so pay that no heed. Hedges argues that both poles of the debate about reason and religion are occupied by fundamentalists, but at one end they are religious while at the other they are atheist. He argues persuasively, but I have some doubts ... Thesis Hedges, a distinguished foreign correspondent for various newspapers including the New York Times, wrote the book after debates he had in May 2007 with Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith ) and Christopher Hitchens (author of God is Not Great ). Hedges terms these two writers "New Atheists" along with Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. But what particularly distinguishes Harris and Hitch...