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center4inquiry.bsky.social
Center for Inquiry
@center4inquiry.bsky.social
We're working to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. www.centerforinquiry.org
NY is doing what the IRS refuses to do: enforce the wall between church + state.

A.9067 says if houses of worship want to campaign for candidates, they lose tax-exempt status.

New Yorkers, please push your Assembly members to pass this: https://ow.ly/vjrA50Xo7MY
November 7, 2025 at 12:01 PM
The Constitution’s architecture assumes ambition would counteract ambition. Today, we’re watching a branch of government surrender on purpose.

Free Inquiry digs into what that collapse looks like in real time: https://secularhumanism.org/exclusive/no-checks-or-balances/
November 6, 2025 at 11:01 PM
The fiction in #StrangerThings isn’t even the wild part. The 80s were. We funded psychics spying on foreign governments. We ruined lives over Satanic Panic conspiracies.

Skeptical Inquirer on how the show mirrors the era + what it warns us about now: https://ow.ly/xRCg50Xo6U3
How Stranger Things Mirrors Real-World Paranormal Stories | Skeptical Inquirer
Since its premiere in 2016, Stranger Things has become a pop culture phenomenon. Set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, during the 1980s, the show c ...
ow.ly
November 6, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Nightline featured our own Kenny Biddle, CSI last night in a segment on near-death experiences.

While 72% of Americans say they believe these are glimpses of the afterlife, Kenny cuts through with a biological explanation.

Skepticism never dies! Happy Halloween, folks 👻
October 31, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Churches shouldn’t get tax breaks to campaign.

CFI supports A. 9067, a bill to keep houses of worship out of partisan politics and protect the wall between church and state.

New Yorkers, tell your Assembly member to pass it: https://centerforinquiry.org/alerts/new-york-help-pass-a9067/
October 30, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Back to Buffalo. Fifty years later, skepticism still has questions.

With Bill Nye, Eugenie Scott, Michael E. Mann, Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist, and many, many more.

#CSICon | June 11–14, 2026 | CSIconference.org
October 30, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Some states celebrate science. Some pretend vibes are enough.

Turn yours blue: ScienceSaves.org/Petition

#ScienceSaves
October 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Demogorgons? No. Psychic espionage? Unfortunately, yes.

Daniel Reed unpacks the real-world paranormal obsession behind Stranger Things.

From Skeptical Inquirer Presents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmpvL2DBjTE
How Stranger Things Mirrors Real World Searches for the Paranormal - Daniel Reed
Since its debut in 2016, Stranger Thingsnow entering its final season—has been a pop culture phenomenon. The show follows a group of friends in the 1980s in ...
www.youtube.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Nature doesn’t run on kindness, and pretending it does doesn’t help anyone understand biology.

A parasitologist calls out the trap in ecology metaphors.

From Skeptical Inquirer: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/when-nature-isnt-a-gift-a-biologists-take-on-the-serviceberry/
When Nature Isn’t a Gift: A Biologist’s Take on the Serviceberry | Skeptical Inquirer
When I was invited to join a discussion panel about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay “The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance” with an audience of first-year b ...
skepticalinquirer.org
October 28, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Bangladesh’s democratic transition is looking more like a calculated power grab.

Secular bloggers murdered. Minorities under attack. A caretaker government with no constitutional footing.

Free Inquiry breaks down the shadow politics behind the collapse: https://ow.ly/XnZO50XiJr6
Bangladesh on the Brink: Shadow Powers, Political Massacre, and the Eclipse of Secular Democracy | Free Inquiry
Prelude: The Revolt of ‘Gen Z’ and Fall of Sheikh Hasina In July 2024, a nationwide revolt erupted in Bangladesh over a civil service job-quota policy. That ...
ow.ly
October 27, 2025 at 11:05 PM
New York is taking a shot at preserving what the IRS walked away from: tax-exempt orgs should not be campaign operations.

Our Director of Government Affairs Azhar Majeed told lawmakers a boundary is a boundary: https://ow.ly/a4AR50XiIUc

We need this one to hold.
October 27, 2025 at 10:01 PM
"Atheism is too boring for the literate.”

Ronald Lindsay’s response in @freeinquiry.bsky.social is both dry and devastating: if you think atheism’s dull, try eternity.

Read his take: secularhumanism.org/exclusive/th...
The Tedium of Faith, As Lived and As Promised | Free Inquiry
Yesterday, I read a review in the Wall Street Journal of Charles Murray’s new book, Taking Religion Seriously—a singularly inapt title if taking religion se ...
secularhumanism.org
October 23, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Bill Nye headlines CSICon 2026, celebrating 50 years of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry where it all began: Buffalo, NY.

June 11–14, 2026.
Science. Skepticism. Celebration.

Save your spot: https://ow.ly/vqaF50XghIL
October 22, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Science isn’t perfect, but it’s the reason we get to argue about perfection online instead of dying at 35. ScienceSaves wants to create a day to thank researchers. A day to remember what happens when we stop listening to evidence.

Seem fair? Sign the petition: ScienceSaves.org/Petition
October 22, 2025 at 12:01 AM
The US is losing scientists. Not because they want to leave, but because they can’t stay.

Katie Suleta in Skeptical Inquirer on how political hostility and funding cuts are hollowing out the country’s research pipeline: https://ow.ly/ppzl50XfVnj
October 21, 2025 at 10:10 PM
A T-shirt is all it took to send Moroccan activist Ibtissame "Betty" Lachgar to prison.

At the UN, CFI's Kacem El Ghazzali asked: What is her crime?

Tomorrow is Blasphemy Rights Day. Blasphemy laws silence the living.

Free expression keeps us human: centerforinquiry.org/news/cfi-cal...
September 29, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Betty has been sentenced to two and a half years behind bars for nothing more than posting a photo of herself wearing a t-shirt that read "Allah is Lesbian."

We stand with Ex-Muslims International to demand the release of Ibtissame "Betty" Lachgar.

#FreeBettywww.change.org/p/lib%C3%A9r...
September 26, 2025 at 8:21 PM
W.E.B. Du Bois called Dayton, Tennessee “America… capable not simply of mistakes, but of persecution, lynching, murder, and idiotic blundering.”

At the Scopes Centennial, historian Chris Cameron traced how Black secular voices reshaped faith and freedom: youtu.be/0aks8f245jg
Black Secularism in the Scopes Era | Chris Cameron
YouTube video by Center for Inquiry
youtu.be
September 19, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Charlie Kirk’s murder was appalling. Worse? How the Trump administration has seized on it as a pretext for silencing dissent. Ronald Lindsay traces the playbook back to 1933.

Read the full essay in Free Inquiry: secularhumanism.org/exclusive/th...
The Murder of Kirk—Trump’s Reichstag Fire? | Free Inquiry
As should be obvious coming from the editor of a magazine with the name of “Free Inquiry,” I condemn Charlie Kirk’s murder, which appears to have been polit ...
secularhumanism.org
September 18, 2025 at 5:40 PM
“Christian nationalists often view a woman’s place as domestically focused and in a nurturing role.”

Household voting is a blueprint for erasing women’s rights.

Nicole Scott traces the dystopian logic behind it in Free Inquiry: secularhumanism.org/exclusive/is...
Is Household Voting Another Step toward Gilead? | Free Inquiry
Last month, CNN interviewed Douglas Wilson, the senior pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. During the interview, Wilson stated that he supported votin ...
secularhumanism.org
September 8, 2025 at 7:13 PM
ICYMI, the CDC cut its food safety surveillance from 8 pathogens to just 2.

“If you want to make foodborne disease go away, then don’t look for foodborne disease.”

Translation: less data, fewer regs, more outbreaks.

From @arstechnica.com: arstechnica.com/health/2025/...
CDC slashed food safety surveillance, now tracks only 2 of 8 top infections
“If you want to make foodborne disease go away, then don’t look for foodborne disease.”…
arstechnica.com
September 2, 2025 at 10:07 PM
A three-hour Cabinet meeting where Trump and RFK Jr. tossed around autism conspiracies like it was bad dinner theater…

Meanwhile, nearly $7M in autism research quietly axed.

Fear is free. Evidence gets defunded. From @the-independent.com: www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...
RFK Jr and Trump fearmonger about autism in cabinet meeting but kill research
Kennedy has said he will release his own report on the ‘epidemic’ of autism next month
www.the-independent.com
August 27, 2025 at 4:37 PM
RFK Jr. vowed to “empower the scientists.”

He's doing that by gutting panels, rejecting consensus, and pushing vaccine policy into dangerous territory.

If you want a clear-eyed summary of what’s happening to public health under his watch, this @apnews.com article is it: apnews.com/article/rfk-...
RFK Jr. made promises about vaccines. Here's what he's done as health secretary
The Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken unprecedented steps to change how vaccines are evaluated, approved and recommended.
apnews.com
June 30, 2025 at 5:30 PM
A conversation about evolution, skepticism, and why the #ScopesTrial still matters: youtu.be/gHqBUAUnjMA

@johndelancie.bsky.social and @eugeniescott.bsky.social have spent years defending science from denialism, and here, they ask why that work still matters today.
“Evolution, Education, and a Century of Scopes” | John de Lancie and guest moderator Eugenie Scott
YouTube video by Center for Inquiry
youtu.be
June 25, 2025 at 8:45 PM
From 2010 to 2020, the number of religious “nones” grew by 270 million. Faster than Christians, Hindus, or Buddhists.

“Nones” make up over 24% of the population and are the third-largest group globally.

Read @pewresearch.org's full report: www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...
How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020
Christians remain the largest religious group, and Muslims grew the fastest from 2010 to 2020. Read how the global share of Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated changed, according ...
www.pewresearch.org
June 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM