Dear God, please confirm what I already believe - life - 30 November 2009 - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18216-dear-god-please-confirm-what-i-already-believe.html
Gee, ya think? "God may have created man in his image, but it seems we return the favour. Believers subconsciously endow God with their own beliefs on controversial issues.
"Intuiting God's beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one's own beliefs," writes a team led by Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
Reasons to be optimistic for the future - opinion - 09 September 2009 - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327252.700-reasons-to-be-optimistic-for-the-future.html
"Now, more than ever, science and reason must prevail. The scale of the challenge is hard to overstate, but New Scientist is optimistic that we can succeed: our boundless doomsaying is more than matched by our boundless creativity and our ability to, eventually, do the right thing."
Twelve Virtues of Rationality
http://yudkowsky.net/virtues
Overcoming Bias: Mind Projection Fallacy
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/mind-projection.html
"Would a non-humanoid alien, with a different evolutionary history and evolutionary psychology, sexually desire a human female? It seems rather unlikely. To put it mildly."
Overcoming Bias: Joy in the Merely Real
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/joy-in-the-real.html
"You might say that scientists - at least some scientists - are those folk who are in principle capable of enjoying life in the real universe."