Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Follow-Up for TEDizens

As promised, here are the resources I recommended in today's TED course on Raising Children Without God:

Online Materials

  • Richard Dawkins' letter to his 10-year-old daughter on "Good and Bad Reasons for Believing."

  • Video of Richard Dawkins' talk at Kepler's Bookstore (with my introduction).

  • Atheist Advisements for review and collaboration.

  • Background on Time Banks USA, whose member communities are popping up everywhere as a nexus for people to pool their time and assistance.


    • Reading for Grownups (with links to Kepler's Bookstore for online ordering)


    Why People Believe Weird Things
    by Michael Shermer

    This book helped me understand my mind's vulnerabilities to infection by superstition and scams.

    A Devil's Chaplain
    by Richard Dawkins

    A series of clearly written essays for the layman on the theory of evolution, intelligent design, evolutionary psychology and parasitic, religious memes.

    God Delusion
    by Richard Dawkins

    A no-holds-barred deconstruction of faith. Chapter 7 exposes some barbaric Biblical passages that my rabbis forgot to mention.

    Letter to a Christian Nation
    by Sam Harris

    A concise and compelling call to action. No other bathroom read will provoke you to change the world like this one.

    Skeptic Magazine

    A monthly dose of superstition debunked, featuring columnist James Randi.




    Reading for Kids (with links to Skeptics Society Store)

    Skeptic Jr. Magazine

    Each issue tackles a paranormal phenomenon, and shows where the thinking went wrong.


    Maybe Yes, Maybe No
    by Dan Barker

    Adventures of Andrea, a skeptic. Cartoon strip style. How to check out extraordinary claims.

    Sasquatches from Outer Space
    by Tim Yule

    Covers Astrology, bigfoot, the Bermuda triangle, ESP, corp circles, Loch Ness Monster,Vampires, and UFOs and aliens. A “Try This” section encourages critical thinking skills. (Ages 10-15)

    The Magic Detectives
    by Joe Nickell

    30 mysteries encourages readers to think for themselves before the solution is offered. (Ages 9-14)


    Mythbusters
    by Mary Packard

    Borrowing from their Discovery Channel TV show, Adam and Jamie evaluate and test claims, with lots of hands on fun for the reader.

    Blogged with Flock

    Posted by David Cowan at 12:04 AM

    3 comments:

    1. Anonymous10:46 PM

      I just finished reading In Gods We Trust, which is dense but interesting. Atran discusses the evolutionary underpinnings of religious faith and does quite a good job of outlining the basis for it without needed to fall back to quasi-scientific analogical frameworks like memes. Highly recommend for people with some background in science.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Erdos5611:34 AM

      To add a bit to the adult list, Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell, which is more elliptical in prose style than Dawkin's crisp writing but good nonetheless. I also like Gary Cziko's Without Miracles, which was among the first to suggest selectionist mechanisms as a universal principle applicable to knowledge formation, immune function, learning and inference.

      ReplyDelete
    3. Sandra5:45 PM

      I am so excited to see you put the advisements up!! Can't wait to see the input you get and how they evolve.

      ReplyDelete

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