Have you noticed the remarkable cluelessness in atheist arguments about science and metaphysics? It's really on display in a recent essay by atheist philosopher Justin E. H. Smith. In a nutshell, Smith, a professor of philosophy at Concordia University and author of Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason, argues that reason is inferior to the non-rational behavior of animals. Permit me to offer some responses to his essay, "If reason exists without deliberation, it cannot be uniquely human," which advanced that view recently at Aeon: Philosophers and cognitive scientists today generally comprehend the domain of reason as a certain power of making inferences, confined to the thoughts and actions of human beings alone. Like echolocation in bats or photosynthesis in plants, reason is an evolved power, but unlike these, the prevailing theory goes, it emerged exactly once...

People are getting dumber. That's not a judgment; it's a global fact. In a host of leading nations, IQ scores have started to decline. Though there are legitimate questions about the relationship between IQ and intelligence, and broad recognition that success depends as much on other virtues like grit, IQ tests in use throughout the world today really do seem to capture something meaningful and durable. Decades of research have shown that individual IQ scores predict things such as educational achievement and longevity. More broadly, the average IQ score of a country is linked to economic growth and scientific innovation. So if IQ scores are really dropping, that could not only mean 15 more seasons of the Kardashians, but also the potential end of progress on all these other fronts, ultimately leading to fewer scientific breakthroughs, stagnant economies and a...

Regular readers of the Grail will know that legendary comedian and Monty Python alumni John Cleese has a deep interest in research into the survival of consciousness beyond death. And if you're interested in that topic, the place to go is the Division of Perceptual Studies (DoPS) at the University of Virginia, which has hosted researchers of the caliber of Dr Bruce Greyson (NDEs) and the late Dr Ian Stevenson (reincarnation memories). So it's no surprise to see a video posted recently online, embedded below, by the DoPS in which another researcher there, Dr Jim Tucker, is interviewed by John Cleese himself. In the nine-minute-long video, Tucker gives a short history of the reincarnation research performed by the DoPS since the 1960s, beginning with Ian Stevenson, through which they have now collected 2500 cases of past-life recollection. He then goes...

It's not just in politics where otherwise smart people consistently talk past one another. People debating whether humans have free will also have this tendency. Neuroscientist and free-will skeptic Sam Harris has dueled philosopher and free-will defender Daniel Dennett for years and once invited him onto his podcast with the express purpose of finally having a meeting of minds. Whoosh! They flew right past each other yet again. Christian List, a philosopher at the London School of Economics who specializes in how humans make decisions, has a new book, Why Free Will Is Real, that tries to bridge the gap. List is one of a youngish generation of thinkers, such as cosmologist Sean Carroll and philosopher Jenann Ismael, who dissolve the old dichotomies on free will and think that a nuanced reading of physics poses no contradiction for it. List...

In some areas of psychology (especially in psychodynamic theory), psychologists talk about "defense mechanisms," or manners in which we behave or think in certain ways to better protect or "defend" ourselves. Defense mechanisms are one way of looking at how people distance themselves from a full awareness of unpleasant thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Psychologists have categorized defense mechanisms based upon how primitive they are. The more primitive a defense mechanism, the less effective it works for a person over the long-term. However, more primitive defense mechanisms are usually very effective short-term, and hence are favored by many people and children especially (when such primitive defense mechanisms are first learned). Adults who don't learn better ways of coping with stress or traumatic events in their lives will often resort to such primitive defense mechanisms as well. Most defense mechanisms are fairly...

New study examines egalitarianism, religion in 21st-century relationships Both religion and egalitarianism have something to offer those seeking a happy marriage in a world of shifting mores-though religion leads to more children-a new report on international perspectives on marital happiness shows. The report, a joint project of the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institution, uses data from two surveys of respondents in eleven countries: Argentina, Australia, Chile, Canada, Colombia, France, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The authors set out to examine the now standard bromide that progressive, secular social values lead to happier marriages. As study authors W. Bradford Wilcox, Jason S. Carroll, and Laurie DeRose wrote in the New York Times, the recipe for a happy marriage is either being religious or being egalitarian - those stuck in the middle are consistently...