Media watch: They’ll huff, and they’ll puff, and ...

... well huff and puff some more, I guess. Cornelia Dean’s recent New York Times story announces:

For many scientists, the evidence that moral reasoning is a result of physical traits that evolve along with everything else is just more evidence against the existence of the soul, or of a God to imbue humans with souls. For many believers, particularly in the United States, the findings show the error, even wickedness, of viewing the world in strictly material terms. And they provide for theologians a growing impetus to reconcile the existence of the soul with the growing evidence that humans are not, physically or even mentally, in a class by themselves.

And much else that you just knew it would say, quoting all the usual suspects.
Someone wrote to ask what I thought about it, given that The Spiritual Brain will ship in September. I replied,

This NYT piece is nothing but materialist huffing, and from a very predictable source.

Did you happen to notice how much specific research was cited?

None. Only opinion.

You are being asked to accept these views on authority alone.

There is a good reason for that. Actual research does not particularly support these views.

That is the topic of The Spiritual Brain, and if this article is anything to go by, I promise you it will be an eye-opener for many.

Publisher’s Weekly noted

the authors warn against the temptation to force the complex varieties of human spirituality into simplistic categories that they argue are conceptually crude, culturally biased, and often empirically untested.

which describes only a part of what’s wrong with all the materialist bilge, but that’s a good start.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), anoverview of the intelligent design controversy, and of Faith@Science. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy.