Sometimes Science Happens In Nebraska

Living in Nebraska means not having a lot in the realm of science happening around me.  Usually, the only bright spot on that subject comes from the presence of Nebraska oldest non-theist group, REASON^[1].  But the University of Nebraska recently did something newsworthy^[2][3].

The precise methodology of Richard Feynman’s famous double-slit thought-experiment – a cornerstone of quantum mechanics that showed how electrons behave as both a particle and a wave – has been followed in full for the very first time.

I'm not all that into the particulars of physics, possibly because I don't understand most of it.  But I'm quite happy that there some who are into it enough, and understand it well enough, to have achieved this scientific landmark.  I'm even happier that it happened in Nebraska.

You cannot stop progress or science.  Even in a red state.

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1.  http://www.reason.ws/
2.  http://youtu.be/EGq8w03-Goc
3.  http://www.iop.org/news/13/mar/page_59670.html

Ernie Chambers Takes On Nebraska Homophobes

Living in Nebraska means putting up with a lot of religion and other types of nonsense from our politics.  We're not quite as bad as some other states, but it's bad enough that I have to compare our state to the shenanigans of states like Tennessee[1] or Mississippi[2] to make it seem better by comparison.

But we've also got Ernie Chambers[3].

He's even caught the attention of The Friendly Atheist[4].  If Nebraska can have one Ernie Chambers, I bet we could have more.  We would just need to work to make it happen.

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1.  http://www.advocate.com/politics/2013/01/30/tenns-dont-say-gay-bill-back-and-it-could-out-students-their-parents
2.  http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-mississippi-ratifies-slavery-amendment-20130218,0,7978766.story
3.  http://aksarbent.blogspot.com/2013/03/video-nebraska-state-senator-asks-ex.html
4.  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/03/16/non-theistic-nebraska-state-senator-questions-orientation-of-ex-gay-man/

1 in 4 Nebraskans Is Non-Religious

Earlier today, Hemant Mehta shared^[1] Gallup's new poll^[2] about the most & least religious states.  It breaks down how you would expect, with the most religious states being either in the South or Utah.  

The "very religious" column is particularly disturbing, with even the least religious state, Vermont, having 1 in 5^[3] people who chose that option and another 1 in 4 choosing "moderately religious".  But, in the spirit of my first post of 2013^[4], I'm choosing to focus on the good news from this, like more than half of Vermont identifying themselves as non-religious.

This is why, while I'm bothered that my home state of Nebraska had 44% identifying as very religious, I'm happy about the non-religious column having 29%.  I think this bodes well for the future of groups like Omaha Atheists^[5] and the rest of the member groups of the Omaha Coalition of Reason^[6] and the conference we sponsor together, Apostacon (September 20-22, 2013)^[7].

Nebraska has some awesome non-theist groups.  And now we have a reason to think there's plenty of people here, more than a fourth of our state, who could benefit from them.  That's the good news I'm taking out of this.

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1.

Top 10 Most/Least Religious States in the Country: 2013 Edition bit.ly/12z45tx
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) February 13, 2013

2.  Mississippi Maintains Hold as Most Religious U.S. State
3.  Numbers are rounded to fit into the fractions, of course.
4.  Positive Approach In 2013
5.  http://www.omahaatheists.org/ (this website is currently in a transitional phase, so please forgive them any gaps in content)
6.  http://unitedcor.org/omaha/page/home
7.  http://www.apostacon.org/