Scientists in Virginia are reporting the second known case of a shark pup being conceived without any shark sex involved.

Scientists have confirmed the second case of a “virgin birth” in a shark. In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

Many around the Internet are hailing the new Shark Messiah, but as a skeptic I would have to personally witness the shark pup perform some miracles first.

But in all seriousness, this is a rather remarkable finding, and it raises so many questions, such as, is this a frequent occurrence in nature? What impact could this have on shark genetic health? Are there other animals as large as sharks that can reproduce asexually? Is there anything in particular that triggers this kind of reproduction in sharks?

I write this not to weigh in on a topic in science on which I am no expert, but rather to point out that those of us who do not believe in a creator of the universe or an all-powerful god or the supernatural still live in a world of mystery and wonder. No matter how much we learn about the world through science, there will always be more questions, more unexplored territory, more new ideas. The pursuit of knowledge is never ending, and I, for one, love the journey, even if there is no definitive destination, no end point where we can see that we know all that there is to know. I shudder to think of the complacency and stagnation that would come with such a time, when we lost the will to explore, whether it be the planet, the universe, or the DNA of a shark.

As a member of the Supreme Court bar, I know that the Court accepts only a fraction of all cases appealed to it. I also have seen the courts super accommodative of religion lately.

So even while it was no surprise that the Court declined on Monday to hear Lucero v. Texas (No. 07-1492)  — the bid of a death-row inmate to set aside a jury’s death sentence — the circumstances of the jury’s deliberation churn my stomach.

Jimmie Urbano Lurcero was convicted by a jury, who heard the jury foreman read a Bible passage aloud to the entire jury, before the panel returned the death sentence. What was the passage?

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. … For he is God’s servant to do the good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

According to a Christian Science Monitor story, a straw poll taken before the Bible reading was 10 to 2 in favor of conviction. And at the conclusion of deliberations, the jury vote 12 to 0 in favor of death. (A unanimous verdict is necessary to impose a death sentence.)

Were the two jurors who changed their votes persuaded by the biblical passage? I don’t pretend to have a crystal ball to say absolutely that the Bible reading did Lurcero in. But as a civil liberties attorney, the decisions by the Texas trial court, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and now the U.S. Supreme Court seem so out of touch with constitutional due process requirements — that is, the defendant’s right to a fair trial. (It also seems to me that there is an Establishment Clause problem of government endorsement of religion, but I am not aware that this issue was raised on appeal.)

In my view, and that of the 1st (Boston), 5th (New Orleans) and 11th (Atlanta) Circuits, the introduction of a Bible into jury deliberations violates the right to an impartial jury. However, the 4th (Richmond) and 9th (San Francisco) Circuits have ruled the presentation of specific Bible versus during jury deliberation does not violate the Sixth Amendment because the Bible’s teachings are a matter of common knowledge in American culture. (That’s BS.)

Why didn’t at least four Supreme Court justices vote in favor of taking this opportunity to resolve a split among the federal circuits?

My crystal ball is still cloudy (that is, I don’t know), but let me take a wild guess. Two cases involving religion in the same term is too much to handle. The Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum on November 12th. (NOTE: Yours truly submitted a friend of court brief in Summum on behalf of the AHA.)

Check out this new site, brought to you by the Secular Coalition for America: http://election08.secular.org/. Make sure to read up on the issues that are important to you as we near Election Day, November 4, 2008. For those of us concerned about the erosion of the Jeffersonian Wall this is an indispensable resource.

Last week the American Humanist Association invited local members and allies to an advance screening of Bill Maher’s new film Religulous in downtown Washington, D.C. If you haven’t heard of the film by now, I’ll still spare you a detailed summary; in short, Bill Maher does religion as only Bill Maher can.

The showing was preceded by an introduction from Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the AHA, and Jenny Kalmanson of the Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH). They introduced the AHA and WASH to the audience and invited everyone to stay after the film for a discussion.

As for the film itself: well, we laughed, we cried, we howled, we bawled (that may be just a slight exaggeration). The audience was probably predisposed to be friendly towards the content, but, given the controversial nature of the film, I was nevertheless surprised that I did not see a single person walk out while it was in progress. Not that I get invited to a whole lot of advance screenings, but nevertheless I was under the impression that audience members, having not paid anything for their tickets, would feel free to express any displeasure with their feet. But I did not see this happen. And while I was watching it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had stepped into some sort of alternate universe, where a person could go to a mainstream movie theater and watch a mainstream documentary released by a mainstream major movie studio and hear a full theater guffaw at send-ups of religion and theology. We’ve certainly made progress, at least toward creating a nation more tolerant of different views. Feel free to argue with me on that one, though.

After the film the AHA had a discussion moderated by Fred Edwords, director of communications. It started off with comments from Ambassador Carl Coon, vice president of the AHA, who characterized the film as containing a lot of “vinegar” and being rather undiplomatic in its delivery. Following him came AHA program manager Jende Huang, who supported the film’s core conclusion that the world needs to get beyond religion. Then came comments from the audience, which reflected a diverse range of views. Some weighed in that it was scattershot in its approach, with the apocalyptic ending standing in stark contrast to the various humorous (and somewhat disconnected) vignettes throughout the body of the film. Others supported Maher’s core message that the modern world needs to “grow up or die” and overcome religion.

Religulous ended up taking in $3.5 million over the weekend, showing on about 500 screens in the United States. Love it or hate it, it is another step towards the mainstream for the increasingly visible freethought movements of the United States.

One of the most common criticisms I hear of the new movie Religulous is that Bill Maher only addresses people on the fringe of religion.  It’s the same complaint I hear about Sam Harris because, let’s face it, Maher isn’t saying much that wasn’t said in The End of Faith.  Harris’ point was that religious moderates create a society in which faith is seen as a virtue and a legitimate belief system, making it difficult to criticize the more extreme believers.

On the walk to Metro this morning, I remembered a charming short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.  A poor man asks to borrow a pair of silver spoons from the town miser.  The miser grudgingly agrees, and the next morning the poor man returns the spoons with one of his own silver teaspoon, claiming that the spoons gave birth! The miser is delighted, and so when the poor man asks to borrow the set of very expensive silver candlesticks, he is more than willing.  The poor man sells the candlesticks, claiming sadly to the miser that they passed away in the night.  Furious, the miser hauls him before the rabbi, who says with a grin, “If spoons can give birth, candlesticks can die.”

If we smile and say nothing when our neighbor claims that he’s giving money to the poor because God wants him to, we lose standing to object when he claims God wants him to disown his gay son.  Yes, faith can motivate people to do good as well as bad, but it’s still a poor way to make decisions.

I’ve been told that I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, that we should encourage charitable works no matter what the motivation.  But when our neighbor claims he’s donating because the Bible tells him to, we shouldn’t laugh in his face and criticize his decision-making process.  Instead, we can merely say, “And you’re helping people in need, right?” in an attempt to tie his actions to secular moral values as well as religious ones.  In doing so, we present an alternate set of ethics in which God’s opinion isn’t the only factor.  Humanism isn’t just the rejection of supernaturalism.  It’s the next step.