It's been forever since I browsed over a WT publication. This is my analysis of the 2014 Awake:
- There is a lot more white space and pictures, a lot less text, it seems a lot shorter than other, paragraphs are the size of tweets. It's annoyingly simplistic to read and the texts raise a lot more question and doesn't answer a whole lot.
- So you're publishing on your website and in print on how to use your website. I mean, department of redundancy department? How do you place that magazine: Hi, I'm here to talk to you today on how to use our website... just in case you haven't figured out yet how to use the Internet. Alternative opening: Our site is complete shite and unusable, nobody comes to visit we have decided to give you a paper manual on how to use it, you can also get this manual to our website on our website!
- Watching the World: UNICEF promotion... you know you gave up your membership about a decade ago, you no longer have to promote them. Also, youngsters fear statistically probable problems more than statistically improbable ones; the new generation no longer sees their job as their life and guns kill people.
- A microbiologist (although to be more exact, it should be "biological chemist" since she works at the Institute for Biological Chemistry) explains why she no longer beliefs in evolution: She became a dub therefore evolution can no longer be believed. The arguments are copied straight from Michael Behe, an Evangelical Christian Creationist. She is not a PI, she is an RA - a glorified technician with maybe a bachelors, definitely not a PhD, her name appears on papers because the PI is nice and she did help the PI with his/her research, she is not listed as a researcher or author on any paper. Also, she is not an evolutionary biologist or even a biologist, her work has nothing to do with evolution but all the papers her name is on are on gene research which implies she witnesses and even meddles with (and publishes about) evolution on a daily basis. You could've said "a mechanic became a JW" and it would've been more trustworthy.
- How to resist peer pressure: Well... you don't give any pointers on how to identify peer pressure because you would've identified yourself as a major source of peer pressure. " When you cave in to peer pressure, you become like a mindless robot because you allow other people to control you. Why let them have that kind of power?" ... yes... why would you let others control you like a robot.
- Did God create the world in 6 days: Yes, that's what the Bible says. But what the Bible says is not always true... I mean, it should be taken figuratively except for the things we tell you not to take figuratively such as the flood. " The false ideas of creationists could lead you to dismiss the Bible altogether." Yes, the Bible is self-defeating.
- Where did the raw material in the Universe come from: "astronomer Allan Sandage once said: “Science cannot answer the deepest questions. As soon as you ask why is there something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science.”" - except we asked the question and did get an answer, see Lawrence Krauss for an answer, you simply dismiss the entire body of evidence for a Universe from nothing. But anyways, you present a god of the gaps. You do not know therefore gawd did it?
- Spiders: Did the house spider’s ability to produce weak and strong anchors with the same glue come about by evolution? Or was it designed? Well, the answer is simple, it evolved like everything else, the appearance of design and complexity does result from heaps of small, simple changes. Design would generate a lot more questions than could fit in your little magazine.