A Quick Guide of Creationist's (Incorrect) Claims

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I thought I would pass this article along. It's a quick read, and targets many of the wrong beliefs that creationists (especially the young-earth variety) have.

Read it here.

Scary Christian School "Science" Textbook

A friend of mine shared this link, and it is scary! Read what this christian textbook says about how we can know things, and how science works. These poor children are being taught this garbage.

Only Faith in God can Fulfill Man's Deepest Needs.

Many times I have heard people refer to the fact that their faith met their human needs more than an atheistic worldview ever could. But is that reason to believe it?

The idea that atheism "can't answer man's deepest needs" as evidence against it is just silly to me. First of all, I think that man's deepest needs are not impossible to meet if you don't believe in a god. But even if it was, why would that be evidence for or against either side?

Only if you presume that the property of being able to "meet man's deepest needs" is a necessary condition for the truth of a worldview does this make sense to you. But why think that? There could be in fact many emotional, "spiritual," and physical needs that we just cannot ever fully meet. But where is it written that we humans are guaranteed such fulfillment in the first place?

Why do so many people seem to think that the existence of some sort of human desire or yearning means there must be something out there that satisfies that desire?

Animal Morality

Found an interesting TED talk on moral behavior in non-human animals. We are not so different. Watch it here.

Interested in Evolution?

Animal hand homology

I came across a wonderful youtube channel that has compiled over a hundred shows on evolution from PBS, NOVA, the BBC, and other channels. If you want to learn about what evolution is and what the evidence for it is, this is a great resource:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EvolutionDocumentary

Who Was the First Human?

Richard Dawkins, talking about his new book, The Magic of Reality, explains an important fact about evolution. Namely that a chimpanzee didn't one day give birth to a human, nor a dinosaur give birth to a bird. At any point along the ancestral trail, there was never a point where the parent of one species gave birth to a different species. The creature born is always the same species as the parent. I previously wrote about this concept here. Watch the video for a great explanation.

Happy Darwin Day!

Today is Charles Darwin's 203rd birthday. I am grateful for his contributions to science, though I was once very much against them. Now I accept the fact of evolution and see how interesting and elegant this theory is.

How Open-Minded Are You?

Nearly all of us think that we are open-minded, rational, unbiased, thoughtful people. We follow the evidence wherever it leads, and we listen to reason. When new evidence comes to light about something that we already hold an opinion on, we believe that we will process it in an unbiased way. This is hardly the case.

Bacteria Can Drive the Evolution of New Species

via richarddawkins.net:

Lactobacillus plantarum

A recent study shows that bacteria can influence the sexual selection of fruit flies.  Read the full article here.

PZ Myers: Sophisticated Theology?

On his blog, Pharyngula, PZ Myers brilliantly criticizes the notion of "sophisticated theology."  He says what I have been thinking for a while, and I couldn't say it better myself.

Notable tidbit:

"...theology adds nothing to our knowledge, no matter how intricate or voluminous, and in fact it detracts from it when the sophisticated theologians insist that we must ignore the evidence where it conflicts with their fairy tales. I don't care how sophisticated it is, and I have no problem admitting that clever minds have constructed an elaborate castle of wind and vapor for their fairy tales, but bullshit shoveled into majestic mountains must still slump into shapeless, decaying mounds when the props are knocked out with the facts."

Read it here.

Difficulties in Understanding Evolution: Dividing Lines of Species

There are many impediments to understanding the theory of evolution.  I really had to struggle out of the misinformation I had gathered about it in order to accept it as fact, and when I did, it was like a cartoon lightbulb appeared above my head.  It explains so much of the world around us!  No doubt many people have always accepted it as fact, and maybe some of the eureka! moment is lost on them.  But there are many people who do not accept it as anything other than an impossible fairy tale.  I believe that many of these doubters have an incorrect idea of what evolution really is (as I once did).  While I am in no position to correct all of the possible misunderstandings of the theory of evolution (I am a layman, and my own knowledge is severely limited), I can offer some helpful bits that I found very insightful.  For now, I will cover just one.