Evolution denial is mostly unique to the United States, among the more technologically innovative nations.
When a portion of the population doesn’t believe in evolution (science), it holds the whole nation back.
Life science is strictly incomplete without evolution. Without evolution, explaining life becomes fantastically complicated. Without the idea of billion-year timescales, the universe itself is untenable.
Don’t indoctrinate your kids with creationism – we need scientific children to grow up and support our nation.
In a couple of centuries, Bill is confident that worldview won’t exist, because there’s no evidence for it.
I have to say, he manages to say this in a much friendlier manner than I can. Evolution deniers really anger me.
It’s a foray into a common topic in the atheist world: is it really practical to abolish religion altogether?
Taken at face value, it is difficult for me to reach any conclusion aside from “no”. Aside from theories that religion has its origins in evolution, it is undeniably a salve for the weakness inherent to the human mind. If it disappeared, it seems likely that something equally irrational would take its place.
For my part, I seek to eliminate religious, spiritual and mystical impact on government, law and social morality. I feel this is still an impossible goal, but at least a more appropriate one, and one that could be more fully accomplished.
Anyway – check out the article. It’s a short read.
P.S. Again, my apologies for my relative silence. I am wading through an exceptionally busy period at my job. Once that clears up, I should be posting more often.
You know, I had honestly never considered this. Aside even from the sheer number of creatures you’d have to get on a single boat (under the assumption that species don’t evolve and branch off), there’s also a lot of awkwardness to the logistics:
Many creatures eat or kill other creatures.
Many creatures have significant climate requirements.
Parasites, viruses, bacteria, etc.. are all, in a sense, “creatures”.
Bees die when they sting you.
Anyway, this entire video is pretty hilarious. There’s a part 2, as well.
It’s been a busy couple of days, so I need to “cop out” and do a humorous image post today. This one comes courtesy of 9gag.com, and it’s an excellent little comic essay on faith and agnosticism vs. science and evidence.
“Something can’t come from nothing” – Any random theist arguing that god created the universe
It’s amazing how often I hear it. It’s an incredibly naive argument – if something can’t come from nothing, where did god come from?
Most stories I’ve read about the higgs boson lament the usage of the term “god particle”. The media has latched on to it with such a fervor that it’s hard to ignore, and it’s generally unscientific.
However, The Daily Beast has released an excellent article: How the Higgs Boson Posits a New Story of our Creation, which explains how the term is not only inaccurate, but also how the discovery of this new particle may further support a godless creation of the universe. Definitely recommend that you give it a read!
It’s not at all uncommon for a theist to make the argument that god must exist, because he provided the perfect environment for us to live in. In an abrupt 180 degree turn, they will use science as a theological weapon:
The Earth has the water needed for life.
It’s the right temperature.
It has an atmosphere of oxygen that we need to breathe.
Alongside these (generally accurate) claims, inaccurate ones are introduced:
“If the Earth’s orbit was slightly off, we’d all die!”
“There’s no way all this could happen by chance!”
How to respond to this?
Our Situation Isn’t That Precarious
The “habitable zone” in astronomy is the area surrounding a star within which a planet could have liquid water. So, what does our solar system’s habital zone look like?
Impressively large, isn’t it?
Basically, it’s huge. Truly, most people have concept of the scale of the universe, but let’s put some context on this:
The habitable zone of our star is up to 3 astronomical units, or 3 times the distance from the sun that we are! So, the margin of error here is considerable.
It’s Easy to Win the Lottery With 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Tickets
There are an estimated 10^23 power stars in the universe, and recent scientific studies have found that it is likely that most of those stars have planets (research can be found here).
Given the size of the habitable zone of a star like ours, and the odds that most stars will have planets, it’s probably not unreasonable to assume there are as many potential habitable bodies in the universe as their are stars.
Needless to say, my analogy spells it out pretty clearly: the odds of winning the lottery may be low, but they pale in comparison to the astronomical scales we are talking about.
Planets Harbor Life Because They Can
The entire concept of the theistic argument that the Earth was made for us, is that it’s “unrealistic” to think that the Earth could possibly exist, and life have evolved on it, without some divine intervention. The more we come to know about the universe around us, the more we realize that Earth-like, life-sustaining planets are far more likely to exist than not to exist.
We evolved on this planet because the necessary conditions were there to begin with, and life has likely evolved on numerous other planets for the same reason.
It’s an Arrogant Perspective
Many religions pride themselves on a sense of humbleness (that the constituents rarely exude). What could possibly be more arrogant than saying that the entire universe – all 10^23 stars and likely more planets – were created just for us? I’ve linked this before, but I feel it warrants repeat-viewing:
“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.” – Carl Sagan
A truly humble perspective comes with an understanding of how truly insignificant we are.
So remember, the Earth wasn’t created for us, nor we for it – we are simply the end result of a set of conditions that were set into motion at the beginning of time. But, if that isn’t awe-inspiring, I don’t know what is.
I often ponder over religion with a scientific context. I suppose that’s expected, given the scientific way in which I live my life. However, a recent tweet by Richard Dawkins prompted me to think about religion and religious indoctrination from an evolutionary perspective. Granted, this is not a traditional evolutionary perspective, but it intrigued me so I thought I would share:
If we think of religion as its own species, rather than a trait of our own species, what would the natural environmental hazards be for religion? All of the following come to mind:
education, knowledge, intelligence, logic
So, from an evolutionary perspective, any given religion would be more likely to survive “as a species” if it had a way to nullify or reduce the impact of these hazards. That’s where the tweet comes into play:
Why can’t you just let your kids discover their own world view?
The answer to this question is obvious enough, although I don’t think we take it seriously enough. Indoctrination brings me to anger as fast or faster than most other offensive things I can imagine. What could possibly be worse than stripping a child of their ability to think, learn and grow? To quote a sign from a protester: “We should teach children to think – not what to think.”
It seems to me that in the context of our analogy, indoctrination is an advantageous trait for a religion, to ensure its survival. It supplants education and knowledge with willful ignorance and falsehoods, and taints a child’s intelligence and logic with faith. In other words, indoctrination eliminates or impairs the environmental hazards that endanger religion.
I would encourage everyone in our community to consider indoctrination as one of, if not the most important foe we face in our effort to stifle religion’s influence on our world. I believe public education is our best weapon against indoctrination, and supporting the separation of church and state is paramount to making education an indoctrination-free environment.
Here are some organizations that are fighting for this cause daily, that could use your support:
Richard Dawkins has also recently released an excellent paper book and interactive iPad book that you may be interested in providing to children that are a part of your lives:
“I do not understand,” reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. “A booming voice is saying, ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light. It is saying, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass,’ but I am already standing on grass.”
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