The Hard Evidence Against A Literal Adam And Eve

Jerry Coyne explains why the proposed idea of a single pair of original human ancestors is refuted by what we know of our evolutionary ancestry: Over at the Templeton-funded BioLogos website there has been a lot of discussion about the historicity of Adam and Eve. This is a problem because scripture claims these two were [...]

Some Suspicions About The Superiority Of Liberal Moral Values

Earlier today, I drew attention to Greta Christina’s article formulating some ideas she picked up from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.  If you have already read either or both of those posts, you can just skip the next two paragraphs meant to catch up new readers. The Goldstein/Greta Christina argument built off of Jonathan Haidt’s theory of [...]

Michael Shermer On “The Pattern Behind Self-Deception”

Shermer does TED and explains how two of the brain’s most basic, hard-wired traits, useful for survival, backfire on us: Your Thoughts?

True And False In Adam And Eve

Yesterday I replied to Mary Midgley’s article out this weekend, which claimed that evolutionary theory does not refute Genesis since Genesis was not meant to be a literal description of how God made the world. In reply I revisted remarks and videos that I posted last fall which overviewed the ways that even if we [...]

How Genesis Is Not Only Literally False, But Metaphorically False

Mary Midgley argues that only the views of fundamentalist literalists are refuted by the fact of evolution: Appeals to evolution are only damaging to biblical literalism. Certainly the events described inGenesis 1 are not literally compatible with what science (from long before Darwin’s day) tells us about the antiquity of the Earth. But this is not [...]

God, Science, And Sanity: A Panel On Religion And Psychology

A panel of Richard Dawkins, Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio, Professor Patrick McGorry, Steve Fielding, and Julie Bishop discusses psychology and religion.  The reaction to the creationism of the Australian parliamentarian from the audience is heartening. Your Thoughts?

What Do Wheaton Students Learn About Evolution?

Jason Rosenhouse reads from the  Jeffery Sheler’s 2006 book about Wheaton College, Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America: “We do believe that God created the universe, and that Adam and Eve were the first humans,” [Dorothy Chappell, dean of natural and social sciences] said. “But we are agnostic as to how God did it.” In practical terms, [...]

The Evolution Of The Domestic Dog

Robert Wayne of the UCLA department of Ecology and Evloutionary Biology (author of over 180 publications) is a world authority on the genetics of dogs and wolves: Your Thoughts?

Do Atheists Believe In Fairy Tales?

Brett Palmer patiently distinguishes the difference between a hypothesis and a fairy tale: Your Thoughts?

Teeth: Proof There Is No God

Or something like that.  Bewarethelizards42 makes the case that teeth are imperfectly designed: Your Thoughts?

Daily Hilarity: Dana Carvey In “Darwin: Evolution Of A Madman”

Mostly a spoof of the atrocious Sherlock Holmes movie that Guy Ritchie made last year than about things Darwin: Your Thoughts?

Evolution and Epistemology

If our minds take to be true only what evolution has conditioned us to think is true for the sake of fitness for survival, does this mean that our beliefs cannot be genuinely true but only some sort of useful ways of thinking that do not necessarily track how the world actually is?  And if [...]

Odds Are We’re All Related

And by “all” I mean every single living thing that ever existed, insofar as we all most likely go back to the same single cell organism: Using computer models and statistical methods, biochemist Douglas Theobald calculated the odds that all species from the three main groups, or “domains,” of life evolved from a common ancestor—versus, say, [...]

Judging From Smells

Salon has a neat interview with Dr. Alan Hirsch, founder and neurological director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.  He argues here that the sense of smell immediately leads us to value judgment than the other senses are and then explains how our moms influence our tastes: And what’s the relationship between [...]

Would Aliens Realize We Were Intelligent?

Greg Mayer, as part of a charming larger piece, relates a back and forth he had with some students a few days ago on whether or to what extent we and alien intelligent life forms would be able to identify each other as intelligent life forms: I mentioned to the students that I’d seen a great [...]

Andy Thomson on Why We Believe in Gods

Your Thoughts?

Creationists’ Listening Problems

One of CamelsWithHammers’ favorite YouTube video makers is back with another excellent video.  Here’s NonStampCollector’s funny and incisive representation of what it’s like to argue with creationists: Your Thoughts?

Intelligent Design In A Nusthell

One of the most prominent proponents of Intelligent Design, William Dembski, sums up the theory in one minutes worth of clips from one of his speeches: The idea comes from a terrific speech on complexity by PZ Myers (which you should really watch in its entirety) from the Atheist Alliance International meeting last month: Your [...]

“The Collapse Of Intelligent Design”

Ken Miller with a long, thorough refutation of Intelligent Design Here’s an amazing bit of evidence: Here is the entire lecture:

Dawkins On The Anthropic Principle

Interesting remarks on the possible implications of Darwinian thinking for thinking in physics.  Is it possible that there is natural selection among many universes? Watch Dawkins’s entire talk from which this clips comes. Your Thoughts?

Debunking Kirk Cameron And Ray Comfort

Really nicely done, particularly of note is that there is some great information about Hitler, religion, and Darwin: Your Thoughts?

Shermer To Maher: Being Anti-Vaccination Is Tantamount To Being Anti-Evolution

Bill Maher’s mistrust of western medicine has been earning him a lot of flak from the scientific and skeptic communities.  Here is the latest, an open letter from Michael Shermer: I believe that when it comes to alternative medicine in general and vaccinations in particular you have fallen prey to the same cognitive biases and [...]

Discovering Ardipithecus

Meet our most recently discovered ancestor, Ardipithecus through this Discovery Channel documentary.  Below is just part 1, click here to watch the whole documentary. via Atheist Media Blog Your Thoughts?

Scientists Pwn Those Lying About Their Work For Creationist Agendas

PZ Myers points us to two great letters from scientists to creationists distorting the meaning of their work.  The idea that non-biologists commenting on the internet can feel entitled to go around calling legitimate biologists frauds is so stupefying to me.  Do these people have no humility, no appreciation for the rigors of specialized scientific [...]

The Simpsons Take On Creationism

Unreasonable Faith has a 12+ minute clip of a few year old episode. Your Thoughts?