Dear Imaginary God: Fuck You & The Imaginary White Horse You Are Supposed to Ride In On

I’m not the swearing type but I figure if you’re gonna do something, you ought to do it right (fyi for those who don’t know, it’s Blasphemy Day).

September 30, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism

8 Comments 

Back from Vacation

Getting organized… Nice to be home. How are you?

September 30, 2009 · Filed Under stuff

2 Comments 

On Vacation

As of tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept 15), I’ll be on vacation for a couple of weeks. Therefore, I will likely not be doing a lot of writing here for a little while. Then again, you never know – I imagine my evenings will be quiet so…

Just don’t expect much!

And to all of you would-be thieves, there are people staying in my home while I’m away. :)

Ciao for now!

September 15, 2009 · Filed Under stuff

1 Comment 

A Letter to a Friend: Evidence for Evolution

Hi Friend,

I thought I’d follow-up on our disagreement about evolution. Before I go further, I thought I’d confirm what I think you said so I don’t put words into your mouth:

  1. Evolution has been dis-proven.
  2. Many scientists say that evolution has many holes in it and that it has not held up to scientific scrutiny.
  3. There are not enough fossils to demonstrate sufficient evidence for human evolution. You asked me to show you that fossils exist in museums.

Please let me know if I got any of that wrong because I used your comments as the basis for my research (if necessary, I’ll revise my research when I get back from my trip).

My claim is that evolution explains the earth’s diversity of life, as well as the evolution of human beings on earth. Furthermore, I claim that there is substantial evidence for those two claims. With that in mind, below is some support I found for my claims. The information is in the links, but I provided a few teaser quotes or tid-bits of information beside a few of them.
—
Level of Support for Evolution: Quote: “…in the scientific community there is essentially universal agreement that the evidence of evolution is overwhelming, and the scientific consensus supporting the modern evolutionary synthesis is nearly absolute…”

Objections to Evolution: Quote: “When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution by natural selection initially met opposition from alternate scientific theories, but came to be universally accepted by the scientific community.[2] The observation, or fact, of evolutionary processes occurring, as well as the current theory explaining that fact, have been uncontroversial among biologists for nearly a century.”

Scientific Dissent from Darwinism + the Rebuttals to those Dissents. I’m not sure about you, but I find the rebuttals to be pretty convincing.

Project Steve on Wikipedia and on its own site. Project Steve is a tongue-in-cheek response to the claim that many scientists oppose evolution. The point that Project Steve makes is that – even if the anti-evolutionist scientists were in the hundreds, that is a minute number compared to the many, many thousands who do accept evolution. The project lists over 1100 scientists named ‘Steve” who accept the theory. And that doesn’t even get into the discussion of which group of scientists have the credentials needed to assess the evidence (covered in the “dissent” link above).

Now that I’ve presented information supporting evolution as an almost universally accepted theory in the scientific community, let’s move onto your points about evidence and fossils.

Here is a list of human evolution fossils: Note that the article states there are thousands of fossils and that it outlines the progression from early mammals, to primates, to hominids (the family Homo Sapiens emerged from).

The Human Origins Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History – I don’t know if you can find a museum of higher standing.

Another place of high regard is the Museum of Science – the link contains a database of fossils

The Smithsonian Institute is arguably one of the highest regarded museums in the world. It has many, many fossils and an amazing exhibit (online and in-person versions). Suffice to say, the Smithsonian also accepts evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life on earth.

A couple of very good university resources are the ones found at the University of California and Minnesota State University (there are lots of others).

PZ Meyers is a respected evolutionary biologist and university professor. This post contains a large number of links pointing to an immense body of evolutionary evidence.

A couple of great websites with information about evolution are Talk Origins and Panda’s Thumb.

Finally, there are tons of books written by highly respected scientists on the subject of evolution. The Smithsonian Instititute Guide to Human Origins is one I read over a year ago that I highly recommend.

I’m no expert but I think I can discern between an expert and a non-expert and that’s what I am basing my argument on – that the sources I am citing are numerous and respected within the scientific community.

I am not sure what sources you refer to when you say you know of many scientists who have proven evolution not to be valid. Therefore, I can’t pretend to judge if they are good, well-respected scientists.

September 14, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism, understanding

4 Comments 

Welcome Stumblers!

I see from my stat logs that I’m getting lots of visits from Stumbleupon. Thanks for stopping by – I hope you find my blog worthy of your thumbs up!

Stumbleupon_128x128

September 8, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism

6 Comments 

Putting a Fine Point On Atheist Arrogance

Top of the page at Godless Blogger’s place today was the following image. Needless to say, this does a much better job summarizes a point I’ve recently tried to make here. I guess a picture really is worth a thousand words.

atheism_motivational_poster_2

September 6, 2009 · Filed Under about me

53 Comments 

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

Renshia (a prolific commenter here) sent a suggestion that I spread the word about one of his favorite websites – TED. What’s TED? From their about page:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

The jewel on the TED website is undoubtedly their collection of videos. Again, I’ll let TED speak for itself:

The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 450 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Under those broad categories of Technology, entertainment and design, TED covers a lot of ground – especially for the scientifically inclined, or those simply looking for some inspiration. Suffice to say, I am in complete agreement with Renshia – TED is an amazing place. One of the best the web has to offer. The fact that their videos are free to view or download (in many formats including mp3 and high-resolution video) is a testament to the power of the web as a learning tool.

With that, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite TED videos. Enjoy!

September 5, 2009 · Filed Under links

1 Comment 

The Secularization of Quebec

48hrsQuebecHave you ever thought it might be nice to move to a less religious part of the world? If so, you might have thought you’d have to go all the way to Scandinavia. Well, you’d be wrong.

Starting in the early 1960’s, the province of Quebec, Canada went through a Quiet Revolution – a revolution that’s resulted in an increasingly secular society. Link

Compared to the US, most of Canada is a relative haven for non-believers. A recent survey shows that one in four Canadians do not believe in god, but Quebec is leading the way with huge declines in church attendance. Things have gotten so bad there (or, good depending on how you look at it!) that churches are being sold to the lowest bidder.

And it appears that Quebec isn’t done sticking nails in the coffin of religion.

So, the next time you think it might be nice to get a change of scenery, think of Quebec …just make sure you brush up on your French.

September 4, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

20 Comments