Where did dogs come from? The answer is wolves (not foxes). Here's a thought experiment. Go back 20,000 years and check out the dogs. Yikes! There were no dogs only 20,000 years ago. This 1994 story from Discover is a good starting point to learn about the beginnings of dogs.…
According to National Geographic’s Genographic Project, we are all African. The DNA tests taken in many isolated native populations conclusively demonstrate that we are all no more than 2000 generations removed from Africa. If you’d like, sign up and learn the path of your own migration out of Africa for…
Good quotes are explosive. There's a novel hiding in every good quote. Well, here's a good collection of subversive quotes from Vagabox. It includes many of my favorites and many that I hadn't read before. Here's a tiny sampling from a large collection: The police are not here to create…
I don’t think anyone has yet invented a specific word for this phenomenon, but too many Americans are suffering from an intense craving for simple one-step answers to life’s most important questions. Though people have always taken explanatory leaps, the mainstream media seems to tolerate them like never before. In the political realm, for example, the media should be ridiculing simpleton answers, but often doesn’t As case in point is Bush’s preposterous claim that “It’s better to fight them there than here.” As though doing the former protects us from the latter. Perhaps encouraged by the simple-mindedness of President Bush, the news media has taken a hands-off approach incredible amounts of simplistic nonsense.
Many simplistic explanations, but not all, are religious claims. Before you crank out those e-mails arguing that I’m painting with too broad a brush, I will readily admit that many people who sincerely follow religions are incredibly deep and skeptical thinkers (though they have a hands-off approach to skeptically examining their own religious beliefs). Therefore, I am not arguing that all of those people who consider themselves religious are shallow-minded ignoramuses. Nor am I claiming that those who are nonbelievers are necessarily disciplined and knowledgeable skeptical thinkers. There are plenty of simplistic folks of all stripes running around.
In my own mind, I conceive of our over-willingness to accept simplistic views as a “treasure hunt” mentality. All too many people seek ready-made explanations, where finding an minimally acceptable “answer” gives them a license shut down their sense …
Contrary to the way it is portrayed by Creationists, the theory of evolution wasn’t handed down from the Goddess Athe to her true prophet Darwin, to whose faith all subsequent researchers have to slavishly adhere. From the day each of Darwin’s books were published, and for the century and a half since, serious and powerful researchers (as well as semi-educated and/or pseudo-scientific dabblers) have busily been trying (and mostly failing) to make a name for themselves by finding a flaw — any flaw — in the overall Theory of Evolution. Darwin’s singular contribution, the principle that those members of a population best adapted to an environment will survive, is rarely challenged.
I was inspired to write this post after reading Can God be scientific? Consider the evidence, Part II by Daniel Jarvis. His post makes it clear that Creationists believe that all fields of science that are cited in support of this basic principle of modern biology have to meet criteria set by Darwin. These include astronomy, geology, genetics, tectonics, crystallography, quantum theory, and many other fields of study.
Let’s look at one supporting pillar of biological evolution: Things take time. The best Creationist argument (IMHO) is that all the species could not possibly have evolved in the short time since the beginning of the universe (or just of the world, for those who accept astronomical science) a few thousand years ago.