January 2011
26 posts
4 tags
Hitler was a creationist, not a devotee of Darwin
One of the most obnoxious and shameful assertions creationists make is that Hitler was motivated by Darwin’s evolutionary thought. Actually the evidence is that Hitler was firmly in the creationist camp and unsympathetic to Darwin.
A quick search of Mein Kampf shows that Hitler referenced Darwin not once, but the phrase God appeared 37 times and creator 8 times.
Just like many modern...
7 tags
“there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design...”
– Michael Behe, Intelligent Design Advocate, at the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial (2005)
Intelligent Design (Creationism) failed this legal test to qualify as a science. (Short URL for linking: goo.gl/lwjB6 )
5 tags
Radiometric dating and fossils →
One of the best general articles I’ve read on radiometric dating. Discusses the discovery of the geological column and elaborates on why radiometric dating is accurate. (Short URL for linking http://goo.gl/uPolE )
5 tags
The trilobite dilemma
It’s funny that no Young Earth Creationist has ever had a plausible explanation for the trilobite extinction. It’s one of those things that seems to get overlooked.
Trilobites are largely marine arachnomorphs. In the geological column they first appear in the Cambrian- most groups become extinct in the Devonian- and the last become extinct in the great Permian extinction.
This means...
Obvious design?
In each species journey on planet earth, over 95% have already become extinct. Earth is placed in the path of deadly space rocks, whilst the atmosphere has been choked with volcanic debris. Ice ages & global warming have extinguished many species. Earth is not fine-tuned for life, it is a hostile and mercurial place. Life only persists by adapting to earth’s moods.
2 tags
Atheism is...
...is not the conviction there is no God. It is the absence of belief in Gods, based on insufficient evidence. It is simply not possible to believe in something if the evidence of that thing is inadequate.
It is possible however, to reject the existence of *some* Gods as true based on mutually exclusive properties attributed to God. The 'God of Abraham' is for instance, often rejected on the basis of the scale of suffering and the claim that 'God of Abraham' is morally pure.
#atheist #atheism #nogod
4 tags
“Nothing convinces me more that Christianity is baseless than to listen to...”
8 tags
5 tags
Just so you know, that conversation floating...
lonelystarstuff:
that conversation didn’t start circulating until around 2004, and it was going around before that without Einstein’s name attached.
Also, Einstein was a self-described agnostic, not believing in any sort of personal god.
Also, specious logic abounds in the entry; something an amazing thinker like Einstein would not have used.
...
“As an atheist, my goals are to enjoy the company of my friends, love my family...”
4 tags
How to prove the Noachian Flood
I really don’t understand why Christian keep sending expeditions to find Noah’s Ark on Mt Ararat. There is a very simple test we can all do to show that the flood really occurred.
Just pop down to any zoo and have a look. If the zoo has no animals that means we have evidence the flood occurred. Because pretty much all species would be extinct from inbreeding depression.
If you do see...
4 tags
“People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth...”
– Martin Luther (arguing against heliocentric solar system proposed by Copernicus)
5 tags
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he...”
– Epicurus
3 tags
How to turn a dinosaur into a bird
(Short URL for linking: http://goo.gl/RrzjJ )
One of the most fascinating examples of macroevolution is the path by which birds evolved from reptiles. Birds have many specialised adaptations that make flight possible. These include features like feathers (obviously), hollow bones (for reduced weight), a keel on the sternum (to attach big flight muscles to), and a shortened trunk.
Since the...
4 tags
“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common...”
– Stephen Jay Gould
3 tags
Just how dumb do you think I am really?
While so often now the devil-dodgers insist that ‘it wot God wot started the Big-Bang’ it seems strange that Jesus thought the stars were small lights in the sky capable of falling to earth (Matthew 24:29). You’d think the creator of the universe would have the inkling that stars were really massive balls of plasma scattered by the trillions through the vast unimaginable...
3 tags
6 tags
The GULO 'smoking gun' & human evolution
(Short URL for linking: http://goo.gl/uzEqm )
The human genome has around 3 billion base pairs of which about 23,000 are used to code for the proteins. The rest, well, a lot of them are non-coding. One of the reasons is pseudogenes. These are genes that are basically broken as a result of a mutation.
The human genome has rather a lot of them. Zhu et al. (2007) [1] identify around 72 human...
6 tags
Evolution is observable
(short URL for linking: http://goo.gl/9uDgG )
Ok, so often chatting with the devil-dodgers you hit the constant blather that evolution is all speculation and there’s no real evidence for it. The fact is that evolution is an observable biological phenomenon. We don’t need any guesswork. It happens. we see it.
First up, what do scientists mean by evolution?
evolution: a progressive,...
“What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern...”
– John Stuart Mill, (1859) “Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion,” On Liberty
4 tags
“I am not saying that punctuated equilibrium is the only mode of speciation. As...”
– Gould, S. J. (1982). “Punctuated Equilibrium—A Different Way of Seeing,” New Scientist 94 (April 15): 137-141. p137.
6 tags
DNA- how is it 'designed'!?
From @joecienkowski
…you’d have to be blind and stupid (and drunk) to say DNA is of such an unbelievable complex design
IMO, only a very very ignorant person can look at DNA and deduce “happened by chance”. has Head in sand
Well, seriously, why would anyone be convinced with such a display of bad reasoning? Here we have a creationist with no experience in molecular...
5 tags
Evolution versus the Garden of Eden
The reason evolution presents such an obstacle to bible literalists is because it shows that no Garden of Eden could possibly have existed. Without a Garden of Eden, there could never be an Adam or Eve. Without Adam and Eve, there would never be any fall or original sin. And without the original sin, the concept of Jesus being the Lamb of God is revealed as fully absurd.
5 tags
“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have...”
– Charles Darwin
4 tags
Nope, the gospels are unconvincing
Christians like to toss the Gospels out as evidence that Jesus existed and his claims to divinity are supported. And further, the historical record for Jesus is just as good as, if not better, than say, Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.
It is absolute nonsense.
Rather than being decent biographies of Jesus, the gospels are stunningly sparse on personal details. There is no equivalent to the...