Correlation?

Freethought for Children

• No one can tell you what to think.
• Not your teachers.
• Not your parents.
• Not your minister, priest, or rabbi.
• Not your friends or relatives.
• Not this book.
• You are the boss of your own mind.
• If you have used your own mind to find out what is true, then you should be proud!
• Your thoughts are free.

from Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children, by Dan Barker

Godless: Dan Barker Lecture

Last night I attended a talk by Dan Barker, of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and author of Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists. It was a great night shared friends that were believers, past-believers, and non-believers. Dan shared his story of deconversion from Christian to Atheist/Agnostic. It is a very compelling story and I recommend watching the video below of a similar lecture.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an educational group working to maintain separation of church and state. This past spring they celebrated a large victory in the case against National Day of Prayer. A U.S. District Judge, Barbara Crabb, ruled that National Day of Prayer violates the establishment clause of the Constitution's First Amendment. In her ruling, she wrote: "The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy."

Religion News Weekly!

" Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things -- that takes religion." - Steve Weinberg

Like I said, I will try not to focus on the evils of religion, the harm that faith can cause. But this week I just couldn't help it. Read the linked articles below for the full story.

1. Catholics, it's you this Pope has abused

The Pope's arrival to England was met with harsh criticism over all the recent scandals of the Vatican. The Rally Against the Pope drew at least 10,000 people. Here is a most wonderful speech by Richard Dawkins shreding Ratzinger apart.

2. Protests against US Koran-burning sweep Afghanistan

Long story short. A pastor in florida is upset about the possibility of an Islamic Mosque being built near the site of the World Trade Center. So he trys to rally a 'Burn the Koran' day on the anniversary of 9/11. No one supports him and even officials warn him this may be a bad idea. He eventually doesn't go through with it because of a 'sign from God' claiming he made a deal with an Islam leader to not build the Mosque near the site. This was found to be a lie. Regardless, protesstors in Afghanistan sweep the streets eventually leaving three shot dead. Need I say more?

3. Officials awaken to Forced Marriage, Conversion of Pakistani Girls

Talk about wrong. There is a current movement right now of kidnapping young Christian girls, raping them, subjecting them to a forced marriage, then converting them to Islam.

4. Followers of Christ couple indicted in death of a child

I don't even know what to say about this one. This of course an extreme example of the dangers that irrational faith can play on the human brain. It's not the first time his has happened and surely not the last.


While cartoons may lighten the mood, the consequences of faith can have is down right devastating. While most religious moderates don't take these actions, their support of the church only allows extremism like this to go on in the name of their deity.

Gotta love religion.........

Teach the Controversy

Well which controversy?
Should we teach the:

• Stork theory of reproduction?
• Flat Earth theory?

I am all for teaching the controversy. However, I think it is important to establish what it takes to teach a scientific topic in an educational system. it must go through steps like this:

New Scientific Idea

↓

Research

↓


Peer Review

↓


Scientific Concensus

↓

Classroom & Textbooks

Also note that this process may usually take whats called a 10-15 year filter rate to be taught in an institution, especially in medicine. Creationist and Intelligent Design seem to want to skip from the first step to the last. Kenneth Miller brings this up well " Let's see you at the next Biological Society meetings, etc."

The Value of Science

Yes... there is beauty in science. This is one of my favorite poems, it is by Richard Feynman excerpted from The Value of Science.



There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.

Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.

In rememberance of 9/11

Chemistry 101

Here is a great new interpretation of the periodic table!


The bigger picture can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/6WuYi.jpg

Human Evolution

No other area of evolution has more denial than that of human beings. Most people don't like the idea that we came from 'monkeys' which happens to be a very large misconception. We did not evolve from monkeys, we merely had a common ancestor when our species diverged millions of years ago. No longer is the notion of ape-man. The evidence being brought these days is stagering that indeed we did come out of central Africa.

Lucy just isn't the lone fossil anymore. There are now over 4,000 hominid fossils that have been found (Lubenow 1992). Of those, about 150 are Homo Erectus, 90 Australopithecus robustus, 150 Australopithecus afarensis, and 500 Neanderthals. That is as of 1999, if anyone has a more updated count please let me know. Then, just recently in 2009, Ardi Ardipithecus ramidus was found, a hominid species from 4.4 milllion years ago.

I was originally going to lay out all the evidence in this post but I figured people like visual evidence, not something that's explained out to them. It needs to be real in their eyes. Also, the videos at the bottom in my opinion did such a wonderful job at showing the transitions of hominid species. Make no mistake about it. Human evolution is alive.

Here is a figure showing many of the hominid skull fossils that have been found. There has been many many more fossils found recently along with complete skeletons that are not shown in the diagram. The first skull is that of a chimpanzee (A), our closest living relative, for comparison. Notice how as time goes on, the frontal lobe starts to increase in size, giving rise to a larger pre-frontal cortex which is responsible for planning, decision making, and higher order thoughts.

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, 2.6 Million Years
(C) Australopithecus africanus, 2.5 Million Years

(D) Homo habilis, 1.9 Million Years

(E) Homo habilis, 1.8 Million Years

(F) Homo rudolfensis, 1.8 Million Years

(G) Homo erectus, 1.75 Million Years

(H) Homo ergaster, 1.75 Million Years

(I) Homo heidelbergensis, 300,000 - 125,000 Years

(J) Homo neanderthalensis, 70,000 Years

(K) Homo neanderthalensis, 60,000 Years

(L) Homo neanderthalensis, 45,000 Years

(M) Homo sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 Years

(N) Homo sapiens, modern

This diagram illustrates which species lived during the same. Whether or not any of these species ever came into contact with each other is still highly debatable and unknown. However there is some minor evidence suggesting that homo sapiens may have made contact with neanderthals. The neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago from unknown causes.

Here are two very good videos (with lousy music) walking you through each of the many known hominid fossils and showing the transitions. Please watch and enjoy your family history:

Worries Confirmed Again :(

Last week during one of the most exciting accomplishments in science, the creation of synthetic life, the new Texas curriculum stole the headlines. The new curriculum is an effort to bring the United States back to a conservative majority by taking out major historical events that indicate liberal thinking. There is also an effort to implement more emphasis that the United States was found on Judeo-Christian influences. I can hear Thomas Jefefrson rolling over in his grave right now.

The new curriculum will be in effect for ten years until it is up for amendment again. Texas is one of the largest textbook consuming states and has a major effect on what children throughout the nation learn. This should strike fear in many americans teachers and parents alike. The Texas schoolboard is essentially re-writting history and children will lied to for the next decade.

Greenberg Research ran a poll who people think should have control of curriculum content:

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37271857
• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html
  

"The curriculum plays down the role of Thomas Jefferson among the founding fathers, questions the separation of church and state, and claims that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists during the Cold War." - The Washington Post

Missing Links?

Genetics shows that microevolution is true but it is hard for us to appreciate the whole picture because of our fraction of time spent on this planet in relation to the time needed for large macroevolution changes. Sure we can look at speciation in the lab with bacteria and such but people want to see larger animals, mammals, and humans to be convinced. So, do we have evidence for macroevolution? You betcha! Museums around the world are filled with thousands upon thousand of fossils showing transitional changes. Here is a select few examples showing some of the transitions we understand deeply, including the transition from water to land and from reptiles to mammals.

One of the key points to remember about fossils is that you can make predictions of where in the strata layer you can find a species. For the most part you find oldest layers being at the bottom and younger layers being at the top. And again as a point, no species has ever been found in the wrong strata layer. One way to completely debunk evolution is to find a species in the wrong order. Dawkins says the creationists should be out frantically digging up fossils to find one out of place if they want to hold to their creation and flood myth.

One of the reasons people have a hard time accepting evolution is the transition of species from water onto land. It is now well documented and understood as we now have a good amount of fossils showing the transition. In 2004, Neil Shubin made the critical discovery of the Tiktaalik, being the main transition species between water and land. Shubin was able to make predictions of what strata layer he might find this transitional species based on what layers more fish like species and more tetrapod like species lay in. And anybody could have guessed it, right smack dab in the middle! Tiktaalik's fins had more shoulder, elbow, wrist like features suggesting that it was able to lift it self up out of the water like a push-up. So here is our current understanding of great transition from water to land:

Next up we have the transitional fossils that fill in the gaps between reptiles and mammals. This fossil sequence shows how the reptilian jaw developed into the mammalian ear. Additional evidence has even shown that the same embryonic structures in the reptile also develop into the ear of mammals:

A bit of odd evolutionary history is that modern dolphins porpoises, and whales evolved from land mammals. Another clue was looking at the swimming biomechanics compared to other fish. Most fish have a side to side swimming stroke where as most land animals like otters that enter the water have an up and down swimming stroke. It goes to show that dolphins, porpoises, and whales have an up and down swimming stroke. Even further evidence is the vestigial hind limbs in whales. They still have the genetic code to build hind limbs but the gene is switched off early on leaving small femur like bones that can be seen on any whale fossil.

Was Darwin Wrong?

NO. THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION IS OVERWHELMING. That was the first line in large print I remember reading in the National Geographic article. Evolution is one of the most solid theories in science. Wait you said theory? Yes that's right, a scientific theory. Creationists love to play the 'just a theory card' when not knowing exactly what theory means. In science, theories are a term and model used to explain a set of facts in their relation to one another. In evolution we have thousands upon thousands of facts that have been observable over history as well as in real time. Evolutionary theory is the term used to describe the vast amount of facts and how the process works. If a college student wanted to study physics, they may have to take an atomic theory class. And just as well, Einstein's general relativity is the theory of gravitation that improved on Newton's theory of gravitation.

"Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about evolutionary mechanisms." - Theodosius Dobzhansky, Biologist. He made this quote in 1973, before the understanding of genetics, hence 'mechanisms that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification.'

Evolution has stood up in every facet of science including archaeology, biogeography, biology, chemistry, comparative anatomy, embryology, genetics, geology, neuroscience, paleontology, pharmacology, and physics. The key is that many fields came to the same conclusion independently. Here is a brief preview of some of the fields that make up evolution:

• Fossil Record- The weight of the fossil record is twofold. First, you can make predictions on when the species lived and in what strata layer they will show up based on dating techniques. For the record, no fossil has ever been found in the wrong strata layer. Oh and also, the fossils found in the dated strata layer also matches the estimated dating techniques in genetics.
  
• Geographical Distribution- Looks at species distribution and the relationships among species themselves and in relation to geography. So sorry Noah's Ark, your ship didn't sail. Unless you want to claim that when the flood went down, penguins waddled their way to Antarctica.
  
• Domestic Selection- Man has their hand in evolution which has been demonstrated and documented in dog and pigeon breeding as well in the lab with everything from bacteria to flies.
  
• Genetics- Every creationists nightmare. Genetics essentially put the proof in the pudding for the evidence of evolution. Even showing that natural selection does indeed work. Dawkins claimed that the one observation to refute creationism was the pattern of resemblances you see when you compare the genes, using modern DNA techniques, of any pair of animals and form a perfect family tree.
• Development & Embryology- The study of the similarities between species during embryo development. Darwin originally made observations of this field in his 1859 publication, On the Origin of Species. It has gained recent popularity and is now dubbed Evolutionary Development or Evo-Devo.

In the coming posts I will lay out the evidence supporting each of these claims.

"Even as the evolution wars rage, on school boards and in courtrooms, biologists continue to accumulate empirical data supporting Darwinian theory."

- Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2006

Dear Believer

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is Religion."- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Dear Believer,

You have a belief, a position of faith. You have a neatly packaged model to base your life on. A lens to view everything from the meaning of life, morality, history, enlightenment, love, guidance, to what the future will bring, and how the world works. But guess what? So does your next door neighbor. And theirs is the absolute truth, according to them. How do you feel about that? And guess what? The neighbor on the other side of you has another belief, another model that conflicts with yours. And this neighbor claims that both of your beliefs are wrong and theirs is the one true path to salvation. How can this be so?

I propose something for you to think about. Now, don't just give it a few minutes. I propose you give it a few days of thought, maybe weeks. Possibly turn it into a journey. I want you to think about the origins of your faith. Why do YOU believe what you believe? What got you started on this path? Of all the religions in the world, what makes you think you have the right one?

“The unexamined life is not worth living .” - Socrates

No one has ever been able to come to an agreement of how many religions have existed in the world. There could be 8 core religions of the world, 42 common practiced religions, a possible 42,000 religions have existed in history. Hindusim is considered the oldest written religion at around 6,000 years old. There is evidence that Aborigines held religious ceremonies around 16,000 years ago.The three Abraham religions are relative new comers to the scene. Judaism around 1,800 B.C.E. Christianity around 30 C.E. Islam around 610 C.E. There is between 2,000 to 4,000 different denominations of Christianity. Say what? Yes there are a few thousand interpretations of the teachings of Jesus Christ. So what is this, a multiple choice exam? a) Christianity b) Judaism.... ah crap the right answer was c) Mormonism! I guess you have to play the lotto to be saved huh? Maybe you believe what you believe because of your upbringing? But think about this, there also many possibilities here. Dawkins pointed this out beautifully! You see, just based on probability, if you were:

a) born in America, you would be a Christian.
b) born in Israel, you would be Jewish.
c) born in Salt Lake City, you would be Mormon.
d) born during Viking times, you would believe in Thor.

e) born in ancient Greece, you would believe in Zeus.

f) born in Afghanistan, you would be Islam.
g) born in India, you would be a Hindu.

h) born in Thailand, you be Buddhist

Get it yet? Your religion is no more than a geographical hereditary accident. Period. Your neighbor, neighbor in state, neighbor in country all have the 'truth'. So think about the chances that you were born of a different faith. Walk yourself through the thought process and also what it would be like to look upon your religion from the opposing view. It is amazing when you actually let this idea sit in your head how easy it is to debunk a single religion just based on probability. Yet, humanity is still plagued with one of the last great illusions. Religion.

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -Stephen F. Roberts

"A bad idea embraced by millions of people, is still a bad idea."

LIFE 2.0

Life may be the most beautiful thing we have to cherish, but there is still widespread belief that 'life' is some sort of magic. Hopefully this will chip it away a bit.

This morning we awoke to one of the greatest breakthroughs in science. Craig Venter, Genomics pioneer, has synthetically created a living organism from inanimate chemicals. Thats right, we have created life in the lab, many said could not be done as we dont have the power to instill life. The tables have turned. While this opens the door to an array of applications, it still leaves questions such as the sequence of events that led to the evolution of life. But we now know it is no more a question that life can form from basic chemical structures. Now with current insights and technology, it shouldn't be long before deeper questions are answered.

"Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny," said Julian Savulescu, ethics professor at Oxford University

Venter is wisely keeping the exact protocols under wraps so this could not fall into the wrong hands, with the extreme leading to biochemical warfare. There is still so much work to be done from this point. Scientists still are not sure of all the possible applications of synthetic life, but know it is many. You can read the headlines here:

• http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100520/ap_on_sc/us_sci_synthetic_cell
• http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/05/20/scientists.organism.ft/index.html

Venter is also the author of his book A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, which tells the story of his adventurous life and quest to sequence the Human Genome.

Worrying Out Loud

There seems to be a taboo in this country where you're not allowed to talk about others religious beliefs. You can debate everything such as politics, medicine, and everything in between. But as soon as you bring up religion, it's taboo. You have to be careful as you don't want to 'offend' the person. My aim is not to deliberately offend anyone. More so, I am worrying out loud. I am concerned that the progress of civilization is being stalled by outdated dogma from the bronze age. A majority of people are not only taking moral guidance from a book that is a couple of thousand years old, but also using it as an ample explanation of how natural orders work.

You ask why am I attacking God? I ask, why are you looking the other way? A majority of religious people, moderates as well, tend to stick their fingers in their ears and go La, La, La, as if the evidence were there as some sort of inconvenience to their belief. I realize I may offend some people but as I am coming to find out there is no easy way to tell a person that what they have based their life on may very well be wrong. You may also say I have no right to tell a person that they are wrong. From their point of view I can see this. People hold their beliefs very closely to the heart as it gives them a security blanket. When you tell someone they are wrong, you are immediately touching on their self sense of security. But I say oh boo hoo. Who cares if your wrong! You have to be open minded about the possibility of being wrong. Who cares if your offended. Sure, I am offended by things as well. Like Dawkins, I am offended when children are denied a proper education. I am offended when children are indoctrinated and told they might spend all eternity in hell. I am offended when medical science is compromised and has the potential to cure many diseases. But how else are we supposed to progress as a society if we first don't nuke the foundations?

You may also tell me that religion isn't all evil and it does so many good things for humanity. I would agree. In this blog I will not focus on the evil of religion, as there are plenty of other resources that point it out clearly, and I do realize religion does do a lot of good things and in many ways promotes peace. So what is my problem with it? The surrender of the mind. The alienation from nature into a dogmatic worldview.

So here it is, this is what we're up against: We have people like Ken Ham founder of the Creation Museum, who claims the Grand Canyon was the result of Noah's Flood and people roamed among the dinosaurs. Michael Behe of the Discovery Institute, who leads the Intelligent Design movement making an embarrassment of science by wanting equal time in the classroom against evolution. It's just bad science. Luckily the Supreme Court saw right through it in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case. Then there is Patrick Henry College near Washington D.C., whose main goal is to train fundamentalist evangelical Christians to become political leaders. We have homeschool children being told to deny science as it cant explain anything. Once we can move past these outdated views and road blocks, we can focus on really important topics in science and moral civilization. There are many diseases to be cured and many many questions in science we can put our efforts into.

You will also say, but you haven't been to my church, they don't teach that. Yeah it may not where you are, but it may be happening in the church across the street from yours. Or it may be happening in the home next to yours. And this is why... I am worrying out loud.

"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty." - Stephen Jay Gould

Iconoclast

"The human brain is the only organ in the known universe that seeks to understand itself."-Richard Restak

I've been trying to take on the iconoclast way of thinking. What is an iconoclast you might think; Gregory Berns defines it in his fabulous book Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently as: a person who does something that others say can't be done. He goes on to tell how the iconoclast doesn't literally see things differently than other people; more precisely, he "perceives" things differently." He demonstrates this with stories of revolutionary thinkers that were ahead of their time. They weren't afraid to follow their ideas where others would call them heretics, even with possibility that they could be wrong.

"People will always criticize those on an unconventional path."

Most of my inspiration has been from my recent passion in the field of neuroscience. The brain sciences are one of the fastest growing fields in science because of the multitude of applications. In the near future it will also become one the heated topics with social ethics as it touches on concepts such as free will, beliefs, emotions, actions, and perception. Neuroscience is starting to reveal a lot of scary things, a lot of things that may seem counterintuitive to us. Sure neuroscience is counterintuitive, but that is a problem with your intuitions, not a problem with neuroscience. On top of that neuroscience is bad ass. My cousin once said, "Neuroscience takes the vagina out of psychology and does work." Neuroscience touches on every aspect of human nature.

I believe that studying neuroscience as well as other cool sciences such as genetics and physics can teach you more about yourself and the world than any religion could ever do. It allows you to see things not for what one thinks they are, but for what they might be. But it is not an easy road. "Before one can muster the strength to tear down conventional thinking, one must first imagine the possibility that conventional thinking is wrong." And boy is that ever true. The last two years have been the hardest of my life, but in a good way. It's been a learning process of myself and the world, throwing out most preconceived perceptions and beliefs. A complete reverse engineering of my thoughts. My goal with this blog is to not tell you how to think but rather to open the door to freethinking. Also, to create conscience awareness of evidence, the reality behind the illusions, and to expose dogmatic thinking.

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."