In the following video, Bill Nye demonstrates a scale model of the solar system by riding his bike across a barren plain. Richard Dawkins wrote this about our planetary system: Find a large open space, and take a soccer ball to represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line, stick [...] Related posts: Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs: The Game Bill Gates Facebook Page What if Earth...
I hear the cries and the calls of the religious moderate, and they are as usual correct. We have been too uppity, and I apologize on behalf of all of us. We should have known better, of course but in our exuberance at the publication of books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and others, we forgot to realize that even though our numbers seem to be growing we are...
150 years ago today, Chuck Darwin published his famous On the Origin of Species, so it's appropriate to dedicate today's entry to the brilliance and imaginative power of this radical intellectual. In the following thought-provoking lecture, Richard Dawkins persuasively argues that Darwin may very well deserve the title of most revolutionary scientist ever, even more so than Newton or Einstein. A bold...
This week is Thanksgiving in the United States. This means that over the coming weekend many Americans will be putting up Christmas decorations in and outside their houses. Many children will be putting finishing touches on their letters to Santa. The shopping malls will start to fill and while economists examine and measure the retail sales bump for signs that the world will not end, we, as a nation,...
A letter that Richard Dawkins was an unsuccessful bidder on sold at auction in May 2008 for a meagre £170,000. The item in question was penned by Albert Einstein in January 1954, just a year before his death, and was addressed to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, Choose Life: The Biblical Call to [...]
Dawkins Dazzles... Mostly A brief look today at Richard Dawkins' latest two books... First let me say that what I like best about Richard Dawkins is his British accent ;-) and his videos are all over the internet so one can partake of that... but of course his writing ain't half-bad either. Of his last two works however, I give "The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing," an anthology
Conversation with Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg. Part 1 of 8. “The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least.” “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have [...]
Shakespeare wrote that "past is prologue," but it's not always that easy to read. Brian Switek on Laelaps tells the tale of P. H. Gosse, a man who tried to reconcile the fossil record with the Book of Genesis, at the same time Darwin was writing his Origin of Species. Convincing no one, Gosse estranged even the faithful with his image of God as "a trickster who planted gags to fool...
The " Dinosauroid ", the human-like product of a thought experiment about what the descendants of the dinosaur Troodon would look like today if the theropod had survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, is back. This time it has been invoked as an "I'm just sayin'..." defense by Richard Dawkins in a discussion about what life might be like on other planets. The article itself...
Richard Dawkins has taken a lot of abuse himself for having the temerity to suggest that some kinds of religious upbringings can be considered abusive even if no physical harm is involved. We know that Catholic children suffered abuse at the hands of priests and nuns, and that some fundamentalist Christians have also engaged in extremely abusive practices. We don't usually think of Jews as routinely...
Via Josh Rosenau I came across this post from Todd Wood. Wood is an unabashed young-Earth creationist. What makes him considerably more interesting than most YEC's is that he sometimes writes things like this: Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is...
Is Richard Hoste right that people need to be religious in order to have replacement levels of fertility? If we limit our analysis to the U.S. and use GSS data for women in this decade ages 40-59, those who never attend church average 1.69 children, while those who go more than once a week have a mean of 2.26 kids. The irreligious are not even close to the 2.1 level needed for replacement, while the...
Isn’t a little strange to know Peaches Geldof wants to learn about life ? Well, this is what she said in an interview last week with presenter Fearne Cotton and also expressed her interest in quantum theories. “You know what I’m intrigued by? Stephen Hawking’s theories and Richard Dawkins’ theory. That’s what I care about. I [...]
What are the odds that intelligent, technically advanced aliens would look anything like the ones in films, with an emaciated torso and limbs, spindly fingers and a bulbous, bald head with large, almond-shaped eyes? What are the odds that they would even be humanoid? In a YouTube video, produced by Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, I argue that the chances are...
Author of 'The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' shares his passion for spreading an understanding of scientific processes with the layperson. In the 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin's landmark book, "On the Origin of Species," researchers have accrued massive amounts of evidence in support of evolution and the mechanics behind the process. Yet today only...
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