Sometimes I get a kick out of the arguments for religion, because they’re so entertaining. Whether this is actively fostered or simply a by-product of our media, the most common style that I see anymore is the sound bite. By that I mean, the brief and memorable, sum-it-all-up sayings that sound good, even though content-wise they’re rather deficient. The comments on any article
Category: Science & Evolution
The lucky ones
Through both Ophelia Benson and Jerry Coyne this morning, I found out that the mother eagle we’ve been watching raise her brood on the EagleCam at Norfolk Botanical Garden, collided with a plane and was killed yesterday morning. The father is still around, but three is a large brood for eagles, and usually both parents are kept busy cycling the food to the rapidly growing youngsters.
In light
Denihilism
Humans are a really odd species – there’s just no getting around this. Maybe it’s a credit to us that we’re actually starting to recognize this, or maybe it’s a symptom of our condition that it’s taking us so long. It’s really easy to devolve into some kind of internal philosophical debate over that, but it’s pretty pointless.
What makes me say this,
Half a century
Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space, as well as the first to orbit the planet, beginning what is widely considered the Space Age of human development and accomplishments. For the first time, we left the planet and set foot among the stars.
Well, okay, that’s being a bit dramatic. We’d been leaving the planet for quite a while, just not very
Nuclear whoas
This topic has been kicking around in my head for a long time, long before I ever started blogging, and now in the wake of Japan’s issues with the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, more of this information is coming to light and being discussed, where it had been ignored and denigrated before. The issue isn’t simple, and many, many people will find elements contestable – I’m
Is it faith?
I’m sorry, I’ve been doing a string of religious posts recently, and it’s because every time I turn around something else stirs some thoughts that I want to pass along. I’m trying to space them out with items of other interest, but because I know not everyone here necessarily wants to see me pick on religion all the time, I will break the post up between the teaser and the
That was easy
All right, let me throw a couple of questions at you – don’t worry, I grade leniently. This is just an exercise.
The US, like most countries with significant vehicle ownership, has speed limits on virtually all of its roads, and while I’m trying to go metric myself, I’d confuse people by switching the examples – 65 miles per hour on many interstate highways, 30 mph in
Book Review: Why Evolution Is True
I know it might seem like I have a theme going, but it’s unintentional the book lineup just kind of fell together. Nonetheless, the progression is actually interesting. Previously, I reviewed Why Evolution Works (and Creationism Fails), which
Too cool, part nine: A star is born
As wintertime drifts away here in the northern hemisphere, we’ll lose the opportunity to see the most recognizable constellation on earth in the universe by human standards still visible in the evening sky: Orion. Shown here, but technically not in its entirety (there are
Science and religion
[The following post was originally written some time back, when the referenced posts within were still “current.” For one reason or another, I never finished it off, which I now find unfortunate because it contains several factors that I want to use as a springboard. So I’m resurrecting this post, and ask that you excuse the reliance on ancient-in-webby-terms, yet