<3 Terry Pratchett
On November 24, 1859, the first edition of a book that would shake the most deeply established beliefs about life was published in London. What would eventually be known as “The Origin of Species” was the opening shot in a debate that hasn’t ended, even 150 years later.
In a series of books starting in 1976 and in his 2002 TED Talk, biologist Richard Dawkins has explored the implications of Darwin’s work. In “The Selfish Gene,” Dawkins wrote, “Living organisms had existed on earth, without ever knowing why, for over 300,000 million years before the truth finally dawned on one of them. His name was Charles Darwin.”
Dawkins argues that there is no doubt that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is true and, unlike some other scholars of the subject, says belief in evolution is not compatible with faith in religion. In fact, he argues, science and religion undermine each other.
[…]
CNN: What’s your sense of Darwin’s influence around the world?
Dawkins: Evolution is almost universally accepted among those who understand it, almost universally rejected by those who don’t.
The e-mail between CNN and Dawkins is actually quite a bit less biased than I had expected.
The article’s a good read, but make sure to check the comments for the real lunacy, containing gems like, “if science is based upon evidence why 150 yrs later is Darwin’s theory still only a THEORY? Because noone can prove it.”
Sigh. Baby steps.
CH4 are running an interesting series on Christianity – now available on 40d. It features a few characters I know some fans here will like.
Watch the full series over at Ch4
(via Derren Brown Blog)
The initial video posted on Derren Brown’s Blog is fantastic, and we even get a taste of Dawkins discussing evolution. It looks as if there’s a lot more too this as well. So much interesting material comes out of the UK, sometimes I wish I lived there.
Astronomers have seen the furthest back in time ever, measuring light from a star that exploded 13 billion years ago, just after the dawn of the universe.
They traced a gamma-ray burst called GRB 090423 to see the light from the massive star that died 630 million years after the Big Bang that brought the universe into being, they reported in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Whoa. Kind of blows the whole 6,000 year thing out of the water, no? Check the link for the rest of the story.
Richard Dawkins at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2009 ~ Atheist Media Blog
More Dawkins for the masses. The Q&A section towards the end is pretty good.
Hmm, we atheists have a lot of nightmares, huh. First bananas, now peanut butter!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
wow…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
While I’m certain this has been posted quite a few times now, I’ve only recently caught a glimpse of it (perhaps a preview is on television? I don’t subscribe to cable).
The trailer looks like Creation may be a very good movie and, though it’s likely not entirely true, I very much look forward to its release.
