I came across this story from New Scientist about what makes life worth living if you take away religion. From a brain perspective, there ought to be a good reason why a person feels like bothering with this life. It ain’t easy. It ain’t pretty. And it feels like it goes on forever. Beyond that, there is much suffering in life. I thought briefly about what it would feel like to have a son travel to Iraq and die in some useless, futile IED explosion. How would I go on living? Moreover, a recent memorial of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing showed mothers who lost babies in that pseudo-patriotic, mind-numbingly senseless terrorist act.
As a sidenote, isn’t it ironic that we reacted to the terrorist bombings of 9/11 in quite a different way from Oklahoma City? Why didn’t our National Guard descend upon the psychos in America with their radical views of our government? Because we are a so-called free country. Free to bomb a Federal building for the very same reason our towers were bombed: to make a political statement. To take lives while doing so. And to either run and hide to continue fighting, or get caught and die by the state, as Timothy McVeigh pretended to foresee. In his taped confession he actually says to the victims’ families, “get over it.” He wouldn’t show fear when he was put to death by the state. He pretended he not only saw it coming but welcomed it: that was too easy of an out for that puny tyrant.
The evolution scientists, or scientists in general, that I read are downplaying this breathtaking new discovery.
Even though I don’t know nothing from nothing I was quite taken with the idea that they had found the “missing link,” even though I’d been told, or I learned, or someone once told me that the whole idea of the “missing link” was wrong to begin with.¬† Anyway, so then Pharyngula’s PZ Myers cleaned things up a bit for me. You can see from this quote why there is good reason to adore and pledge undying love to Myers (along with other hero, Richard Dawkins):
She’s beautiful and interesting and important, but I do have to take exception to the surprisingly frantic news coverage I’m seeing. She’s being called the “missing link in human evolution”, which is annoying. The whole “missing link” category is a bit of journalistic trumpery: almost every fossil could be called a link, and it feeds the simplistic notion that there could be a single definitive bridge between ancient and modern species. There isn’t: there is the slow shift of whole populations which can branch and diverge. It’s also inappropriate to tag this discovery to human evolution. She’s 47 million years old; she’s also a missing link in chimp evolution, or rhesus monkey evolution. She’s got wider significance than just her relationship to our narrow line.
People have been using remarkable hyperbole when discussing Darwinius. She’s going to affect paleontology “like an asteroid falling down to earth”; she’s the “Mona Lisa” of fossils; she answers all of Darwin’s questions about transitional fossils; she’s “something that the world has never seen before”; “a revolutionary scientific find that will change everything”. Well, OK. I was impressed enough that I immediately made Ida my desktop wallpaper, so I’m not trying to diminish the importance of the find. But let’s not forget that there are lots of transitional forms found all the time. She’s unique as a representative of a new species, but she isn’t at all unique as a representative of the complex history of life on earth.
So PZ says it’s okay to be excited about it, just not to buy the hype. I can dig it.¬† The weird thing about the story is how the fossil hung around on some dude’s wall for a long time before being re-discovered.¬† It’s kind of an Antiques Roadshow for paleantologists.
Oh, and I also like the first comment in the Myers piece:
Meh, I think the overhype is fine. If every single time an interesting transitional fossil is found, the papers blare “MISSING LINK PROVES DARWIN WAS RIGHT!”, maybe a few burgeoning Creationists will get a clue…
Probably not, since many believe the evidence is faked to disprove religion.¬†¬† I do still know a few holdouts who do bring up the missing link to me in arguments.¬† Seriously, they do, or they have.¬† Years ago now maybe.¬† I can’t keep track of everything.¬† My brain is getting old and doesn’t quite work the way it used to.
For the upcoming Darwin anniversary, Richard Dawkins has posted some great Darwin quotes and here they are: 1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (Autobiography) 2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879) 3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires‚Ķ But I most wholly agree‚Ķ that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” (Letter to J. Brodie Innes, November 27 1878) 4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879) 5. “I think that generally (& [...]
You know what? That’s just bullshit.¬† The opposite in true, in fact.¬† Just bringing you some more bad news from the front lines of life.¬† Most things happen arbitrarily and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.¬† Go with it.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, referred by Richard Dawkins, the Creationists: …Have spent years working school boards, with only minimal success. Now critics of evolution are turning to a higher authority: state legislators. In a bid to shape biology lessons, they are promoting what they call “academic freedom” bills that would encourage or require public-school teachers to cast doubt on a cornerstone of modern science. A handful of states have considered such bills in recent years, but backers are now organizing a national movement, with high-profile help from actor Ben Stein. His new documentary, “Expelled,” argues that educators suffer reprisals if they dare question evolution; in an attempt to spur action, he has held private screenings for legislators, including a recent showing in the Missouri statehouse. The academic-freedom bills now in circulation vary in detail. Some require teachers to critique evolution. Others let educators choose their [...]
The great Richard Dawkins on Creationists attempt to disguise “intelligent” design using the space alien theory: Intelligent design “theorists” (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space.” This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are. Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their “space aliens” political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design’s best shot. The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably [...]
In case you’ve been wondering about the whole evolution thing or whether you never learned much about it in the first place, New Scientist has posted an article that should clear things up a bit.¬† In it, there is a guide to the most common misconceptions about evolution and the dumbass creationists’ myths: Shared misconceptions: Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection Natural selection is the only means of evolution Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment Evolution always promotes the survival of species It doesn’t matter if people do not understand evolution “Survival of the fittest” justifies “everyone for themselves” Evolution is limitlessly creative Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution Creationist myths: Evolution must be wrong because the Bible is inerrant Accepting evolution undermines morality Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide Religion [...]
The website put forth to debunk the junk science Creationist movie, Expelled, has gone live.  And it offers up an intriguing video of someone who really WAS expelled. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQacQy1KJ9M[/youtube]
