What follows is an excerpt from a letter Professor Dawkins recently wrote to address a person who had been duped by Ben Stein’s horribly stupid movie, Expelled. This particular piece addresses what many religious and/or anti-evolution people consider to be a major problem with evolution, i.e. the linking between what evolution says about how life evolves vs. how we should build our society as humans.

Richard Dawkins handles the issue quite well (bold emphasis mine):

Now, to the matter of Darwin. The first thing to say is that natural selection is a scientific theory about the way evolution works in fact. It is either true or it is not, and whether or not we like it politically or morally is irrelevant. Scientific theories are not prescriptions for how we should behave. I have many times written (for example in the first chapter of A Devil’s Chaplain) that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to the science of how life has actually evolved, but a passionate ANTI-Darwinian when it comes to the politics of how humans ought to behave.

I have several times said that a society based on Darwinian principles would be a very unpleasant society in which to live. I have several times said, starting at the beginning of my very first book, The Selfish Gene, that we should learn to understand natural selection, so that we can oppose any tendency to apply it to human politics. Darwin himself said the same thing, in various different ways. So did his great friend and champion Thomas Henry Huxley.

So don’t ever let anyone give you this lame argument. Think of the female black widow killing its male mate after they have sex. Think of the countless animals that regularly kill their children.

In short, there are countless examples of things that happen in nature, which are worth studying, that we shouldn’t try and emulate. To put it another way, just as we study black widows in order to understand how they live yet don’t promote women killing their mates after sex, we can also study Darwinistic Evolution without applying its principles to human society.:

Laser pointers are so compelling to men because of the male obsession with exerting one’s will. When we shine a laser pointer two blocks away onto someone’s garage there’s a part of us that’s saying, “I own that house. Watch me make my mark all over it…”

It’s a weapon tool for expanding our scope of influence. When we shine our beams into the sky or onto the chest of a person standing 100 yards away, we do it to become more powerful. We’re pulling those far away things into OUR realm of control.

Just as an added twist, try showing a gay guy a laser pointer some time. Show him how you can “touch” stop signs and license plates and make them light up from hundreds of yards away. He’ll be roughly as impressed as the average woman, i.e. not much at all.

Laser pointer obsession comes from the desire to dominate and control the environment. That’s why men love laser pointers.:

Some of you may have heard about the National Geographic Genographic Project on T.V. The project has you submit your DNA via cheek swab for analysis, and the results will show which genetic markers exist in your DNA. From the site:

Your results will reveal your deep ancestry along a single line of direct descent (paternal or maternal) and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago. Your results will also place you on a particular branch of the human family tree. Some anthropological stories are more detailed than others, depending upon the lineage you belong to. For example, if you are of African descent, your results will show the initial movements of your ancestors on the African continent, but will not reflect most of the migrations that have occurred within the past 10,000 years. Your individual results may confirm your expectations of what you believe your deep ancestry to be, or you may be surprised to learn a new story about your genetic background.

The cost is only $99. If you’re into this kind of stuff I’d definitely look into it.

Scott Adams has posted another highly inflammatory post — this time claiming that popular evidence for evolution is bullshit. I’m no longer surprised by these pieces of his, but I have figured something out. He’s playing games with his readers by creating incendiary titles that don’t match his post content.

His post is titled, “Fossils — Still Bullshit”. Ok, now he’s got our attention. Then he goes on to say that he’s NOT claiming any of the following:

1. Evolution isn’t a scientific fact.
2. All evidence for evolution is false.
3. God created the earth.

His game is simple — create a title that will rile people up because it indicates an extraordinarily weak argument is going to follow, and then proceed to point out how that’s not actually what he was saying.

It’s a win-win for him. When someone comes back and says, “Eh, fossils are real, the evidence is real, you’re wrong.”, he just says, “You’re stupid. I already pointed out that my title was incorrect within my post.”

Great. You win again, Scott.  You tricked people into believing for a second that you didn’t believe in evolution. But all you actually said was that scientific evidence for evolution (which you admit is completely strong) is so complex that it’s difficult to dumb down for laymen, and that in an attempt to reduce its complexity it gets mangled.

I think it’s a great point, but must he package it as an anti-evolution argument in order to make people react so strongly? I’m aware of the whole “tainment” concept, but at some point the style can become too similar to trolling. Scott is unbelievably awesome without having to resort to such tactics.:

I need some help here. I have a friend with whom I’m debating evolution. He is a fundamentalist Christian (wait for it), but he has an uncharacteristic understanding of, and respect for, science.

So he’s an extremely intelligent guy who doesn’t deny the validity of science. In fact, he actually accepts microevolution. He’s familiar with the various moth studies and such, and accepts them as solid. What he disputes is the concept of macroevolution. For those not up on the terms, macroevolution is any evolution that occurs at or above the species level, meaning that over time the offspring species would become unable to mate with the parent species.

But Rick’s main argument concerns less subtle differences. He doesn’t care if moth A becomes moth B, and that after many generations they won’t be able to procreate with each other. He wants more than that. He quite simple rejects the notion of all life having a common ancestor.

So here’s the problem: his argument is that he and I both have beliefs; I believe in macroevolution and he believes in God. When I show him that my beliefs (and not his) are backed by empirical evidence, he refutes the evidence using assorted websites that dispute various parts of the findings. After this happened for like the third time I realized something.

If I cannot explain macroevolution to him — or anyone else — that means I don’t totally understand it myself. And if I believe it without understanding it then it IS a belief. So on that point he’s absolutely correct.

All that remains is me thinking that my belief is based on more evidence than his belief, and that’s where the evidence comes in. Hence a never ending cycle simply because I don’t understand the science well enough myself to articulate and defend it.

So that raises the question in the title of this post: how would YOU explain macroevolution to someone who believes in science but simply doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to support it? Is it possible to do without learning a whole lot of biology yourself?

For some reason this really affected me. I think it’s the idea of the more beautiful emotions (affection, love) overriding the baser ones (fear, aggression).

This lion was raised by humans and then released into the African wild. See how both the “parents” and the lion react when they see each other for the first time after being separated for an entire year…

weber.edu

Unopened reddit stories are noticeably more interesting when viewed from a mobile device than from a system with a full display and adequate bandwidth. This is for the same reason that any movie in your DVD collection is less interesting than the same movie playing on TV.

With the mobile reading scenario I know the story might take a long time to load, or that my lame little mobile browser might balk at it — so there’s a decent chance I won’t be able to see it. With the movies, the one on TV is interesting because it’s going away soon.

It’s the same with relationships; your wife is Braveheart in your DVD collection, while the woman in line at the grocery store could very well be Battlefield Earth on cable (with commercials).

I think we are wired to be highly attracted to opportunities that are fleeting or difficult to attain, regardless of quality.

Better than XKCD.

[ Link: Fundamentalist Quotes ]

I often debate with evolutionists because I believe that they are narrow mindedly and dogmatically accepting evolution without questioning it. I don’t really care how God did what He did. I know He did it. — Christian Forums