On the Origin of Species voted most influential academic book in history. Oh this is not going to go over well.

Courtesy of the Guardian:

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has been voted the most influential academic book ever written, hailed as “the supreme demonstration of why academic books matter” and “a book which has changed the way we think about everything”. 

After a list of the top 20 academic books was pulled together by expert academic booksellers, librarians and publishers to mark the inaugural Academic Book Week, the public was asked to vote on what they believed to be the most influential. With titles in the running including A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Darwin’s explanation of his theory of evolution was the public’s overwhelming favourite, with 26% of the vote, said organisers. 

Professor Andrew Prescott of the University of Glasgow called Darwin’s 1859 study “the supreme demonstration of why academic books matter”. “Darwin used meticulous observation of the world around us, combined with protracted and profound reflection, to create a book which has changed the way we think about everything – not only the natural world, but religion, history and society,” he said. “Every researcher, no matter whether they are writing books, creating digital products or producing artworks, aspires to produce something as significant in the history of thought as Origin of Species.”

Yeah religious conservatives are going to lose their shit over this. 

I can personally attest to the influence of this book in my life, and even in my daughter's life.

They say that the best way to create an Atheist is to have them read the Bible. However it is not the only book with that kind of power.

Quite a few years back when my daughter was attending that uber fundamentalist church in Georgia, and coming home with these crazy ideas about evolution, rather than argue about it everyday with her I challenged her to read this book instead.

To her credit she did exactly that, and it did indeed change her mind completely.

Now she is not only a strong supporter of Evolution, and of science in general, but she is an even more ardent Atheist than her old man.

So yes, this book is powerful indeed.

Perhaps THAT is why the Religious Right fears it so.

House member introduces resolution to designate a Charles Darwin Day in America. About damn time!

Courtesy of the National Center for Science Education:  

House Resolution 67 (PDF), introduced in the United States House of Representatives on February 2, 2015, would, if passed, express the House's support of designating February 12, 2015, as Darwin Day, and its recognition of "Charles Darwin as a worthy symbol on which to focus and around which to build a global celebration of science and humanity intended to promote a common bond among all of Earth's peoples." 

Jim Himes (D-Connecticut), the lead sponsor of the bill, explained in a January 26, 2015, press release from the American Humanist Association, "Charles Darwin's discoveries gave humankind a new, revolutionary way of thinking about the natural world and our place in it. His insatiable quest for knowledge and decades of meticulous observation and analysis opened new pathways for advancements in biology, medicine, genetics and ecology." He added, "Without Darwin's contributions to science, philosophy and reason, our understanding of the world's complexity and grandeur would be significantly diminished.”

Like I said this is way past due, we owe much to the research of Charles Darwin and the publication of the "Origin of Species," and this ides should be embraced by all rational people in the country.

But I also realize that the resolution will undoubtedly fail.

Especially with the Congress overflowing with Republicans.

Something to keep in mind.

To be fair there are quite a number of Jewish people and Muslims who believe the Christian version as well.

But remember if 5 billion people believe in something stupid, it does not make it any less stupid.

HBO's documentary "Questioning Darwin" reveals the fearful mindset of those who reject Evolution.

Model of Adam in the Garden of Eden sporting a bellybutton. Because fuck science!

Courtesy of Slate:

Intellectual freedom is one of humanity’s greatest gifts—and biggest burdens. Our ability to ask questions, to test ideas, to doubt is what separates us from our fellow animals. But doubt can be as terrifying as it is liberating. And it’s the terror of doubt that fosters the toxic, life-negating cult of creationism. 

That fear is on full display throughout HBO’s new documentary Questioning Darwin, which features a series of intimate interviews with biblical fundamentalists. Creationism, the documentary reveals, isn’t a harmless, compartmentalized fantasy. It’s a suffocating, oppressive worldview through which believers must interpret reality—and its primary target is children. For creationists, intellectual inquiry is a sin, and anyone who dares to doubt the wisdom of their doctrine invites eternal damnation. That’s the perverse brilliance of creationism, the key to its self-perpetuation: First it locks kids in the dungeon of ignorance and dogmatic fundamentalism. Then it throws away the key. 

I actually missed this documentary when it aired last night, only happening upon it afterward, and I have just now finished watching it.

As a result my head is now hurting so bad I can barely stand.

There is quite a lot of interesting information about Charles Darwin, and the trials that he went through in order to write and publish "The Origin of Species." Not to mention the challenges to the teaching of Evolution that have presented themselves in the years since the book was published.

However what struck me, and caused my mental anguish, were the statements from those who rejected the teachings of Darwin, and the idea that man evolved over time, outright.

"I cannot imagine life without knowing that God has a plan." Quoted the Head of Women's Ministry Christ Community Church.

To me that speaks volumes as to the mindset of those who choose to ignore all evidence which supports Evolution and undermines their ability to have faith in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Over an over again the message from the faithful is "We don't understand Evolution so it cannot be true." Or, "We cannot accept that our faith is baseless so we will not entertain contradictory information." Or, "I cannot accept that we were not specifically designed by God. and are no more important, or special, than the other creatures with whom we share this planet."

Essentially the argument is that it is much easier, and comforting, to believe that man was created specifically by God to hold dominion over the planet and the animals that live upon it. And that after they die their soul will live on forever at God's side.

While I can understand the impulse to accept a story that rescues us from death and feeds into our innate egoism, I simply cannot excuse the rejection of information based solely on the fear that it may one day prove the fallacy of that faith.

What the documentary illustrates more than anything is an image of mankind as a shivering frightened child, cowering under bed covers and crying out for its powerful father to provide assurance that all is well and that there is nothing to fear. Not even death.

Simply put that saddens me beyond measure, for we have the capacity to prolong our lives well past the life expectancy of our ancestors, to rid ourselves of diseases that crippled and plagued our species for thousands of years, and to increase our knowledge well beyond what could have been imagined even by the greatest minds of the past, and yet we still fear the darkness as if we have not chased it into the shadows with the light of our creativity and intelligence.

At this stage we should be the ones to chase away the monsters and stand bravely facing the darkness, and yet our confidence is undermined by our reliance on the safety of myths and superstitions.

We can, and must, do better.

Perhaps the best parody of how the Fundamentalists believe a debate with a liberal evolutionist would go that I have ever read. I dare you to read through this without laughing out loud.

I could not make it even through the first two sentences before my eyes teared up with laughter.

In case you have trouble reading it, this is what it says:

A liberal Muslim homosexual ACLU professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx. 

"Before class begins you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he is the most highly evolved being the world has ever know, even greater than Jesus Christ."

At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decisions made by the United States stood up and held up a rock.

"How old is this rock?"

The arrogant professor smiled quite Jewishly and replied "4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian."

"Wrong. It's been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real...then it should be an animal now."

The professor was visibly shaken and dropped his copy of Origin of Species. He stormed out of the room crying those liberal crocodile tears. 

The students applauded and all registered as Republicans that day and accepted  Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. An eagle named "Small Government" flew into the room and perched atop the American flag and shed a tear on the chalk board. The Pledge of Allegiance was read several times and God himself showed up and enacted a flat tax rate across the country.

The professor lost his tenure and and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and was tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity.

You know the truly humorous thing about this is that I bet there are NUMEROUS Right Wingers who could read almost the entire thing before realizing that it is not supposed to be taken seriously.

Kirk Cameron fights back against critics of his idea to distribute Creationist friendly copies of "Origin of Species" on college campuses.

He's used to getting love letters and high-fives as a former teen heartthrob, but onetime Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron isn't letting the mockery and criticism dissuade him from promoting his controversial project to dispute evolutionary theory.

"Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is The Origin of Species," Cameron tells PEOPLE. "We have a situation in our country where young people are entering college with a belief in God and exiting with that faith being stripped and shredded. What we want to do is have student make an informed, educated decision before they chuck their faith."

First off "Origin of Species" is NOT the Atheist's Bible. This is.

Second isn't it possible that the reason so many young people "chuck their faith" by the time they exit college is because of the first time they have the tools to "make an informed, educated decision" ABOUT their faith?

I am guessing that for many teens raised in small towns, and educated by people who for the most part attend the same church and share the same faith, college is the first time they are exposed to the idea that not everybody in the world embraces their particular brand of faith.

With eyes now wide open they are finally able to make a choice concerning their own religious point of view based on a potpourri of new and exciting information. Many college graduates still return to the church of their childhood. In my opinion religion is less an intellectual choice than it is an emotional choice. If students feel an emotional connection to a church that made them feel safe and loved, chances are pretty good they will return. If they are looking for something that they cannot find sitting in the pews, or kneeling with their head pointing toward Mecca, or burning incense in their temple, they will look elsewhere.

But what Cameron is doing is providing fallacies about the impact of Origin of Species, and attacks on Darwin himself, to scare students away from learning about Evolution.

But never has he ruffled so many feathers, especially among academics, as he has this week, slamming evolutionary theory as untrue, inherently un-Christian and the driving force behind some of the most horrendous catastrophes of the 20th century, including Adolf Hitler's plan to destroy "inferior races." "You can see where [Hitler] clearly takes Darwin's ideas to some of their logical conclusions and compares certain races of people to lower evolutionary life forms," Cameron says. "If you take Darwin's theory and extend it to its logical end, it can be used to justify all number of very horrendous things."

This of course is bullshit!

In fact Hitler had books about Dawinism removed from German libraries:

The Nazi Party in general rejected Darwinism and supported Christianity. In 1935, Die Bücherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published a list of guidelines of works to reject, including:

Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel). (Die Bücherei 1935, 279)

On the other hand, an undated "Blacklist for Public Libraries and Commercial Lending Libraries" includes the following on a list of literature which "absolutely must be removed":

c) All writings that ridicule, belittle or besmirch the Christian religion and its institution, faith in God, or other things that are holy to the healthy sentiments of the Volk. (Blacklist n.d.)

It is widely known that Adolph Hitler was a Catholic (Well widely known by those of us that read, that is). However I would certainly NOT blame the Catholic church, or Christianity in general, for the horrific things that the Nazis did. That would be ignorant.

So why bring up Hitler and try to connect him to Darwin?

Because Hitler is universally reviled. If you can somehow connect the actions of that mass murderer with a guy you are trying to denigrate it makes it that much easier to do so.

Which is also why you saw those posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache and the word "fascist" underneath, which by the way may be an even stupider comparison than the Hitler/Darwin association.

So what exactly is Kirk Cameron's major malfunction anyhow?

"I am proud to bring this to people's attention," he says. "You see things in the world that are truly distressing and you think, 'What can I do?' Well this is something I can do."

So something he "can do" is to make himself a laughingstock while perpetrating a lie in a desperate attempt to suppress a widely accepted truth? Is that how he wants his kids to remember him?

And speaking of his children:

And if his own kids ended up believing in evolution? "Could I accept it? Yeah sure," he says. "I accepted a lot of things that are not true before I was able to sit down and listen to more then one side and think things through the issues. I would sit them down and tell them that I was happy that they were thinking about this stuff, now let's look at all of the information and see if we don't come to a better conclusion. If after that, they still come to the same conclusion, so be it."

Well good, at least Cameron sounds like a loving father. I can respect that.

However Cameron's mission is doomed before it starts.

Handing intellectually hungry young adults these books will certainly get them interested in the subject, but if Kirk were to sit in on one of their conversations about his "gifts" I doubt very seriously he would like which direction it took.

How long do you think it would take, in the age of Google, for these inquisitive young minds to research Cameron's claims? And how much longer until they read up on recent findings in Evolution? My guess is that in less than an hour they would have educated themselves well enough to realize that Kirk Cameron is completely full of shit. But hey no loss, because then they would still be in possession of one of the most important books in the history of science. (Gee thanks Mr. Ex-teenage idol!)

They could always rip out that stupid introduction if they wanted, but if I were them I would leave it in to serve as a testament to the importance of getting a well rounded education.

If only Kirk Cameron had taken the time to get one.