BioLogos - Evolution, Creationism and Intellige...

Human Ape

Humans are apes. Great apes. Apes all belong to the superfamily Hominoidea. The great apes are the family Hominidae which we share with the Chimpanzees, Gorillas and the Orangutan. Our DNA is less than 2 percent different from that of chimpanzees, so from a biological viewpoint, what is it that makes humans so different from the other great apes? Find out what our ape cousins can do -- and what they can't.

Every home should have the National Geographic Channel. Please support this organisation by subscribing to their cable and YouTube channels, buying their magazine and clicking on ads that may appear during this series here.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in a landmark battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. In 2004, the Dover school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students about an alternative to Darwin s theory of evolution called intelligent design the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and so must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The teachers refused to comply, and both parents and teachers filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state. This is the trial where Behe admitted that if the definition of science was broadened to allow ID, it would also sweep in Astrology. This is the trial which saw Kenneth Miller completely dismantle "Irreducible Complexity". This is the trial where Buckingham and Bonsell went from saying "we don't know where the books came from" to the revelation that Buckingham had taken up an offering in his church, banked the money, wrote a cheque to Bonsell, Bonsell gave it to his father and his father bought the ID books. This is the trial where a number of key witnesses from the upper echelon of the Discovery Institute pulled out at the last minute and therefore would not defend the claims of intelligent Design under oath. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/

Eye Evolution

One of the most common and dishonest quote mines by creationist cult organisations is in relation to Charles Darwin and the evolution of the eye. Darwin is quoted as saying,

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

Creationist cult leaders and their indoctrinated followers point to this as an admission from Darwin that the eye could not have evolved. There could be nothing further from the truth.

The immediately following paragraph from Darwin is suspiciously excluded.

"Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound."

Darwin then spends a number of pages describing a sequence of intermediate stages which we already have examples of in nature.

This series is courtesy of the history Channel. Please subscribe to their YouTube channel and cable channel if available in your area.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EE260884740154AA

Dinosaur Evolution

Dinosaurs rose to dominance in the Triassic and evolved into an amazing variety of species until the major extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous. This series looks at the evolution of this incredible diversity and is a great example of how scientific hypotheses are modified as new evidence emerges.

This doco is courtesy of National Geographic. Please support this organisation by subscribing to their YouTube channel, cable channel and/or magazine.

Wild Sex

Much of the religiously based debate around homosexuality often rests on the premise "it's not natural". This is not accurate, as any sex which occurs within the natural universe is by definition natural. Let's have a look at the animal world and see what is actually natural. Do we see gay and lesbian homosexuality? Bisexuality? Transexuals? Transvestites? Hermaphrodites?

An even more important question is what right do any individual or organisation have to dictate what is or is not allowed in terms of sexual practice or method of commitment between consenting adults?

This doco is courtesy of National Geographic. Please suport this organisation by subscribing to their YouTube channel, cable channel or magazine.

Tetrapod Evolution

Tetrapods are vertebrate animals having four feet, legs or leglike appendages. Amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs/birds, and mammals are all tetrapods, and even the limbless snakes and whales are tetrapods by descent. The earliest tetrapods radiated from the Sarcopterygii, or lobe-finned fish, into air-breathing amphibians. The first tetrapods are now thought to have evolved in shallow and swampy freshwater habitats, towards the end of the Devonian, a little more than 365 million years ago.

This documentary walks through our early understanding and discoveries regarding the evolution of tetrapods. The list of known fossils possessing transitional features continues to grow.

Osteolepis, Eusthenopteron, Sterropterygion, Panderichthys, Elpistostega, Tiktaalik, Elginerpeton, Densignathus, Ventastega, Metaxygnathus, Obruchevichthys, Hynerpeton, Acanthostega, Ichthyostega, Whatcheeria, Tulerpeton, Pederpes, Greerepton, Crassigyrinus, Pholidogaster, Pteroplax, Baphetes, Balnerpeton, Dendrepton, Silvanerpeton, Proteogryinus, Eoherpeton

Dinosaur to Bird Evolution

Today's scientists are recreating dinosaurs through genetic engineering. Sounds like science fiction? Not any longer.

Through rapid advances in genetics, scientists are discovering the genetic traits of dinosaurs in the DNA of birds. They are showing that it is possible to bring back teeth, long tails and hands in place of wings. In Dinosaurs: Return to Life, learn why the dream of recreating the dinosaur genome is coming closer to reality.

Ever since Mary Higby Schweitzer peeked inside the fractured thighbone of a Tyrannosaurus rex, the introverted scientist's life hasn't been the same. Neither has the field of paleontology.


In 2004, Schweitzer gazed through a microscope in her laboratory at North Carolina State University and saw lifelike tissue that had no business inhabiting a fossilized dinosaur skeleton: fibrous matrix, stretchy like a wet scab on human skin; what appeared to be supple bone cells, their three-dimensional shapes intact; and translucent blood vessels that looked as if they could have come straight from an ostrich at the zoo.

An alternate hypothesis has been suggested that the "soft" tissues are in actual fact bacterial biofilms. Kaye TG, Gaugler G, Sawlowicz Z (2008) Dinosaurian Soft Tissues Interpreted as Bacterial Biofilms. PLoS ONE 3(7): e2808. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002808

Whilst certain organisations continue to parrot the phrase "no transitional fossils have ever been found" the list of species which possess transitional features continues to grow.

Epidexipteryx hui, Protoavis, Protarchaeopteryx, Archeopteryx, Avimimus, Sinosauropteryx, Caudipteryx, Rahonavis, Shuvuuia, Sinornithosaurus, Beipiasaurus, Microraptor, Nomingia, Epidendrosaurus, Cryptovolans, Scansoriopteryx, Yixianosaurus, Dilong, Pedopenna, Jinfengopteryx, Sinocalliopteryx, Sinornis, Ambiortus, Hesperornis, Ichthyornis

PZ Myers destroys Simmonds in evolution debate

PZ Myers completely eviscerates his opposition Geoffrey Simmonds in this classic debate. This Simmonds guy clearly knows bugger all regarding evolution but writes books about it. Can we expect anything else from the Discovery Institute? I suggest that the DI send the fitness guru Richard Simmonds next time. Make sure you check out the classic bait and switch just prior to the debate which results in Simmonds not having to present any positive evidence for Intelligent Design. This is becoming a common switch as they clearly do not want to debate the issue. I was going to upload the audio only but found that nethius had put together some nice visuals. Check him out here,
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=nethius

Abraham debunks Lord Monckton climate denialist

Lord Christopher Monckton is a British consultant, policy adviser, writer, columnist, and hereditary peer. While not formally

trained in science, Monckton is one of the most cited and widely published climate skeptics, having even been invited to testify

to the U.S. Senate and Congress on several occasions.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton_Myths.htm
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-v­iscount-monckton/


Lord Monckton's scientific qualifications

........crickets chirping

Monckton is listed as a "Chief Policy Advisor" for the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI). The SPPI was until recently

managed under the name "Center for Science and Public Policy Institute" by another free market think-tank called the

Frontiers of Freedom. Frontiers of Freedom has received over $1 million in funding from ExxonMobil and over $1 million from

Koch Industries.

Monckton is listed as a "Global Warming expert" for the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based free market think-tank. The

Heartland Institute frequently attacks the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change. The Heartland Institute has

received over $791,000 from oil-giant ExxonMobil since 1998.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-an­d-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/

John P. Abrahams is an Associate Professor at the University of St Thomas. He has a Ph.D. 2002, Mechanical Engineering,

University of Minnesota, M.S. 1999, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota and B.S. 1997, Mechanical Engineering,

University of Minnesota. John's career to date has involved incorporating experimental work in heat transfer and fluid

mechanics with computational studies. He has worked on a wide variety of both academic and industrial projects.

John's bio
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/faculty/jpabraham.htm

John's list of publications
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/jpabraham/

This presentation
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/

Thanks to Professor Abraham for not only making this presentation but allowing me to include this on my channel.

Leaving Christianity

This playlist includes videos on my journey from Christianity to atheism.

Expelled Debunk - Flunked

Expelled makes some outrageous claims. But what really happened to the people they claim were persecuted for their views? And what is the real story about evolution and Intelligent Design?
In practically every scene, Expelled insults the science of evolution and the scientists who study it, accepting the long-ago-debunked criticisms and conspiracy theories of the intelligent design proponents as valid. On the contrary, evolution is well accepted in the scientific community, where it is considered the organizing principle of biology and central as well to the field of geology. The notion that scientists have formed an atheistic cabal to keep intelligent design from its day in the sun is ludicrous.
Intelligent design has not produced any research to suppress. When prominent ID proponent Michael Behe was asked about his research, and why "you don't do those tests?" he responded, "I myself would prefer to spend time in what I would consider to be more fruitful endeavors." If even proponents of ID do not think it is a fruitful enterprise, why should the scientific community take any interest in it?
Intelligent design is scientifically unproductive, and this perhaps explains why scientists like Guillermo Gonzalez and Michael Behe publish far fewer papers after they become attracted to intelligent design. Ultimately, intelligent design's lack of success in science departments is the fault of the flawed and unscientific nature of intelligent design itself, not the result of bias in the scientific community.
The issue is not the suppression of ID, but the lack of warrant for its scientific claims. And ultimately, ID has an uphill struggle to demonstrate that it is, indeed, science. The fundamental problem with intelligent design as science is that intelligent design claims cannot be tested. Scientific testing requires that there be some set of phenomena which are incompatible with your idea. No observation could possibly be incompatible with a claim that an "intelligent agent" (whom everyone recognizes as God) acted to, say, introduce information into a system. Untestable claims are not scientific claims. Regardless of their attractiveness as religious ideas (although many people of faith strongly reject intelligent design) intelligent design has not passed muster as science.

Flunked - Expelled Debunked by PrometheusWithLight

http://www.youtube.com/PrometheusWithLight
http://www.expelledexposed.com

Scopes Monkey Trial

The famous 1925 trial of John Scopes in Dayton Tennessee became known as the "Monkey Trial". John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution. This breached the Tennessee anti-evolution law known as the Butler Act. The trial itself received national attention as it was not only one of the first ever court cases which was broadcast live on radio but pitted famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow against past presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.

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