There is a great article summarizing what we know about Neanderthals over at the National Geographic.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121012-neanderthals-science-paabo-dna-sex-breeding-humans/
The article it also full of great links to more research.
You just have to ignore the god-soaked idiots in the comments section.
What is interesting about this is the picture it paints for us as a species. Most animal types out there have many species that are similar, but not the same. Think of all the types of birds, or even the various cannid types (wolves, dogs, foxes).
As humans we don't have anything so near to us, unless you want to count chimps and bonobos.
I wonder what the world would have been like today if Neanderthal had survived as an intact species.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Curiosity killed...no one
The latest Martian rover Curiosity has landed successfully on Mars.
The stated goal of this little robot is to see if Mars was ever capable of supporting life or even had life at one point.
I should not have spell out the ramifications of a positive discovery would have in both science and religion.
Till that happens you can follow Curiosity's Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity
And it's official site here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
The stated goal of this little robot is to see if Mars was ever capable of supporting life or even had life at one point.
I should not have spell out the ramifications of a positive discovery would have in both science and religion.
Till that happens you can follow Curiosity's Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity
And it's official site here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Sally Ride (1951-2012)
Yesterday we learned of the death of a true pioneer in space, Astronaut Sally Ride.
I don't know about Dr. Ride's views on faith or god or she was or was not a theist.
I do know she was the first American woman into space. She was also the first lesbian and at one time the youngest person that went into space.
I do know she was an inspiration to millions of people, not just girls and women. I remember when she first went into space I thought to myself that is was kinda sad that this was the 1980s and we still were in a position to have a "First Woman to..." at all. But as I got older I realized that things were not as far along as I had hoped they would have been. Plus so few people had gone into space by then and the requirements are so high that few people in general made it. It took more "First Woman to..."s for Dr. Ride to get that far.
She kept her private life very private and instead focused on her educational efforts like Sally Ride Science.
She flew on two shuttle missions, both on Columbia and she served on both Shuttle disaster commissions.
Dr. Ride was 61.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride
Sally Ride Science, set up be her and her partner. https://www.sallyridescience.com/
I don't know about Dr. Ride's views on faith or god or she was or was not a theist.
I do know she was the first American woman into space. She was also the first lesbian and at one time the youngest person that went into space.
I do know she was an inspiration to millions of people, not just girls and women. I remember when she first went into space I thought to myself that is was kinda sad that this was the 1980s and we still were in a position to have a "First Woman to..." at all. But as I got older I realized that things were not as far along as I had hoped they would have been. Plus so few people had gone into space by then and the requirements are so high that few people in general made it. It took more "First Woman to..."s for Dr. Ride to get that far.
She kept her private life very private and instead focused on her educational efforts like Sally Ride Science.
She flew on two shuttle missions, both on Columbia and she served on both Shuttle disaster commissions.
Dr. Ride was 61.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride
Sally Ride Science, set up be her and her partner. https://www.sallyridescience.com/
Thursday, June 7, 2012
There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun today
If you follow science news (and if you follow this blog, I am sure you do) then you know that Venus is making an historic trip across the sun. The last time this century.
It's not just that Venus is doing it. We are all lined up in such a way that we can see it.
I recall reading about the Transit of Mercury back in the late 70s early 80s. For those of you keeping score at home you know that this is also the same time of my atheist self-awareness.
I can't help but connect the two.
The Copernican Model of the Solar System was revolutionary for a number of reasons. It helped explain why Transits of Mercury and Venus can occur for starters, but it also took in all the data we had and explained the observations we could make. It did it all by throwing out one basic assumption. The assumption was that the Earth was the center of the Universe.
This assumption, while observational, was given biblical weight in the passage of Joshua 10:12-13 which talked about the Sun and Moon standing still. I got into an argument with an adult at the time about this. Again she came from the point of view that if it was in the Bible it had to be true and all other evidence be damned.
Again this flies in the face of not just Copernicus, but 450 years of data collection after that. And much before that two since there were Greeks in 250 BCE that also knew this and I am sure the Egyptians and the Chinese astronomers also knew this (but I would have to double check). What do these all have in common? They never made the Earth-centric assumption.
If we apply this same logic to other fields of science we see once again that once the bible is ignored then fields of evolution and cosmology do quite fine on their own. It is only when people pull in this ancient text that has already been shown time and time again to be in error that we have a problem.
So please, enjoy this once in a lifetime event and enjoy knowing that reason can explain why it happens and no supernatural forces are needed.
It's not just that Venus is doing it. We are all lined up in such a way that we can see it.
I recall reading about the Transit of Mercury back in the late 70s early 80s. For those of you keeping score at home you know that this is also the same time of my atheist self-awareness.
I can't help but connect the two.
The Copernican Model of the Solar System was revolutionary for a number of reasons. It helped explain why Transits of Mercury and Venus can occur for starters, but it also took in all the data we had and explained the observations we could make. It did it all by throwing out one basic assumption. The assumption was that the Earth was the center of the Universe.
This assumption, while observational, was given biblical weight in the passage of Joshua 10:12-13 which talked about the Sun and Moon standing still. I got into an argument with an adult at the time about this. Again she came from the point of view that if it was in the Bible it had to be true and all other evidence be damned.
Again this flies in the face of not just Copernicus, but 450 years of data collection after that. And much before that two since there were Greeks in 250 BCE that also knew this and I am sure the Egyptians and the Chinese astronomers also knew this (but I would have to double check). What do these all have in common? They never made the Earth-centric assumption.
If we apply this same logic to other fields of science we see once again that once the bible is ignored then fields of evolution and cosmology do quite fine on their own. It is only when people pull in this ancient text that has already been shown time and time again to be in error that we have a problem.
So please, enjoy this once in a lifetime event and enjoy knowing that reason can explain why it happens and no supernatural forces are needed.
Monday, May 14, 2012
First Loves Blogfest
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2012/04/friendly-to-z-challenge-and-next.html
Here are my first loves
First Album I loved: Thomas Dolby "The Golden Age of Wireless"
First Movie: Star Wars (I have no idea what "A New Hope" is...;) )
First Book: The Hobbit
First Person: Harder, I mean after all the first people you love are your family. So let's go with first person outside of your family. And that can only be...
BATGIRL!
Specifically, Yvonne Craig's Batgirl from the Adam West Batman TV series.
What's not to love? She is smart and kicks ass. Plus she rode a purple motor cycle before Prince was even born (ok, I might need to re-check that date but you get what I am trying to say. ETA: Ok he was 8-9 at the time.)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
There were giants in those days...
Or not.
I have to admit one of my guilty pleasures is watching "Ancient Aliens" on History Channel. A show (and network) that takes both science and history down a back alley and executes them gang-land style.
This weekend there was nothing else on so I watched it. This one was about how ancient aliens interacted with dinosaurs and how our ancestors knew about it. Now before I get into that, I should not have to point out how our ancestors of even a few thousand years ago could have any better of a clue about what happened a few million years ago. But apparently I do.
So this speculation all grows out of Genesis 6:4 "There were giants in the earth in those days", meaning the fallen angels or Nephelim or whatever. The implication is that the "Giants" of the bible were the Dinosaurs.
Ok. Sure.
It is a typical Creationism myth that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Which of course there in not only no proof, there is substantial evidence that there will never be any proof. Creationist though hold on to this idea for dear life since they know (correctly as it turns out) that a human coexisting with a dinosaur at 65 million years or more before would challenge evolution to it's very core. But that is not likely to happen.
Of course this got me thinking about the other argument that creationists usually make with this verse. The existence of giant sized humans. I once got into an argument online with one guy about this. It ended as these arguments often do for me; the person I am arguing with deleting all my posts and closing his site to comments.
Let's talk about giant humans for a bit. If you have been on the Internet for a bit I am sure you have seen this picture.
In fact I still get this one sent to me as "proof" of either the existence of giant humans (and therefore the literal truth of the bible) OR the Great Science ConspiracyTM in action to hide this evidence from the American people.
Of course neither are true. The photo is from Cornell University and it was Photoshopped. Here is the original.
You can read more about this photo at Snopes and at National Geographic..
Here are a bunch of others, many appearing in Creationist "Museums".
But what about the guy that decided to delete all my comments? He said, basically, I could not use evolution, biology or Snopes to prove my point (but oddly enough he cherry-picked his arguments from all the above). What did I finally say that made him so mad he had to delete all my responses?
I attacked his argument with math.
The trouble with giants, of any type, is they must still behave in ways consistent with this world's physics. The rules are not different for different animals. All physical things (living or not) behave as spelled out by the Square-Cube Law.
I won't go into detail about this, you can read for yourself, but the simple fact is a human that large would break their bones every time they walked, a bone that long can't support it's own weight. There are long bones out there of course, elephants are a great example, but their bones are shaped different. Galileo even drew a bone for a large human in his 1638 Dialogues. Dinosaurs likewise have different shaped bones AND we are still discovering more and more about how their bones and structure worked. Whales of course get the buoyancy of water to help them (which is one of the reasons why a beached whale will die on land).
This is not just simple science, it's simple math. Yet people ignore this so they can push their own agendas or badly constructed views of the universe.
I have to admit one of my guilty pleasures is watching "Ancient Aliens" on History Channel. A show (and network) that takes both science and history down a back alley and executes them gang-land style.
This weekend there was nothing else on so I watched it. This one was about how ancient aliens interacted with dinosaurs and how our ancestors knew about it. Now before I get into that, I should not have to point out how our ancestors of even a few thousand years ago could have any better of a clue about what happened a few million years ago. But apparently I do.
So this speculation all grows out of Genesis 6:4 "There were giants in the earth in those days", meaning the fallen angels or Nephelim or whatever. The implication is that the "Giants" of the bible were the Dinosaurs.
Ok. Sure.
It is a typical Creationism myth that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Which of course there in not only no proof, there is substantial evidence that there will never be any proof. Creationist though hold on to this idea for dear life since they know (correctly as it turns out) that a human coexisting with a dinosaur at 65 million years or more before would challenge evolution to it's very core. But that is not likely to happen.
Of course this got me thinking about the other argument that creationists usually make with this verse. The existence of giant sized humans. I once got into an argument online with one guy about this. It ended as these arguments often do for me; the person I am arguing with deleting all my posts and closing his site to comments.
Let's talk about giant humans for a bit. If you have been on the Internet for a bit I am sure you have seen this picture.
In fact I still get this one sent to me as "proof" of either the existence of giant humans (and therefore the literal truth of the bible) OR the Great Science ConspiracyTM in action to hide this evidence from the American people.
Of course neither are true. The photo is from Cornell University and it was Photoshopped. Here is the original.
You can read more about this photo at Snopes and at National Geographic..
Here are a bunch of others, many appearing in Creationist "Museums".
But what about the guy that decided to delete all my comments? He said, basically, I could not use evolution, biology or Snopes to prove my point (but oddly enough he cherry-picked his arguments from all the above). What did I finally say that made him so mad he had to delete all my responses?
I attacked his argument with math.
The trouble with giants, of any type, is they must still behave in ways consistent with this world's physics. The rules are not different for different animals. All physical things (living or not) behave as spelled out by the Square-Cube Law.
I won't go into detail about this, you can read for yourself, but the simple fact is a human that large would break their bones every time they walked, a bone that long can't support it's own weight. There are long bones out there of course, elephants are a great example, but their bones are shaped different. Galileo even drew a bone for a large human in his 1638 Dialogues. Dinosaurs likewise have different shaped bones AND we are still discovering more and more about how their bones and structure worked. Whales of course get the buoyancy of water to help them (which is one of the reasons why a beached whale will die on land).
This is not just simple science, it's simple math. Yet people ignore this so they can push their own agendas or badly constructed views of the universe.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Logical Fallacies
If you are going to be an atheist the you need to be prepared to have to argue your point of view.
It's not exactly fair really, the religious and the faithful get to believe all sorts of bat-shit insane things and never get called on it, but we have to defend every inch of territory we have.
That's ok with me though, see as an atheist I have science and logic on my side.
But if you are going argue logic, be sure you know what you are talking about and how to do it.
Thanks to Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist (the guy who sold his soul on eBay) I now have a link to share.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/04/02/a-beautiful-compilation-of-rhetorical-and-logical-fallacies/
A link to the larger one is here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/
I have seen each and everyone of these used in arguments against me before.
Here is an example of it being used to combat the Anti-Same Sex Marriage speech of Cardinal O'Brien of the President of Bishops' Conference in Scotland.
Click for larger or go here: http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/RhetoricalFallacy_SameSexMarriage.png
It's not exactly fair really, the religious and the faithful get to believe all sorts of bat-shit insane things and never get called on it, but we have to defend every inch of territory we have.
That's ok with me though, see as an atheist I have science and logic on my side.
But if you are going argue logic, be sure you know what you are talking about and how to do it.
Thanks to Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist (the guy who sold his soul on eBay) I now have a link to share.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/04/02/a-beautiful-compilation-of-rhetorical-and-logical-fallacies/
A link to the larger one is here: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/
I have seen each and everyone of these used in arguments against me before.
Here is an example of it being used to combat the Anti-Same Sex Marriage speech of Cardinal O'Brien of the President of Bishops' Conference in Scotland.
Click for larger or go here: http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/RhetoricalFallacy_SameSexMarriage.png
You can do similar things to the speeches of most of the religious. In fact you could even make up cards and play logical fallacy bingo!
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