The Atheist Blogger

150 years ago today, Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life“. A monumental book, considered by biologists around the world to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

In the 150 years since its publication, evolutionary theory has expanded and grown in ways that Darwin himself could not have imagined. The discovery of the multitude of transitional forms that match Darwin’s original prediction, and the work of others (the prediction and subsequent discovery of Tiktaalik being perhaps the most notable) helped bolster the theory, and firmly establish it as scientific fact.

Not only that, but all discoveries of biology since Darwin proposed his idea have complemented it perfectly, with DNA confirming common ancestry, and the various evolutionary development experiments that have captured evolution in action^[1].

So, happy anniversary to Charles Darwin’s masterpiece! May it inspire many more of the generations to come!

Earlier this month, Ray Comfort agreed (well, the second time) to a discussion with Thunderf00t. The rules were simple: the two men, one room, and one camera. Any questions were on the floor for discussion, and each man would get a copy of the video to use as they wished. As it turned out, Ray Comfort had a separate cameraman (for higher quality video I guess) in the room, but overall the debate was as stipulated.

Thunderf00t has uploaded the entire discussion, uncut from start to finish, and if you have a spare 90 or so minutes, I advise you watch it all! Ray Comfort’s points are torn apart in front of him one by one, as Thunderf00t explores the deeper meaning of Ray’s arguments (evidently not done by Ray himself) such as the “how do you know it is creation?” rebuttal to any claim of the kind “creation needs a creator” in reference to the universe itself.

Here is the entire debate as a YouTube playlist, so sit back and watch the Bananaman get defeated by common sense and logic, as played by Thunderf00t.

Enjoy!

The Royal Mint commissioned a special edition £2 coin in honour of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. The coin is a limited edition of 25,000, and mine arrived this morning!

Presentation Pack

The presentation pack (above) has a short but detailed biography of Charles Darwin, as well as information about Evolution, and of course the coin itself. I think the front of the coin is pretty awesome:

Darwin vs. Monkey

There are still coins available if you want to buy one. They cost £7.99 each (plus shipping), and well worth it if you want a nice souvenir of Darwin’s 200th year. You can buy the coin from the Royal Mint website.

Time again for another YouTube Thursday, and we start with 2 videos from YouTube user Thunderf00t; the first is a short but funny comparison of the old VenomFangX and the new VenomFangX (Shawn recently closed his channel due to “death threats” and gave it to another creationist). The tag-line is a kicker though: “Creationism: when being naturally stupid just isn’t good enough”.

The second video of his is part of the fantastic series “Why do people laugh at creationists?”, which involves the elegant destruction of popular creationist arguments. This is part 30, and if you want to see the other 29 (highly recommended) then check them out here. In this video, Thunderf00t points out the hypocritical nature of the Discovery Institute, and one of its prominent spokespeople, Casey Luskin.

Jesse Ventura (ex-Governor of Minnesota) has been on a campaign recently against waterboarding, and he should know all about it, given that he himself was waterboarded as part of SEREs (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training. He says it’s torture, but Elisabeth Hasselbeck of “The View” disagreed with him. Hilarity ensued as Ventura hit back with some great points, ending with the great line
“You give me a waterboard, one hour, and Dick Cheney and I’ll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders”. Jesse Ventura once said of religion “[it] is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business.”

Finally, I end with some wise words of wisdom from the legendary Steven Fry. His advice on being happy? Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Ray Comfort’s latest stroll into the land of irrational thought has produced yet another blog post that attempts to link the theory of evolution with Adolf Hitler. It’s common knowledge that Hitler was a creationist, at most believing in some form of “micro-evolution”. Hitler never mentioned Darwin in any of his books, and the mentions of “evolution” that Ray gives us are almost all references to social evolution. Hitler can be accurately described as a social Darwinist, a political theory that has no relation to Darwin or to the biological theory of evolution that is studied today ^[1][2]. With this in mind, after reading through the 5 or so quotes in the post, the rational thinker is left with the resounding question “Ok, so what?”.

Let’s leave the fact that Hitler was a creationist, that his politics were not based on science but on racism and white supremacy. Instead, I want to examine the “so what?” that often gets ignored, yet is actually very important in analyzing Comfort’s argument. We shall begin by assuming that Ray Comfort is completely correct; that Hitler was a believer in the theory of evolution. We shall also assume that Hitler was so devoted to the theory, he decided to use it through social Darwinism in order to justify genocide. What does this tell us about the theory of evolution? Nothing. A theory is not defined by how people use it, but by what it tells us. The theory of evolution says nothing of “higher species” or that organisms must systematically wipe out all those who are “inferior”. In fact, the theory of evolution gives us no help in pinpointing which species are “more evolved” than others, or even what that would entail.

For instance, human beings are considered to be more evolved because of our consciousness, yet some bacteria have genomes hundreds of times larger than our own. So how do we calculate inferiority when we have two opposing lines of measurement, one based on evolved attributes, the other based on number of mutations. I don’t think one could make a good argument for either, especially given the further problem of how to compare attributes (is consciousness a better attribute than metabolizing citrate for example?). This all points to the conclusion that most would agree on; that science tells us about the universe in which we live by describing and explaining it, but it does not tell us what to do with this knowledge.

Science told us how to make the nuclear bomb, but science did not tell us to drop these bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. If science was responsible for these actions, then you could easily justify Newton as responsible for the deaths of everyone killed by projectiles. The reason creationists like Comfort do not extend their argument to include men like Newton is that they accept the theory of gravity (and yes, it is just a theory Ray). By holding Darwin and his theory as responsible for the actions of men he never knew, yet not doing the same for other scientists like Newton, Nobel, Einstein, etc reveals Ray’s dishonesty and unwillingness to discuss evolution on an intellectual level. Instead, he prefers to launch a thinkly veiled ad-hominem attack in the hopes that people will focus on the supposed “link” and not the attack itself. This may have worked well for him in the past, but not today, and not on this blog.