Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould debate their differing interpretations of Darwin's famous theory of evolution. Recorded in Oxford in 1987.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2009/2490039.htm

The human animal is a complex beast—we mate, fight, emote, and socialise in curious ways. Charles Darwin's theories continue to provoke controversy over how and why we behave the way we do. Join leading evolutionary scientists and philosophers in this one-hour special, as presenters Alan Saunders and Natasha Mitchell consider how Darwin radically influenced the life of the mind.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2009/2489012.htm

From the Guardian

Pakistan is to impose Islamic law in a vast region of the north-west called Malakand in an attempt to placate extremists, even as President Asif Zardari warns that they are "trying to take over the state".

Pakistani Taliban militants who are in control of the Swat valley in the region announced a ceasefire tonight, reacting to the government's agreement to bring in sharia courts.

Malakand is part of North West Frontier province, a regular part of Pakistan, not the wild tribal area, which runs along the Afghan border.

Critics warned that the new sharia regulations represented a capitulation to the extremists' demands, and that it would be difficult to stop hardliners elsewhere in the country from demanding that their areas also come under Islamic law.

"This is definitely a surrender," said Khadim Hussain of the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a thinktank in Islamabad. "If you keep treating a community as something different from the rest of the country, it will isolate them."

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When the loony dark ages of men armed with stupidity and violence are winning over scientific enlightenment... see irrelevant toon above.

From the Guardian

God vs Darwin: Do creationists have a case?

In the 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin's opponents have tried numerous angles of attack to discredit the man and spear his theory. He was lampooned in Victorian caricature as a bearded monkey, his critics have misrepresented his theory by likening it to a whirlwind in a junk yard assembling a jumbo jet by chance and they drone on endlessly about gaps in the fossil record between one group of creatures and another – even though numerous such transitional fossils have been found. Most Darwin-sceptics, of course, hold up the Bible as "proof" that the great biologist can't be right.

A more subtle ploy is to damn the man with faint praise. In a letter in the Telegraph to coincide with Darwin's birthday last week, 10 authors conceded that "evolutionary adaptation, modification and variation within species – which is what Darwin actually discovered – is secure" but that the evidence for how complex organisms developed is "modest in the extreme". What they seem to be saying is that a finch's beak can change over generations to allow it to eat a different type of food, for example, but where did the finch come from in the first place? By accepting the carefully worded "variation within species" they are implicitly rejecting speciation – the process by which one species becomes two that cannot interbreed. In reality there is now stacks of evidence for how speciation can occur. Scientists have studied it in great detail happening in the lab – for example in fruit flies.

There are still scientific debates to be had about the details of how natural selection operates – for example, to what extent characteristics acquired during life can be passed on to off spring via chemical modifications to DNA – but there is no serious disagreement in the scientific community about the fundamentals of Darwin's theory. A century and a half of science from fossils to DNA has turned up nothing that would bring Darwin's theory down. In fact, it has made his defences stronger.
James Randerson

Hopefully the creationists will self-destroy one day in a big bang... see toon at top

Justices Rule Sect Cannot Force Placing of Monument

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday, in one of the most closely watched free speech decisions in years, that a tiny religious sect could not force a Utah city to let it erect a monument to its faith in a public park.

The fact that there is already a Ten Commandments monument in the park in Pleasant Grove City does not mean that city officials must also allow the religious group called Summum to place a monument there to the Seven Aphorisms of its faith, the justices ruled.

“We think it is fair to say that throughout our nation’s history, the general government practice with respect to donated monuments has been one of selective receptivity,” and properly so, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court.

--------------------------

And amongst these statues dedicated to the illusion of god, I wish to place a gigantic bronze cast of an Amoeba that in its bosom has all life represented in its genome... below it, a big barking dog would be wearing a crown while a smaller forlorn human figure would be on a leather leash...

All this, meaning that every one and every dog should be allowed to place a statue of sumpthin' in public parks till there is no public park space to move about in... 

But selective receptivity is our prerogative ...

see toon at top

The Vatican is sponsoring a five day conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.

The subject is the compatibility of evolution and creation.

It is one of two separate international academic conferences being sponsored by the Vatican this year.

They aim to re-examine the work of scientific thinkers whose revolutionary ideas challenged religious belief: Galileo and Charles Darwin.

Scientists, philosophers and theologians from around the world are gathering at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome to discuss the compatibility of Darwin's theory of evolution and Catholic teaching.

-------------------------------

Hey dude, there is NO COMPATIBILITY between the theory of evolution and catholic teachings... Zilch, nada, nothing, niet... unless you believe in monkeys with angel wings, in fairy dust on pumpkins, in vampires with batwings and in werewolves on sunny nights...

from The Independent

Either the Obamas and the Browns are fine actors, or they genuinely click. When their conversation turned to dinosaurs, it was not in pursuit of agreement on Darwin versus creationism but a shared moment between parents about their children's preferred toys.

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Isn't it sweet?... pitty patter at the highest of levels...

From the Independent...

Humanity's immediate predecessors may have had trouble climbing trees, research suggests – so they may not have been as ape-like as many experts believe.

Scientists have arrived at this conclusion after making a close study of the way chimpanzees scale trees – virtually vertically and with ease – and then comparing chimpanzee ankle joints with those of hominins, humans' ancestors.

The hominins lived between 1.5 and 4.1 million years ago, a relatively short time after proto-humans and chimpanzees split from a common ancestor (generally thought to have been between four and eight million years ago). Many experts have argued that this ancestor was probably quite chimpanzee-like, and as a result it has been widely assumed that the earliest humans were ape-like, too.

But the research contradicts this idea, showing that – unlike modern chimps – ancient humans were not designed to climb trees. Dr Jeremy DeSilva, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, came to this view after carrying out the first ever study of the mechanics of chimpanzees' tree-climbing abilities, using a group of animals in the Kibale National Park of western Uganda.

-----------------------

Hey, my arthritic joints prohibit me to even dream of climbing a tree...

...and the ancestors of the ancestors of the ancestors may have had enough of climbing trees for nothing when fruit fell off them when ripe, when cows were an easy kill with a sharp stick and carbohydrates grew in the prairies... lazy tree climbers, I'd say...

Adaptation...

art influenced by Darwin

From Tom Frame, Professor of Theology at Charles Sturt University. extract from his new book, "Evolution in the Antipodes...."

...

Evolutionary theory requires creation to be understood as a continuous process rather than an isolated act in the distant past. In this view, God creates in and through natural processes.

I share the conviction of Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeontology at the University of Cambridge: nature controls the course of evolution but convergence, implying a higher purpose, controls nature.

Conway has argued evolution is not arbitrary and if life were to evolve again, it would look very much as it does now.

------------------

Bollocks says Gus.

The latter parts (say the entire proposition) of Tom Frame's argument (borrowed from Simon Conway Morris) cannot be proven nor is it scientifically sound. Theillard de Chardin was a proponent of this and has long been proven wrong. The parts of the universe are getting further apart, not converging. Evolution is accidental and tweaked diversification in a specific (and changing) environment. The only convergence that has appeared on this earth is the wanton destruction of nature by humans — who by their sheer self-importance have voted themselves to be the "fallen angels". CRAP.

The theory of evolution and the fancy of religion have NOTHING to do with each others — but the spruikers for god and the devil still want to appropriate "natural understanding" for their own benefit by distorting the facts. Religions do not make sense. Their books are full of stupid contradictions and nonsensical interpretations of events. The only good thing that could come out of some religions is a form of controlling morality for those less agile in their humanism, but this feature is often blackened by the most devoted religious fanatics who wage war and destruction when the good book teaches love, forgiveness and presenting the other cheek... Religions have misunderstood nature for millennia. They still do — but are more sneaky about it to sell you salvation you don't need.

see toons and comments on this subject on this site.

Unmarried couples with children will now be able to baptise their children and get married in the same occasion.

The Church of England has issued new guidelines allowing the two sacraments to be combined in one service.

The Church says it is responding to a real demand, and denies that the change will undermine its teaching on the sinfulness of sex outside of marriage.

Couples tying the knot will be able to take part in their children's baptism or say a simple prayer of blessing.

-----------------------

What won't they do to lure customers?

From the Guardian

It's a great birthday present for Darwin in his 200th anniversary year. For the first time, evolution will be on the national curriculum for primary schools when the new version is published later this year. It was initially excluded from the draft curriculum when it was published for public consultation but sometimes, if not always, it seems government will listen to scientists and experts, many of whom were signatories to an open letter to Ed Balls organised by the British Humanist Association in July which called for evolution to be included.

Those who care about public reason are routinely shocked by opinion polls and surveys showing high levels of credence given to the idea of intelligent design. The most recent poll purported to demonstrate that a majority of Britons think that it should be taught alongside evolution in schools.

To solve this problem, we have to know what causes it and there are two reasons why you might prefer the idea of intelligent design to that of evolution. You may do so because your prior ideological convictions, mostly to do with religious belief, simply don't allow you to accept the evidence that is presented to you.

---------------------

see toon at top and above note...

Presently there is an advertising campaign in Sydney pushing the idea that a large croc in an aquarium is associated with the dinosaurs. I have been waiting for a while to see if any scientist made sure there was no confusion about the evolution of species, but no... It seems everyone is happy in loopy science land.

From what I know, I'd like to confirm crocodiles are not descendant from dinosaurs. Your chicken soup has more to do with dinosaurs that a crocodile. Crocs, like dinosaurs, come from a branch of Archosauromorpha, a precursor group of species that itself was a branch of diapsida that also gave rise to snakes and lizards. Diapsida itself was a branch of amniota that also gave rise to turtles and tortoises. Amniota was a branch of an emerging life on earth that also gave rise to mammals and a few other groups of related species. Dinosaurs and crocodiles evolved in parallel since the Triassic. Dinosaurs became extinct, over a million years, at the boundary between the Cretaceous and the Palaeocene (part one of the Tertiary). Crocodiles survive till today.

Evolution is the driving force of our survival. But evolution is also extinction. etc... (note: crocs may have existed before dinosaurs...)

Dinosaurs and crocodiles may be long lost cousins, but crocs are NOT dinosaurs, nor are they descendant of dinosaurs.

Birds, on the other hand, are related to dinosaurs... And humans have far more to do with monkeys than crocs have to do with dinosaurs...

Just to let you know in case you  were confusded. see toon at top.

Alligators and birds share a breathing mechanism which may have helped their ancestors dominate Earth more than 200 million years ago, scientists say.

Research published in the journal Science found that like birds, in alligators air flows in one direction.

Birds' lung structure allows them to breathe when flying in low oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions.

This breathing may have helped a common ancestor of birds and alligators thrive in the hypoxic period of the Triassic.

Mammals 'hiding'

"It might explain a mystery that has been around for quite some time", Dr Colleen Farmer from the University of Utah told BBC News.

The mystery in question is why the archosaurs came to dominate Earth after the planet's worst mass extinction 251 million years ago.

Archosaurs evolved into two different branches which developed into crocodilians, dinosaurs, flying pterosaurs and eventually birds.

Synapsids, which evolved to include mammals, had been dominant in the Permian period before the mass extinction.

----------------------------

See comment above and toon at top.

From the guardian...

Jennifer Dennis studied her 13-year-old son's skin and was uncertain which to be more astonished by: the shape made by the strange dots running the length of his forearm, or how they got there.

"When I looked at it, the shape was definitely a cross, like a Christian cross," said Dennis. "Zach said his teacher did it with an instrument that gave off something like a lightning bolt. It was red, like a sunburn or if you burn your arm on the oven."

The next morning, Dennis was standing in the reception of Mount Vernon middle school demanding to know what had been done to Zachary.

That was three years ago and the small, deeply religious Ohio town is bracing itself for the answer to Dennis's question after the lengthy de facto trial of a man who is either a decorated teacher martyred for his Christian faith, or a religious zealot who spent years undermining the very science he was paid to teach.

Along the way, the dispute has prompted Bible-waving students to march on their school, set teacher against teacher, and forced Jennifer Dennis and her family to leave town.

At the heart of the controversy is John Freshwater, who taught at Mount Vernon middle school for 21 years.

Freshwater said he had done the same science experiment to hundreds of students before Zachary Dennis, using a Tesla coil, which gives off an electric spark.

The teacher said it was painless and harmless – although a doctor would later testify that Dennis had second-degree burns – and that he had made an X, not a cross, on the boy's skin.

That might have been the end of the matter after the school ordered Freshwater to stop using the coil on children.

But Zachary Dennis's parents asked him what else was going on in science class. Out poured accounts of lessons on evolution mingled with creationist theories about "intelligent design", a euphemism for the hand of God, of questions about religious beliefs and of classroom walls pasted with the Ten Commandments.

---------------------

Ocus pocus of intelligent design has no place in science... see toon at top.

By JONAH LEHRER

The Victorians had many names for depression, and Charles Darwin used them all. There were his “fits” brought on by “excitements,” “flurries” leading to an “uncomfortable palpitation of the heart” and “air fatigues” that triggered his “head symptoms.” In one particularly pitiful letter, written to a specialist in “psychological medicine,” he confessed to “extreme spasmodic daily and nightly flatulence” and “hysterical crying” whenever Emma, his devoted wife, left him alone.

While there has been endless speculation about Darwin’s mysterious ailment — his symptoms have been attributed to everything from lactose intolerance to Chagas disease — Darwin himself was most troubled by his recurring mental problems. His depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”

Darwin, of course, was wrong; his recurring fits didn’t prevent him from succeeding in science. Instead, the pain may actually have accelerated the pace of his research, allowing him to withdraw from the world and concentrate entirely on his work. His letters are filled with references to the salvation of study, which allowed him to temporarily escape his gloomy moods. “Work is the only thing which makes life endurable to me,” Darwin wrote and later remarked that it was his “sole enjoyment in life.”

For Darwin, depression was a clarifying force, focusing the mind on its most essential problems. In his autobiography, he speculated on the purpose of such misery; his evolutionary theory was shadowed by his own life story. “Pain or suffering of any kind,” he wrote, “if long continued, causes depression and lessens the power of action, yet it is well adapted to make a creature guard itself against any great or sudden evil.” And so sorrow was explained away, because pleasure was not enough. Sometimes, Darwin wrote, it is the sadness that informs as it “leads an animal to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial.” The darkness was a kind of light.

------------------------

In my essay on meditation, I make a reference to a technique ( N-R D) I use to "press the reset button"... And I found activity is a good deterrent — as well as using other means to modify negative energy into positive energy... The lowest I can get these days is about average... But unlike Darwin's "depression" that "lead an animal to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial", I often end up in a magnificent creative chaos with no pecuniary pay-off... But I don't worry about it. I leave the worry to my bank manager...

A study has shed light on a key genetic step in the evolution of animals' limbs from the fins of fish, scientists say.

A team of researchers identified two new genes that are important in fin development.

They report in the journal Nature that the loss of these genes could have been an "important step" in the evolutionary transformation of fins into limbs.

Marie-Andree Akimenko, from the University of Ottawa in Canada, led the research.

She and her colleagues began their study by looking at the development of zebrafish embryos. They discovered two genes that coded for proteins that were important in the structure of fins.

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Gus: having studied "this" evolution of limb reasonably well with devonian fish and early amphibians, one can see a large gap between say a rhipidistian fish and an ichthyostega amphibian from the devonian period... Yet there is a powerful correlation. Evolution fossil records only provides a few clues, albeit strong clues, and we cannot dismiss fish like the lungfishes (ancestors also found in the devonian and species still going strong today, some 390 million years after), and others such as the goby fishes that seem to walk on land... But in fact, evolution can be reasonably fast — such as the evolution of humans, over only 3 million years from an old erect monkey's ancestry to the completely stylistically crazy species that we are — or slow increments over tens of millions of years for a minute change in physiology... Some species need to adapt faster while others can survive environmental modifications without change, although change can happen by accident, rather than adaptation need.

That "we" (those dedicated scientists) can pinpoint the genes more or less responsible for transforming a flipper into a limb will be phenomenal.

Whatever you call it, it’s feverishly imaginative and fantastically funny, with a monstrously high ratio of ho-hos to yo-ho-hos.  But when The Pirates: Band of Misfits opens in US cinemas this month it will be missing something from its British release. Scientists.  

There are no scenes deleted or characters excised, and each features a wonderfully off the wall portrayal of Charles Darwin as voiced by David Tennant (either the last but one Dr Who or perhaps the finest Hamlet of a generation depending on where you’re coming from). On both sides of the Atlantic it’s exactly the same Aardman hard act to follow, with dazzling animation, an ingeniously ludicrous plot and non-stop visual and verbal punning. It’s just that in the UK, where it was made, it’s called The Pirates!  In An Adventure With Scientists.    

Which is the same title as the book by Gideon Defoe it’s adapted from. And since he also co-wrote the screenplay, and since (without giving too much of the story away) it is an adventure predominantly involving pirates and scientists, you can see the reasoning for sticking with the original. So why in the USA has “Scientists” become “Misfits”? 

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120411-the-scientists-band-of-misfits

What else do you expect from most Yamerikans? Darwin is obviously a mistfit in the eyes of this evangelistic country... Einstein's work has long been forgotten by the masses and been replaced by bible readings...

see toon at top...

Ichthyostega is something of an icon in the fossil world. Living during the Upper Devonian period, it was dubbed a "fishapod", with its mixture of fish-like and amphibious features.

Although it probably spent much of its time under water, at times it was thought to have crawled halfway up onto land on limb-like flippers.

Exactly how it moved on land has been a matter of much debate, however.

Now, a team from The Royal Veterinary College, London and the University of Cambridge, has spent three years reconstructing the first 3D computer model of Ichthyostega from fossils.

It enabled them to study how ancient vertebrates made the "monumental transition" from swimming to walking.

Study author Dr Stephanie Pierce, of The Royal Veterinary College, said the 3D skeleton allowed them to calculate the range of movement in the joints of its limbs for the first time.

The research suggests the animal shuffled on land using hind limb movements similar to that seen in seals rather than moving its limbs in the familiar walking pattern seen today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18177493

Gus: Between the Ichthyostega and the "older" fossils of rhipidistian crossopterygian fish there are many diferences, yet there are also some strong similarities. The fossil record is not complete. Scientists have uncovered many skeletons of extinct species, though these by no means give the complete picture. But the strong similiarites in some features lead to understand how one species could evolve into another. The process takes millions of years for some — and some of us may argue this cannot happen, yet in just a few millenium, humanity "has managed" to change wolves into a gamut of dog breeds... In Australia some of the richness of animal life lies in the "sub-species"... Animals of "same stock" that were related, but have been separated by space and geological events for a length of time and have become "separate" species.

Horses and donkeys are cases in point of closely related but different species. They can breed between each other, yet the offspring, the mule, is rarely fertile...

The case of the gait of the Ichthyostega is interesting though... Many interpretations have shown the species was walking a bit like crocs do... The new scientific work actually makes more sense to me and give a bit more definition in the evolution of life becoming "terrestrial" around 450 million years ago after having been confined to the sea for something like three billion years...

See also lung fish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFwnjD68HSc

Read from top...

Educators in Turkey argue that Charles Darwin’s theory is too complex for teenagers to understand and that they should wait until they enter college to be able to comprehend and discuss secular scientific discourse. Starting from the 2019 school year, biology textbooks will, therefore, ditch a national curriculum chapter about the concept.

We have excluded controversial subjects for students at an age unable yet to understand the issues’ scientific background. As the students at ninth grade are not endowed with antecedents to discuss the ‘Origin of Life and Evolution’ section in biology classes, this section will be delayed until undergraduate study,” head of the Education Ministry’s curriculum board, Alpaslan Durmus revealed this week, according to Hurriyet Daily. 

He added the new curriculum reflects the “local and national values” of Turkish society. The decision to drop Darwin got the thumbs up from the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We made the simplification of redundancies. Elements inappropriate to our values have been removed,” Durmus noted, as quoted by Turkish language Cumhuriyet. 

Durmus also pointed out that “Religion and Morality” classes, which are now obligatory, would not be taught to first, fifth, and ninth graders unless they choose to take it.

The decision to ditch Darwin's theory came after a fierce debate on the issue. Since January, universities and academics have argued that evolution should be taught starting from fifth grade.

“The subjects of Science and Technology classes in elementary schools should be presented with a perspective that allows students to connect it to subjects they will encounter in future years. It should provide them with an evolutionary point of view,” the academics argued, according to Hurriyet.

Some Turkish publications suggested that the change reflects the overall effort by the government to reduce the influence of secularism introduced by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/393821-turkey-evolution-theory-schools/

Quite funny really, but stupid and sad... Today, while shopping for some organic salad, I was reflecting on how the human species is not yet subdividing into subspecies. It's on the card, nonetheless. It has happened culturally, but there is a strong mixing of genes. Mind you, we've been at selective breeding for a long time, with dogs, cats cattle, rabbits. We have not achieve yet degrees of non-breeding separation between breeds of dogs -- that we can still trace to wolves.

What is on the card is genetic manipulation that will create quick species differentiation within humans. 

I trust that the Turk won't believe in genetic adaptation of microbes and might suffer from the next flu mutation. Presently much of sciences is genetic based and studies evolutionary lines and possibilities in details. Here one can see that god is an old prick, a selfish scrooge who wants to keep His (god is a male) creation as inbred as possible, as long as they keep their arse in the air during prayer time...

The folly of humanity's fervour will never ceased to amaze me... And our mate "Atem-bro" has been wasting his time with the Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia... and with the evangelicals in the US who voted from Trump. You cannot beat the delusion of god with hard facts... Impossible.

read from top...

Turkey's education minister has announced details of the country's new curriculum, stating that it will include the concept of jihad as being patriotic, rather than a "holy war." It will also lack any reference to Darwin's theory of evolution.

“Jihad is an element in our religion; it is in our religion…the duty of the Education Ministry is to teach every concept deservedly, in a correct way. It is also our job to correct things that are wrongly perceived, seen or taught,” Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz said during a Tuesday press conference, as quoted by Hurriyet. 

Although the term jihad is often translated as "holy war,"Muslim scholars also teach that it refers to a personal struggle against sin.

Information about last year's failed coup attempt - which resulted in a nationwide crackdown by President Erdogan's government - will also be included in the curriculum, according to Yilmaz. The day of the coup attempt, July 15, has been officially named 'Democracy and National Unity Day.'

“When the subject of winning democracy is covered in social sciences classes, we will want the July 15 National Unity Day to be covered, too,” Yılmaz said.

He added that the new curriculum will also include information on the Hizmet movement led by exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara accuses of orchestrating the failed coup attempt. Turkey refers to the Hizmet movement as FETÖ (Fethullahist Terror Organization)

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/396714-turkey-curriculum-jihad-evolution/

Gus:

There have been controversies about the theory of evolution, since Darwin formulated it so well in his "On The Origins of Species". Most Christian religious fundamentalists still reject the idea. Unfortunately for these idiots and the Muhammadists in general and of Turkey in particular, Darwin's theory is still scientifically correct. Without it, medical research and cures would still be hocus pocus, your cell-phone would not have been invented by some cleverer dude than you are and we'd still be wearing loincloth and sandals — or fig leaves on the you-know-what. Though there were some other guys with similar evolutionary ideas (read from top) they did not formulate the concept of evolution so clearly and so strongly as Darwin did. Charles Darwin should get the MAJOR credit for having pushed EVOLUTION into the academies. Note that even since the days of Christ, humans have evolved. The same can be said about chickens and dogs. Some more, some less, some backwards. Evolution is continuing nonetheless in adaptation, ability and invention — and the dreaded GM (genetic manipulation). Genetics confirm this in more ways than one. So why go back to voodoo religious instructions in regard to philosophy — which is understanding the human condition, in order to misunderstand it? To prove that the Mohammadian idiocy is truer than that of the Christian idiots? To kill the infidels? Brother!... Mind you if this teaches peace, go for it, brother... But it is possible to actually learn peace through understanding EVOLUTION.

See also: 

At Down House in Kent, Charles Darwin is instructing his manservant Parslow to lower another dead pigeon into a foul-smelling pot. It is February 1856. Darwin is 47 years old. Endlessly curious, he has begun to suspect that the skeletons of different pigeon varieties will support his secretly held ideas about how species are related and have changed throughout history.

As James T. Costa details in the excellent Darwin’s Backyard, Darwin found the evidence he was searching for in the pigeon bones. He found it elsewhere, too: in the complex pollination of orchids and the social behaviors of ants, in the morphology of barnacles and earthworms, and in the movements of carnivorous plants. The evidence he collected around the world and in the tangled bank near Down House would go on to make the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species possible.

Things began inauspiciously enough. In 1831, inspired by the works of naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, Darwin—a medical school dropout—embarked on a 5-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. He was 22 years old, was constantly seasick, and was Captain Fitzroy’s third choice for the position of ship’s naturalist. But Darwin’s keen mind questioned everything. He saw—and recorded—it all, writes Costa, a professor of biology at Western Carolina University.

After his return, Darwin’s ideas about evolution began to formulate, but he knew that he needed evidence to support them.

Whenever possible, he crowd-sourced his data, enlisting the help of his children (he had ten, three of whom died in childhood), for example. Often, they were sent across the Kentish fields with specific work orders: “Collect a hundred Lythrum plants and bring them home,” or “Track the routes of the bees that criss-cross the clover-studded meadows.”

read more:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2017/09/13/darwins-backyard/

See toon at top...