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Vader Humor

It's time for some Darth Vader Humor.  Check it out!

D

The Rapture

I have been following a breaking story on PZ Myers blog about the coming Christian rapture.  I know everyone is already tense about the 2012 end of the world scenario (yeah right!), but the news is that the end is going to happen on September 21, 2009.........October 21, 2009.........on or before December 14, 2009...

Wait, I think they have the date right this time; now it will happen on December 21, 2009.  So unwrap and return all of those Christmas presents you bought or give them away early, because we aren't going to see Christmas this year.  Actually, considering the track record of the fella (gal?) running this website predicting the rapture, I wouldn't.  Though I will be happy to take any early Christmas gifts if you want!  Any guesses on what the next date will be?

D

Jesus, Interrupted Part Two

I wanted to expand a little bit on the "Jesus, Interrupted" post.  I really felt like I left the reader (you) hanging a bit.  I didn't come full circle as it were.  I really wanted to finish the post with, what I consider, a very important point that Dr. Ehrman puts forth.

As I recall I left off with the point that you have to read each gospel writer for themselves.  You can't read John for Luke or Mark for Matthew.  To do so is to miss the theological point that the writer was trying to convey (e.g. In John's gospel Jesus' divinity is of extreme importance compared to Mark, for instance).  From here, while it is implied, when you mash gospels together you end up making your own gospel (e.g. the nativity story or the crucifixion).  Therefore, in making your own gospel you inadvertently (or, for some, on purpose) change what was described by the author.

It is true that there are many discrepancies and errors in the Bible; this is to be expected, since it was written by many different authors; with different theological views; over large expanses of time.  Because there are errors, does this mean that we can say anything about the existence of god?  Absolutely not.  The big idea to grasp here is that the Bible is a very human book.  So this leaves us with a question: Have those who believe that the Bible is inerrant misplaced their faith?  In other words, do people have faith in the Bible or god?

A New Skeptic

Sorry I haven't been on the interwebs lately.  Mrs. Skeptic Dave and I have just added a new skeptic baby to the family.  I present to you skeptic Gabriel (Gabe).

To my beautiful children Jocelyn and Gabriel (above):

"May your generation see wonders undreamt."

Love,

Daddy

P.S. The above quote is by Carl Sagan.  It was taken from his book Pale Blue Dot.

Jesus, Interrupted

Currently I am reading a book by Dr. Bart Ehrman New Testament Scholar and Professor at the University of North Carolina titled “Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing The Hidden Contradictions in the Bible and Why We Don’t Know About Them.” 

 So far it is a fascinating account of discrepancies in the Bible.  Most of the inconsistencies are minor and not really noteworthy.  However there are several inconstancies  that are seemingly, if not completely, irreconcilable.  These include the stories of Jesus’ birth, miracles, life, death, trial, and resurrection.  And all of these discrepancies are learned by all who attend seminary; this is common knowledge to all pastors, priests, reverends, clergy, and so on.  The question is why don’t pastors pass on this historical/critical information onto their parishioners?  Are they afraid that such information will lead to the faithful losing their faith?  I don’t know, but if that is the case I think that pastors are underestimating the faith of their congregations. While there are many discrepancies, Dr. Ehrman maintains, even though he is a self-professed agnostic, that one can know about such contradictions and still maintain faith in god.  However one cannot believe that the Bible is inerrant, it’s not. 

Often I have wondered, as have many others, why I haven’t caught many of these very obvious contradictions.  Dr. Ehrman has an answer to this, vertical reading.  Most people read anthologies from the top of the page to the bottom and from the first chapter to the last.  So when you read the crucifixion story of Jesus in Matthew you don’t realize the differences in the story by the time you get to read it John.  You end up naturally weaving the stories together; you fill in the blanks. The solution to this is what Dr. Ehrman calls horizontal reading.  So instead of reading through Matthew then Mark and so on; read the resurrection story in Matthew then read the account in John keeping track of the details of both.  Basically you want to read the accounts side-by-side.  It is when you read horizontally that you notice the inconsistencies in the different gospel accounts. 

Since it is Christmas time I thought I would talk a bit about the nativity and what the Bible says about it, or rather what Dr. Ehrman says about it.  We all know the story of Jesus‘ birth and according to Dr. Ehrman we get our account of the birth of Christ from two gospels: Matthew and Luke, and these two accounts are irreconcilable; at the very least difficult to reconcile.  Dr. Ehrman explains below:

“The differences between the accounts are quite striking.  Virtually everything said in Matthew is missing from Luke, and all the stories of Luke are missing from Matthew.  Matthew mentions dreams that came to Joseph that are absent in Luke; Luke mentions angelic visitations to Elizabeth and Mary that are absent in Matthew.  Matthew has the wise men, the slaughter of the children by Herod, the flight to Egypt, the Holy Family bypassing Judea to return to Nazareth, all missing from Luke.  Luke has the birth of John the Baptist, the census of Caesar, the trip to Bethlehem, the manger and the inn, the shepherds, the circumcision, the presentation in the Temple, and the return home immediately afterward, all of them missing from Matthew.”  (Jesus Interrupted pg. 33)

Do these contradictions mean that the event didn’t happen?  No, not necessarily.  It just means, at the very least, that someone was wrong in their account of the event.   I think what is important here, as does Dr. Ehrman, is that when one reads the Bible that one should read each gospel for itself.  In other words, read John for John; not Luke for John.  Each author had a particular theological theme that they were trying to convey.  If you read Matthew to fill in or understand Mark then you are missing the point of Matthew.  This idea of reading a single gospel for itself is something that Dr. Ehrman discusses in more detail in his book, and something that I hope to expand on here at a later date.

Collision

I would really like to see this.

D


"Collision: Hitchens vs. Wilson" - EXCLUSIVE 13 minute preview from LEVEL4 on Vimeo.

Tiger Woods is..........

HUMAN!!!  NOW GET OVER IT!

D

Holiday Humor

A Little Humor

After the Rick Warren post I thought it might be appropriate to have a laugh.  I present to you Dara O'Briain.   Enjoy!

D

Rick Warren, will you find your way?

I just learned of this story as I was watching the Rachel Maddow show.  Apparently, the Uganda wants to pass a law which will put homosexuals to death and those who know of homosexuals in the country in prison for three years.  So what is the connection to famous television pastor and bestselling author Rick Warren?

"Now Warren's on the defensive again, this time for his affiliation with Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has endorsed proposed legislation in Uganda that makes certain homosexual acts punishable by life in prison or even, in some cases, death. Ssempa has made appearances at Saddleback and has been embraced warmly by Warren and his wife, Kay."   

To Warren's credit, he has supposedly distanced himself from Mr. Ssempa this past October.  This would generally be considered a good thing, next you would expect Pastor Warren to condemn such legislation.  That has not happened.

"The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations."

AND

"On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: "As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides."

 Wait, what?  As a pastor in America you feel that it isn't your calling to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations?  Even when a government, in this case the Ugandan government, wants to imprison or put people to death for being or knowing a homosexual?  So what would have Pastor Rick done during the holocaust?  What are pastor Rick's views of Iran murdering homosexuals or non-believers?  Rick Warren's refusal (at this point at least) to condemn such inhumanity and brutality says something not only about his personal character but also his theological views.

D

All quotes were taken from the original story on the Newsweek website found below:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/11/29/pastor-rick-warren-responds-to-proposed-ugandan-legislation.aspx 

It's That Time of Year

Yes, the holiday season is upon us.  Many of us are shopping and preparing for the onslaught of family and friends who we'll be seeing this holiday season.  Such preparations often include sending out holiday cards to friends and family.  Usually the cards are run-of-the-mill Hallmark cards that usually say something like, "May you and yours have a warm holiday season" or something to that effect.  More often than not the cards are laced with religious bits of seasons greetings.  They are usually short little antiquated tidbits like, "He's the reason for the season; or And a child was born."  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the holiday season per se, I don't mind getting holiday or as some insist -Christmas- cards from friends and family.

However, and you somehow knew that this was coming, is sending out holiday cards to friends and family with religious themes, oh I don't know, pushing it a bit.  Maybe I am way over thinking this, and as I said, I don't mind getting Christmas cards from friends and family, but it just seems a tad bit like a free and culturally acceptable chance to proselytize to those one knows.  Or it could be a chance for that person sending the card to say Merry Christmas, we are glad we know you and have you in our lives.

The point I am getting to is, would it be acceptable for me, an avowed godless heathen, to send out Happy Winter Solstice cards?  Maybe it would be alright, so long as I didn't espouse any sort of atheistic agenda within the card.  Now, I have never received, at least to my working knowledge, a card that was telling me that I had to accept the Lord as my savior.  So what is my deal?  Why did I just spend this time writing about something that I don't necessarily have a problem with (or think is a problem) when I could have been doing something else more constructive?  It's because I am fascinated with how society works (duh.....social science student here) and I don't think I have heard anyone raise the question.     

What do you think?  By the number of responses to previous questions I have asked I don't think I will get a response.  However if you have anything to add then go for it. 

D

I'm sorry but.......

DINOSAURS AND HUMANS NEVER COEXISTED TOGETHER.  THERE IS ZERO, I REPEAT, ZERO EVIDENCE FOR SUCH A CLAIM.  ANYONE WHO CLAIMS OTHERWISE IS EITHER IGNORANT OF THE FACTS, WHICH CAN BE FIXED, OR IS JUST A KOOK!    

However it is possible that other such factors exist in one's decision to deny history.  Usually, one's acceptance of the truth is often clouded by their professions of faith.  This is unfortunate considering that the truth is the truth, and the truth of evolution is NOT incapatable with belief in God.  Unfortunately there are people like Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, and others, who would have you believe such plain and utter nonsense.  Please excuse me for the bold caps at the begining of this post, I was having a Lewis Black moment.
 D 

More 2012

Here is an interesting article from the NY Times about the 2012 doomsday.

D

Re-posted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17essay.html?_r=1#

Is Doomsday Coming? Perhaps, but Not in 2012

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Published: November 16, 2009

NASA said last week that the world was not ending — at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us that everything is fine?

On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one last blowout.
CERN’s pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.

The announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close.

The doomsday buzz reached a high point with the release of the new movie “2012,” directed by Roland Emmerich, who previously inflicted misery on the Earth from aliens and glaciers in “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on Dec. 21, 2012, causes the Sun to go berserk with mighty storms on its surface that pour out huge numbers of the elusive subatomic particles known as neutrinos. Somehow the neutrinos transmute into other particles and heat up the Earth’s core. The Earth’s crust loses its moorings and begins to weaken and slide around. Los Angeles falls into the ocean; Yellowstone blows up, showering the continent with black ash. Tidal waves wash over the Himalayas, where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select 400,000 people can ride out the storm.

But this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In other variations, a planet named Nibiru crashes into us or the Earth’s magnetic field flips.

There are hundreds of books devoted to 2012, and millions of Web sites, depending on what combination of “2012” and “doomsday” you type into Google.

All of it, astronomers say, is bunk. (emphasis is mine)


“Most of what’s claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ” Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, and an expert on ancient astronomy, wrote in an article in the November issue of Sky & Telescope.

Personally, I have been in love with end-of-the-world stories since I started consuming science fiction as a disaffected child. Scaring the pants off the public has been pretty much the name of the game ever since Orson Welles broadcast “War of the Worlds,” a fake newscast about a Martian invasion of New Jersey, in 1938.

But the trend has gone too far, suggested David Morrison, an astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who made the YouTube video and is one of the agency’s point people on the issue of Mayan prophecies of doom.

“I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money,” Dr. Morrison said. “There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck.”

Dr. Morrison said he had been getting about 20 letters and e-mail messages a day from people as far away as India scared out of their wits. In an e-mail message, he enclosed a sample that included one from a woman wondering if she should kill herself, her daughter and her unborn baby. Another came from a person pondering whether to put her dog to sleep to avoid suffering in 2012.

All of this reminded me of the kinds of letters I received last year about the putative black hole at CERN. That too was more science fiction than science fact, but apparently there is nothing like death to bring home the abstract realms of physics and astronomy. In such situations, when the Earth or the universe is trying to shrug you and your loved ones off this mortal plane, the cosmic does become personal.

Dr. Morrison said he did not blame the movie for all this, as much as the many other purveyors of the Mayan prediction, as well as the apparent failure of some people, reflected in so many arenas of our national life, to tell reality from fiction. But then, he said, “my doctorate is in astronomy, not psychology.”

In an e-mail exchange, Dr. Krupp said: “We are always uncertain about the future, and we always consume representations of it. We are always lured by the romance of the ancient past and by the exotic scale of the cosmos. When they combine, we are mesmerized.”
A NASA spokesman, Dwayne Brown, said the agency did not comment on movies, leaving that to movie critics. But when it comes to science, Mr. Brown said, “we felt it was prudent to provide a resource.”

If you want to worry, most scientists say, you should think about global climate change, rogue asteroids or nuclear war. But if speculation about ancient prophecies gets you going, here are some things Dr. Morrison and the others think you should know.

To begin with, astronomers agree, there is nothing special about the Sun and galactic center aligning in the sky. It happens every December with no physical consequences beyond the overconsumption of eggnog. And anyway, the Sun and the galactic center will not exactly coincide even in 2012.
If there were another planet out there heading our way, everybody could see it by now. As for those fierce solar storms, the next sunspot maximum will not happen until 2013, and will be on the mild side, astronomers now say.

Geological apocalypse is a better bet. There have been big earthquakes in California before and probably will be again. These quakes could destroy Los Angeles, as shown in the movie, and Yellowstone could erupt again with cataclysmic force sooner or later. We and our works are indeed fragile and temporary riders on the Earth. But in this case, “sooner or later” means hundreds of millions of years, and there would be plenty of warning.

The Mayans, who were good-enough astronomers and timekeepers to predict Venus’s position 500 years in the future, deserve better than this.

Mayan time was cyclic, and experts like Dr. Krupp and Anthony Aveni, an astronomer and anthropologist at Colgate University, say there is no evidence that the Mayans thought anything special would happen when the odometer rolled over on this Long Count in 2012. There are references in Mayan inscriptions to dates both before the beginning and the ending of the present Long Count, they say, just as your next birthday and April 15 loom beyond New Year’s Eve, on next year’s calendar.
So keep up those mortgage payments.

More Email

The email from a supposed auditor from the Bank of Africa (BOA), promising me millions of dollars, has passed around my name to three other bankers and they want to help me out too!  Apparently there is just millions and millions of dollars laying around in BOA.  If I remember correctly, I could have around 60 million dollars.  Champagne could be raining down from the sky, strippers, midgets, and balloons could be had for all, but, and I know you will hate to hear it, I think I am going to have to pass on all of the unclaimed BOA millions.  And I think all of you should to!

D

Email

Hooray, I got my first email today! I was very excited to see some mail in the mailbox and I just couldn't wait to read it. Who could it have been from: Michael Shermer, Jerry Coyne, Phil Plait, all commending me on advancing skeptical thought? No, it was no one that important. However, I was given an offer that I would be totally crazy to not jump at

2012

No doubt that most of you have heard something about the world coming to an end on December 21, 2012. If you haven't then you may be aware of the new John Cusack movie, 2012, in which the depicts the world being destroyed by an impact of Planet X; a planet supposedly discovered by the Sumarians. While much of the 2012 nonsense has been floating about over the past year or two, it is the release of the movie 2012 that has prompted NASA to publicly debunk 2012 myths that are lurking about. So don't sell your house, quit your job, or start to whore around quite yet. But you can check out the NPR article below.

D

Re-posted from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120436493

Scared Of Planet Nibiru? NASA Would Like To Help

November 15, 2009

According to numerous sources on the Internet, in 2012 a planet called Nibiru will collide with Earth, resulting in the extinction of the human race. Or the Earth's magnetic poles will flip, causing the rotation of the planet to reverse, resulting in the extinction of the human race. Or the Earth will fall into something called a "dark rift" in the Milky Way — resulting in the extinction of the human race.
So, what's NASA doing about it?
"NASA has nothing to do with the Planet Nibiru, because it doesn't exist," NASA astrobiologist David Morrison tells NPR's Guy Raz. "What I am doing is trying to answer all these people who are really scared, and see if we can't get some facts out to counteract the mythology on the Internet."
Morrison writes a column called "Ask an Astrobiologist" on NASA's Web site. Some years ago, he started receiving questions from people genuinely worried about what may happen in 2012.
The questions aren't as funny as you might think. "I've had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide," says Morrison. "I've had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, 'I'm so scared, my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won't suffer?' And I don't know how to answer those questions."
Morrison now maintains a 2012 FAQ, where he debunks the doomsday scenarios.
Magnetic poles flipping? "The Earth reverses its magnetic polarity once every 400,000 to 500,000 years. There's no reason to think it will happen now, [and] no reason to think it will cause a problem if it did," he says.
Dark rift? "The dark rift is just a place where there are dust clouds in the Milky Way. I can't imagine where someone decided to be afraid of that."
The only real proof for many 2012 believers will come on Jan. 1, 2013 — but Morrison says that won't be the end of doomsday hoaxes.
"The Planet Nibiru was predicted to hit the Earth in May of 2003," he says. "As far as I know, it didn't. And someone just pushed reset, and now it's coming in 2012. So I don't think we'll ever be rid of apocalyptic stories about Planet X and the end of the world."

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Speak

What do you think?

D

Want to Get In Touch With Me?

Probably not, but I have an email set up specifically for Skeptic Dave! All questions, comments, and weirdness can be sent to:

skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com
skepticdave@rocketmail.com

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU SEND ME AN EMAIL, I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO PUBLISH ANY AND ALL CONTENTS OF ANY EMAIL SENT.

God On Trial

This should provoke some thought!

D

The Onion: PETA

The Onion is hilarious!


Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women

The Trials of Ted Haggard

I just watched the documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard". It is excellent. I actually don't know what to say at the moment. I think I need to let it sink in a bit before I comment too much. However I will say this, the church and the evangelical movement raped Ted Haggard. For a group of people who profess to believe what they believe and then turn their backs on someone who was in need. That was very Christ-like of them. So what do you think? Let me know! Also, when you click on the play button, an annoying pop-up web page is going to appear, just exit out of it. Sorry, but this was the only copy of this film I could find.

D

Months and Months Later, I Make No Promises

Remember how I promised I was going to be more attentive to the interwebs and this blog, well...........to no surprise, I haven't been keeping up. For some reason college takes up a lot of my time, who would have thought? Anyway, I make no more promises, but I just might be posting more......but we will see. I hope this finds all of you well! And happy Friday the 13th!

D

Creationism and Public Schools

Below is an essay I wrote for my English class. It is an argument essay about whether we should allow the teaching of creationism in public schools. The only problem is that it is short, only five pages. Sorry, but that is all I was allowed to write; though I could've gone on for much longer. Anyway, I thought I would share it with you. Let me know what you think!

D

Creationism In Public Schools

Ever since the dawn of man, human beings have tried to make sense of their existence. “What is the purpose of life,” and “How did life come to be,” are just a couple of questions concerning human existence. These questions have been debated by scholars, the clergy, and general laypeople for centuries. But it wasn’t until 1859 when Charles Darwin published his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, which posited that all life shares a common ancestor. Thanks to Darwin, humans had finally started to grasp how life came to be and how it flourished, namely, though the Theory of Evolution. Before Darwin, the only answer to how life came to be was creationism. But even now, after One-Hundred and Fifty-Years after Darwin’s radical new idea, there are still some today who oppose evolution and want an alternative, creationism, taught in public science classes.

Creationism is the idea that all living things, plants, animals, and bacteria, were created, by God just as they are now. Creationists got this idea by taking a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Bible, which says that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Also, creationists typically have a young earth view concerning the age of the earth. They usually believe the earth to be somewhere between fourteen-thousand and six-thousand years-old (however, these numbers for the age of the earth are nowhere to be found in the Bible). Creationists vehemently deny that all life shares a common ancestor; however they generally accept that micro-evolution happens (i.e. adaptations occur). Ken Ham, the founder of the young earth creationist organization Answers In Genesis (AIG) and the Creation Museum, claims that “Evolutionists” and Creationists have the same evidence, but they have different interpretations of that evidence. It is this claim of difference of interpretations that is giving the creationist movement credibility. But does this sound like science or is creationism merely religion and should it be taught in public school science classes?

“Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution,” was penned by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, who criticized anti-evolution groups like Answers In Genesis (AIG) and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR); all of who want creationism taught in science classes. Dobzhansky was making the point that evolution occurs, and all of the evidence from all of the different scientific disciplines (e.g. geology, bio-chemistry, physics) adds to the theory of evolution. In other words, Evolution explains so much of what happens in nature that no other theory makes sense. The theory of evolution has multiple lines of evidence for it. It is time tested and makes positive predictions. Evolution is a working and verifiable science.

Even though evolution has more evidence for it than any other theory, besides Quantum Mechanics, there is still doubt from the general American public. AIG even states that according to surveys, most Americans are creationists; therefore, creationism should be taught in science classes along with the theory of evolution. This however, is a logic fallacy called the argument of popular sentiment (Argumentum ad populum). For instance, if ninety percent of the population believed UFOs exist it does make the preposition, UFOs exist, true. Popular opinion is not evidence. At one point, many people thought that the earth was the center of the universe (which it’s not even the center of the Milky Way) and it was flat. But both of those popular notions were shown to be false.

Shouldn’t the American educational system be teaching students all sides of the origins of life? Students have a right to know and decide for themselves. Knowledge should never be withheld from anyone. This is another argument espoused by AIG and ICR. At first the argument seems on the level and sincere. It appeals to Americans sense of fair play and self-determination. Knowledge should never be withheld from anyone, but sadly, the truth is not democratic. Parents could vote on the sex of their child, but it doesn’t change the child’s sex. But for the sake of argument imagine that creationism can be taught in public schools. Would this now mean that in order to be fair and not withhold knowledge from students, schools would have to teach alchemy in chemistry class? Would it mean that in history class, schools should teach Holocaust denialism? Both “theories” claim to have evidence for them.

To complicate the matter is the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Creationism is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Creationism is expressly religious in its intent and therefore cannot be taught in science class. This opinion has been expressed in several court cases, one of the most famous being Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), which established that creationism absolutely could not be taught. Though the Edwards case didn’t stop the creationist movement. After the Edwards ruling, a new branch of creationism evolved known as Intelligent Design (ID). However, in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case (2005) it was determined that ID had no secular purpose and was expressly religious in its intent, thus violating the First Amendment.

Because of the religious intent behind groups like AIG and ICR, the real underlying problem seems to be where evolution puts man. Evolution makes man an animal, which ironically enough, the creationist Carl Linnaeus was the first to classify man as a member of the great apes. According to the Bible, which AIG and ICR adhere to, man is special; evolution threatens this idea. Science has seen such battles before in cases of Copernicus and Galileo. They took away mans special status of being the center of the universe. But does knowing such facts make humanity less special? The late Stephen Jay Gould Ph.D, Harvard Zoologist, and science popularizer argued in his essay, “Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA)” that science and religion answers two separate questions. Religion answers questions of meaning while science answers questions dealing with the natural world. Science can inform religion, but it is not designed to answer the existential questions. Even Pope John Paul II wrote in his edict “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth” (1996) that evolution, in the neo-darwinian sense, is not just an hypothesis. Pope John Paul agreed with Gould’s NOMA. Creationism is more concerned with man’s place in the universe as opposed to how man came to be. There is no evidence for any of the tenets of creationism: a worldwide flood, a young earth, dinosaurs coexisting with humans, or a literal six day creation of the earth and cosmos. Therefore, creationism is solely a religious movement intended to spread religion and misinformed ideas about the origin of species, and thus doesn’t fit within a public school science class.

In a recent survey, half of all Americans responding when asked if the the earth orbits the sun or the sun the earth, got the question wrong. The fact that half of those respondents got that question wrong says a lot about the science education in the United States. This survey shows why it is important for the United States to take its science education seriously. Doing so requires that the most up-to-date factual content is taught to students. There is no time to be wasted with misinformation. There are no cures for HIV, cancer, and the hundreds of other diseases that kill men, women, and children each year. The theory of evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology and to dismiss it simply because it endangers one’s position on man’s purpose in the cosmos could be a grave mistake.

WTF?

Brian Kilmeade is a news person on the morning show "Fox and Friends". He is an idiot. Whether he is being tongue and cheek below is up for debate, but I remember when Don Imus called some ladies nappy-haired-hoes, and he got destroyed for it. I don't agree with what Imus said, by any means, but how does it compare to what Mr. Kilmeade says below?



Does he realize that there was a very famous dictator in Germany around the late 30s to the mid 40s that had that very same thought? The only difference is that Hitler was speaking of the Aryans being a superior race. Also, Mr. Kilmeade doesn't seem to know that eugenics is psuedo-scientific, and has been shown to be wrong wrong wrong wrong. Brian, you are a moron.

God

I had completely forgotten about this song until I heard it yesterday in my religion class. Now, I am hooked on it. Check out the video below and the lyrics too.

D

Artist - Tori Amos

Song - God

Tori Amos--God


Ooo hoo, ooo hoo
God, sometimes you just don't come through
God, sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through

You make pretty daisies pretty daisies
I gotta find find find what you're doing about things here
A few witches burning gets a little toasty
(Hey what do you know what do you know)
I gotta find find find find where you always go when the wind blows

God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through, babe
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through

Well tell me you're crazy, maybe then I'll understand
(Come down and tell me the truth)
You got your nine iron in the backseat just in case
I heard you've gone south, well babe, you love your new four wheel
(Hey what do you know what do you know?)
I gotta find where you always go when the wind blows

will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall
will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky

God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through, babe
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through

History of the Devil

Right now in the summer quarter, I am taking a humanities class titled "People and Religion". It's a facinating class where we learn about certain religions and what is involved in them (e.g. rituals, celebrations, and so on). We have studied the Lakota Souix religion, Scientology, Jehovas Witnesses, Mormonism, and Islam. Currently, I am working on a group project for class. We are doing our project on the history/evolution/purpose of the devil. It is so interesting that I thought I would share a documentary that I found here on the intertoobs with you about the devil. It's informative and only about an hour long, so if you have the time then take a watch.

D

Long Time

Sorry, I know it's been a long while since I've posted anything. That will be changing soon (I hope). I am taking accelerated summer classes at college, so that has taken up a large amount of my time. Also, having a family to attend to tends to consume time as well. But I am going to try and keep up with the blog again because there is a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff to report. Please stick with me and enjoy the ride!

D

P.S. Skeptic Dave may get a new look. I am toying around with some new templates and whatnot. Stay tuned!

Song

Band: Herbaliser

Song: Sensual Woman

Comments

Sorry comment moderation is on now. There are some abusing the commenting feature so I must moderate until it is safe. I am publishing all comments, even those that are against what I am saying here. But the comments must be on topic and not a right-wing/ left-wing/center-wing propaganda. ON TOPIC ONLY!

D

Oprah = The Lose

Read the following article from Slate. Now you will know why Oprah = The Lose!

D

Re-posted from: http://www.slate.com/id/2217798/

Say It Ain't So, O. Why is Oprah Winfrey promoting vaccine skeptic Jenny McCarthy?

By Arthur AllenPosted Wednesday, May 6, 2009, at 11:47 AM ET

Chastising a celebrity is an exercise in futility. You feel like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck, scrabbling wildly in the air without drawing blood. Pointless as this may be, though, I will try to talk some sense into Oprah Winfrey, who has decided to go into business with vaccine skeptic Jenny McCarthy.

There is abundant evidence that vaccines don't cause autism. More than a dozen studies, as well as trend data from California and other states, show that neither the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal nor the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. In March, a federal court dismissed both of these theories in a most definitive way after hearing weeks of testimony and gathering thousands of pages of evidence.

Jenny McCarthy begs to differ. McCarthy dropped out of nursing school in 1993 to become a Playboy bunny and later starred in an MTV show that focused on her bodily functions. She believes that vaccines made her 7-year-old son autistic—and that she "recovered" him with alternative therapies, as she details in her parenting books. McCarthy has appeared regularly on Larry King Live and Oprah to blast the medical establishment, and last year she led a march on Washington to demand that children get fewer vaccines.

On Wednesday it was announced that Oprah signed McCarthy to a deal, starting with a blog on the Oprah Web site. Though neither woman's people will confirm details of the deal, it will presumably lead to a talk show, as it did for Rachael Ray and Dr. Phil, two other Oprah protégés. Perhaps not every episode of a McCarthy show will address vaccines and autism, but some surely will.

Celebrities take on all kinds of causes. They campaign for presidents, and they rally to save the women of Darfur and the hungry masses of Bangladesh and Africa. Some of these appearances may do some good, while others are merely benign grandstanding. But wealthy, toothsome, vivacious, and sexy Jenny McCarthy's impassioned campaign is actually harmful. Why? Because she is spreading dangerous misinformation—and that could bring some once-controlled diseases back into play.

Her boyfriend, actor Jim Carrey, is even more clueless. At the rally last year, I asked Carrey to give an example of a childhood vaccine we could dispense with. Tetanus, he said. That answer did not reflect a strong—or any, really—grasp of infectious diseases. Children who get tetanus—fortunately, it has been extremely rare in the United States since tetanus vaccination began in the 1920s—suffer horrendous pain, arch their backs, and go into terrible spasms before dying. It's a very natural disease, to be sure, because the germ causing tetanus lives in dirt. It's a germ that will be with us forever, and the only way to prevent it is through vaccination.

For some reason, Oprah and the rest of the entertainment world treat McCarthy as if she were Mother Theresa kissing lepers or Nelson Mandela denouncing apartheid. She's been proven wrong about vaccines, yet she persists in claiming that they are so dangerous that it's better to get vaccine-preventable diseases than get the shots. Oprah's spokesman told me that Jenny's views were more "nuanced" than I presented them. Yet here she is a month ago, in an exchange with Time:

I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.

McCarthy's popularity has created a lot of anger and disbelief in that tiny sliver of society that believes in evidence-based medicine. One person who's feeling particularly frustrated is David T. Tayloe, president of the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians. (Remember them? A pediatrician is a person with a medical degree who takes care of children. Some of them are said to trust science more than celebrities when it comes to health care.)

"I think show business crosses the line when they give contracts to people like Jenny McCarthy," Tayloe says. "If you give her a bully pulpit, McCarthy is going to make people hesitate to vaccinate their children. She has no medical or scientific credentials. It disturbs us that she's given all these opportunities to make her pitch about vaccines on Oprah or Larry King or U.S. News or whatever. We have to scramble to get equal time—and who wants to see a gray-haired pediatrician talking about a serious topic like childhood vaccines when she's out there blasting the academy and blasting the federal government?"

Still, others involved in the effort to refute the vaccine/autism myth aren't as worried about McCarthy. "Jenny McCarthy doesn't bother me that much because I don't think most people take her as a serious commenter on medicine," said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine inventor and author of Autism's False Prophets. "I'd be more concerned if it was someone like Meryl Streep, someone seen as person of gravity and good sense."

What's a little sad about this episode is the fact that once upon a time, big stars like Humphrey Bogart, Louis Armstrong, and Elvis Presley stood up for vaccination campaigns to protect the lives of children. (Actress Amanda Peet recently stepped up to counter McCarthy's message, saying that people should get their advice on autism and vaccines from doctors, not actresses. But Peet seems to lack McCarthy's entrepreneurial verve and hasn't drawn the same level of attention.)

In those days, parents and children clamored for vaccination. Especially children in places like the South Side of Chicago or rural Mississippi (where Oprah was born in 1954), who suffered higher rates of polio in the late 1950s because their parents couldn't afford the new vaccine.

Over the past year, new outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other vaccine-preventable diseases have occurred in communities with parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids.

Oprah, think of the children.

Cartoon Time

Evolution Lesson 2

More from the University of Berkeley on the evidences of evolution.

Re-posted from: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Artificial selection

Artificial selection provides a model that helps us understand natural selection. People have been artificially selecting domesticated plants and animals for thousands of years. These activities have amounted to large, long-term, practical experiments that clearly demonstrate that species can change dramatically through selective breeding. Broccoli and brussels sprouts bear little superficial resemblance to their wild mustard relatives (right). If domesticated dogs were discovered today they would be classified as hundreds of different species and considered quite distinct from wolves. Although it is probable that various breeds of dogs were independently domesticated from distinct wild dog lineages, there are no wolf relatives anywhere in the world that look much like dachshunds or collies (below).

These observations demonstrate that selection has profound effects on populations and has the ability to modify forms and behaviors of living things to the point that they look and act very unlike their ancestors. Artificial selection provides a model that helps us understand natural selection. It is a small step to envision natural conditions acting selectively on populations and causing natural changes.

Ecology

The environment affects the evolution of living things.
As predicted by evolutionary theory, populations evolve in response to their surroundings. In any ecosystem there are finite opportunities to make a living. Organisms either have the genetic tools to take advantage of those opportunities or they do not.

House sparrows arrived in North America from Europe in the nineteenth century. Since then, genetic variation within the population, and selection in various habitats, have allowed them to inhabit most of the continent. House sparrows in the north are larger and darker colored than those in the south. Darker colors absorb sunlight better than light colors and larger size allows less surface area per unit volume, thus reducing heat loss — both advantages in a cold climate. This is an example of natural selection acting upon a population, producing micro-evolution on a continental scale.

Experiments

Experiments also show that populations can evolve.
John Endler of the University of California has conducted experiments with the guppies of Trinidad that clearly show selection at work. The scenario: Female guppies prefer colorful males for mating purposes. Predatory fish also "prefer" colorful males, but for a less complimentary purpose — a source of food that is easy to spot. Some portions of the streams where guppies live have fewer predators than others and in these locations the males are more colorful (top frame). Not surprisingly, males in locations where there are more predators tend to be less colorful (bottom frame).

When Dr. Endler transferred predatory fish to the regions with brightly colored male guppies, selection acted rapidly to produce a population of duller males. This demonstrates that persistent variation within a population provides the raw material for rapid evolution when environmental conditions change.

Nested hierarchies

Common ancestry is conspicuous.
Evolution predicts that living things will be related to one another in what scientists refer to as nested hierarchies — rather like nested boxes. Groups of related organisms share suites of similar characteristics and the number of shared traits increases with relatedness. This is indeed what we observe in the living world and in the fossil record and these relationships can be illustrated as shown below.

In this phylogeny, snakes and lizards share a large number of traits as they are more closely related to one another than to the other animals represented. The same can be said of crocodiles and birds, whales and camels, and humans and chimpanzees. However, at a more inclusive level, snakes, lizards, birds, crocodiles, whales, camels, chimpanzees and humans all share some common traits.

Humans and chimpanzees are united by many shared inherited traits (such as 98.7% of their DNA). But at a more inclusive level of life's hierarchy, we share a smaller set of inherited traits in common with all primates. More inclusive still, we share traits in common with other mammals, other vertebrates, other animals. At the most inclusive level, we sit alongside sponges, petunias, diatoms and bacteria in a very large "box" entitled: living organisms.

Will I Be Single Now?

Sorry ladies, even after watching the following video, my wife won't divorce me. Maybe it's because she is secretly serving Satan just like me and all other atheists. The lesson here is not new; Pat Robertson is an ignorant fool. This is not because he believes in god. It's because of what he says.

D

Video seen originally on P.Z. Myers' website and now posted here for your enjoyment.

Love This Song

Band: Death Cab For Cutie

Song: Transatlanticism

Evolution Lesson 1

Berkeley has an awesome site to explain all the evidence for the Theory of Evolution called Understanding Evolution. It is a great resource for information on this massive subject. They do a wonderful job in explaining the relevant information in an easy to understand format. I am so impressed with their effort that I will be posting their material here on Skeptic Dave. We should all be thankful to hard working researchers, scientists, and educators who took the time to gather all of this info.

D

Re-posted from: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php


Fossil evidence

Nicholas Steno's anatomical drawing of an extant shark (left) and a fossil shark tooth (right). Steno made the leap and declared that the fossil teeth indeed came from the mouths of once-living sharks. The fossil record provides snapshots of the past that, when assembled, illustrate a panorama of evolutionary change over the past four billion years. The picture may be smudged in places and may have bits missing, but fossil evidence clearly shows that life is old and has changed over time. Early fossil discoveries In the 17th century, Nicholas Steno shook the world of science, noting the similarity between shark teeth and the rocks commonly known as "tongue stones." This was our first understanding that fossils were a record of past life. Two centuries later, Mary Ann Mantell picked up a tooth, which her husband Gideon thought to be of a large iguana, but it turned out to be the tooth of a dinosaur, Iguanodon. This discovery sent the powerful message that many fossils represented forms of life that are no longer with us today. Additional clues from fossils Today we may take fossils for granted, but we continue to learn from them. Each new fossil contains additional clues that increase our understanding of life's history and help us to answer questions about their evolutionary story. Examples include:

Indication of interactions This ammonite fossil (see right) shows punctures that some scientists have interpreted as the bite mark of a mosasaur, a type of predatory marine reptile that lived at the same time as the ammonite. Damage to the ammonite has been correlated to the shapes and capabilities of mosasaur teeth and jaws. Others have argued that the holes were created by limpets that attached to the ammonite. Researchers examine ammonite fossils, as well as mosasaur fossils and the behaviors of limpets, in order to explore these hypotheses.

Clues at the cellular level Fossils can tell us about growth patterns in ancient animals. The picture at right is a cross-section through a sub-adult thigh bone of the duckbill dinosaur Maiasaura. The white spaces show that there were lots of blood vessels running through the bone, which indicates that it was a fast-growing bone. The black wavy horizontal line in mid-picture is a growth line, reflecting a seasonal pause in the animal's growth.

Transitional forms

Fossils or organisms that show the intermediate states between an ancestral form and that of its descendants are referred to as transitional forms. There are numerous examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, providing an abundance of evidence for change over time.

Pakicetus (below left), is described as an early ancestor to modern whales. Although pakicetids were land mammals, it is clear that they are related to whales and dolphins based on a number of specializations of the ear, relating to hearing. The skull shown here displays nostrils at the front of the skull.

A skull of the gray whale that roams the seas today (below right) has its nostrils placed at the top of its skull. It would appear from these two specimens that the position of the nostril has changed over time and thus we would expect to see intermediate forms.

Note that the nostril placement in Aetiocetus is intermediate between the ancestral form Pakicetus and the modern gray whale — an excellent example of a transitional form in the fossil record!

Our understanding of the evolution of horse feet, so often depicted in textbooks, is derived from a scattered sampling of horse fossils within the multi-branched horse evolutionary tree. These fossil organisms represent branches on the tree and not a direct line of descent leading to modern horses. But, the standard diagram does clearly show transitional stages whereby the four-toed foot of Hyracotherium, otherwise known as Eohippus, became the single-toed foot of Equus. Fossils show that the transitional forms predicted by evolution did indeed exist. As you can see to the left, each branch tip on the tree of horse evolution indicates a different genus, though the feet of only a few genera are illustrated to show the reduction of toes through time.

Homologies

Evolutionary theory predicts that related organisms will share similarities that are derived from common ancestors. Similar characteristics due to relatedness are known as homologies. Homologies can be revealed by comparing the anatomies of different living things, looking at cellular similarities and differences, studying embryological development, and studying vestigial structures within individual organisms.

In the following photos of plants, the leaves are quite different from the "normal" leaves we envision.

Each leaf has a very different shape and function, yet all are homologous structures, derived from a common ancestral form. The pitcher plant and Venus' flytrap use leaves to trap and digest insects. The bright red leaves of the poinsettia look like flower petals. The cactus leaves are modified into small spines which reduce water loss and can protect the cactus from herbivory.

Another example of homology is the forelimb of tetrapods (vertebrates with legs).

Frogs, birds, rabbits and lizards all have different forelimbs, reflecting their different lifestyles. But those different forelimbs all share the same set of bones - the humerus, the radius, and the ulna. These are the same bones seen in fossils of the extinct transitional animal, Eusthenopteron, which demonstrates their common ancestry.

Homologies: anatomy

Individual organisms contain, within their bodies, abundant evidence of their histories. The existence of these features is best explained by evolution. Several animals, including pigs, cattle, deer, and dogs have reduced, nonfunctional digits, referred to as dewclaws. The foot of the pig has lost digit 1 completely, digits 2 and 5 have been greatly reduced, and only digits 3 and 4 support the body. Evolution best explains such vestigial features. They are the remnants of ancestors with a larger number of functional digits.

• People (and apes) have chests that are broader than they are deep, with the shoulder blades flat in back. This is because we, like apes, are descended from an ancestor who was able to suspend itself using the upper limbs. On the other hand, monkeys and other quadrupeds have a different form of locomotion. Quadrupeds have narrow, deep chests with shoulder blades on the sides.

• Hoatzin chicks have claws on their wings, as do some chickens and ostriches. This reflects the fact that bird ancestors had clawed hands.

Homologies: comparative anatomy

Organisms that are closely related to one another share many anatomical similarities. Sometimes the similarities are conspicuous, as between crocodiles and alligators, but in other cases considerable study is needed for a full appreciation of relationships.

Modification of the tetrapod skeleton
Whales and hummingbirds have tetrapod skeletons inherited from a common ancestor. Their bodies have been modified and parts have been lost through natural selection, resulting in adaptation to their respective lifestyles over millions of years. On the surface, these animals look very different, but the relationship between them is easy to demonstrate. Except for those bones that have been lost over time, nearly every bone in each corresponds to an equivalent bone in the other.

Homologies: developmental biology

Studying the embryological development of living things provides clues to the evolution of present-day organisms. During some stages of development, organisms exhibit ancestral features in whole or incomplete form.

Snakes have legged ancestors.
Some species of living snakes have hind limb-buds as early embryos but rapidly lose the buds and develop into legless adults. The study of developmental stages of snakes, combined with fossil evidence of snakes with hind limbs, supports the hypothesis that snakes evolved from a limbed ancestor.

Above left, the Cretaceous snake Pachyrhachis problematicus clearly had small hindlimbs. The drawing at right shows a reconstruction of the pelvis and hindlimb of Pachyrhachis.

Baleen whales have toothed ancestors.
Toothed whales have full sets of teeth throughout their lives. Baleen whales, however, only possess teeth in the early fetal stage and lose them before birth. The possession of teeth in fetal baleen whales provides evidence of common ancestry with toothed whales and other mammals. In addition, fossil evidence indicates that the late Oligocene whale Aetiocetus (below), from Oregon, which is considered to be the earliest example of baleen whales, also bore a full set of teeth.

Again, these observations make most sense in an evolutionary framework where snakes have legged ancestors and whales have toothed ancestors.

Homologies: cellular/molecular evidence

All living things are fundamentally alike. At the cellular and molecular level living things are remarkably similar to each other. These fundamental similarities are most easily explained by evolutionary theory: life shares a common ancestor.

The cellular level
All organisms are made of cells, which consist of membranes filled with water containing genetic material, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, salts and other substances. The cells of most living things use sugar for fuel while producing proteins as building blocks and messengers. Notice the similarity between the typical animal and plant cells pictured below — only three structures are unique to one or the other.

The molecular level
Different species share genetic homologies as well as anatomical ones. Roundworms, for example, share 25% of their genes with humans. These genes are slightly different in each species, but their striking similarites nevertheless reveal their common ancestry. In fact, the DNA code itself is a homology that links all life on Earth to a common ancestor. DNA and RNA possess a simple four-base code that provides the recipe for all living things. In some cases, if we were to transfer genetic material from the cell of one living thing to the cell of another, the recipient would follow the new instructions as if they were its own.

These characteristics of life demonstrate the fundamental sameness of all living things on Earth and serve as the basis of today's efforts at genetic engineering.

Distribution in time and space

Understanding the history of life on Earth requires a grasp of the depth of time and breadth of space. We must keep in mind that the time involved is vast compared to a human lifetime and the space necessary for this to occur includes all the water and land surfaces of the world. Establishing chronologies, both relative and absolute, and geographic change over time are essential for viewing the motion picture that is the history of life on Earth.

Chronology

The age of the Earth and its inhabitants has been determined through two complementary lines of evidence: relative dating and numerical (or radiometric) dating.

• Relative dating places fossils in a temporal sequence by noting their positions in layers of rocks, known as strata. As shown in the diagram, fossils found in lower strata were typically deposited first and are deemed to be older (this principle is known as superposition). Sometimes this method doesn't work, either because the layers weren't deposited horizontally to begin with, or because they have been overturned.
  If that's the case, we can use one of three other methods to date fossil-bearing layers relative to one another: faunal succession, crosscutting relationships, and inclusions.
  By studying and comparing strata from all over the world we can learn which came first and which came next, but we need further evidence to ascertain the specific, or numerical, ages of fossils.

• Numerical dating relies on the decay of radioactive elements, such as uranium, potassium, rubidium and carbon. Very old rocks must be dated using volcanic material. By dating volcanic ash layers both above and below a fossil-bearing layer, as shown in the diagram, you can determine "older than X, but younger than Y" dates for the fossils. Sedimentary rocks less than 50,000 years old can be dated as well, using their radioactive carbon content. Geologists have assembled a geological time scale on the basis of numerical dating of rocks from around the world.

Geography

The distribution of living things on the globe provides information about the past histories of both living things and the surface of the Earth. This evidence is consistent not just with the evolution of life, but also with the movement of continental plates around the world-otherwise known as plate tectonics.

Marsupial mammals are found in the Americas as well as Australia and New Guinea, shown in brown on the map at right. They are not found swimming across the Pacific Ocean, nor have they been discovered wandering the Asian mainland. There appear to be no routes of migration between the two populations. How could marsupials have gotten from their place of origin to locations half a world away?

Fossils of marsupials have been found in the Antarctic as well as in South America and Australia. During the past few decades scientists have demonstrated that what is now called South America was part of a large land mass called Gondwana, which included Australia and Antarctica. Click on the map below for a short animation that shows how Gondwana split apart 160 to 90 million years ago. Marsupials didn't need a migration route from one part of the world to another; they rode the continents to their present positions.

Evidence by example

Although the history of life is always in the past, there are many ways we can look at present-day organisms, as well as recent history, to better understand what has occurred through deep time. Artificial selection in agriculture or laboratories provides a model for natural selection. Looking at interactions of organisms in ecosystems helps us to understand how populations adapt over time. Experiments demonstrate selection and adaptive advantage. And we can see nested hierarchies in taxonomies based on common descent.

Creationist Science Fair Cartoon

I found this on the Richard Dawkins forums. I had to post this because it's sooooo funny. It's funny because it's true.

D