A Children's Book About Evolution

I happened to stumble upon Great Adaptations - a children's book about evolution on kickstarter and I thought it might be the kind of thing my readers would enjoy. I'm looking forward to teaching my son about all of the science stuff that I love, and this is exactly the kind of thing that will help me make it fun. It of course also reminded me of The Magic of Reality, which I am also looking forward to reading to my son (once he's moved beyond board books).

In addition to letting you guys know about this super cool upcoming book, I would like to ask you guys if you know of other books along these same lines. Please add any other suggestions to the comments and I'll edit the post.

(Also, I want to let you guys know that I have my Exodus 13 post written, I just need to record the podcast for it, but I'm sick right now and my voice is ruined. Hopefully I will be able to get it done within the week)

Edit: Additional suggestions from the comments

Steve pointed us toward a slate article which suggests Bone by Bone, Why Don't Your Eyelashes Grow?: Curious Questions Kids Ask About the Human Body, and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

I'm looking forward to getting all of these books, please keep the suggestions coming :)

Well Said [Skepticism, Prayer, Microbiome]

Even though I don't have much time to write, I can find time to listen to podcasts and watch a few youtube videos. Here's some stuff I've liked recently.

The first one is from Steve Shives. I've really been enjoying his channel lately, in particular his "an atheist reads..." series. He recently started a new series reading The Reason for God, he started off (at about 4 minutes) with a comment about the book's subtitle "Belief in an age of skepticism".

This next one is from a podcast I have found pretty recently that I have been enjoying quite a bit, the imaginary friends show. In this episode (at about 9:30), they were talking about people praying for victims of natural disasters.

This last one is from ask an atheist in their "moment of science" segment (at about 46 minutes into the show). They were talking about the staggering number of microbes in our digestive system. I've recently been fascinated by microbiomes and this fact really jumped out at me. So cool!

background picture from wikimedia commons

Highlights [Cross Examined, Demon Haunted World, Geeks Without God]

This one is from the cross examined blog. Brilliant stuff.

This is another quote from The Demon Haunted world (kindle location 4116). I've been reading it to my one month old son, I've been trying to decide what to read to him next, maybe hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, that's supposed to be good.

This is from the podcast Geeks without God episode 54. I've often thought that it is a shame that so many people are unwilling to believe in evolution because I find it so fascinating and cool, they are really missing out. When he succinctly said as much on the show, and included the other side of the coin (that creationism is completely uninteresting) it seemed a perfect fit for a meme. It was said at about 13 minutes in, and what followed was a discussion with PZ Myers about how theistic evolution misses the point about the role randomness plays in evolution. Interesting stuff.

This Week's Highlights

My son is 2 weeks old, I figure he should start life on the right foot, so I'm reading him the demon haunted world. As I was reading a line really popped out at me that I thought would be perfect for the blog, as it is one of the big reasons I think religion is dangerous. Since I'm reading the kindle version I can't tell you what page it's on, but it's location 414 on kindle

The second item today is from the bitchspot report episode 17. Cephus said this right near the beginning of the episode (2.5 minutes in or so)

As much as I think religion is a problem, and I very much think religion and a lack of skepticism go hand in hand, I would rather have someone stay religious but be generally skeptical in the rest of their life than become an atheist and continue thinking uncritically about the claims they come across.

Non-overlapping magisteria

Non-overlapping magisteria is the idea that science and religion each have their own place where they work but they shouldn't try to interfere in the other's area. Science can tell us about how physical things work, religion can tell us about spiritual things, but neither really should be weighing in on the other's domain. This argument seems to be primarily used by people who are either trying to avoid a conversation (if they aren't interested in this type of discussion), or want to end a conversation already in progress (if they are losing).

Other than a desire for the conversation to go away, the declaration of non-overlapping magisteria seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what science really is. I think when the average person thinks of "science" they imagine a chemistry set and a chalkboard full of equations. But really, science is all about testing hypotheses and refining ideas with new information. If you make a testable claim, you are in the domain of science. So to say that science and religion don't overlap is to say that religion makes no testable claims. Is this true? Absolutely not! I can think of a handful of claims that religions make right off the top of my head.

Prayer. God supposedly answers prayer, this is clearly a testable claim. If prayer to God does anything at all, then we should be able to see an effect. religious people should win the lottery more often, their loved ones should be in fewer car accidents and they should get more raises at work, and of course when they get sick, they should recover faster. This last one has been studied pretty extensively and no effect has been found except when the studies are methodologically flawed, and even then the result is quite weak.

Miracles. The religious make miracle claims all the time. These claims are often some version of "this can't happen naturally, it must be God's doing". The claim of "this is impossible" is perfect for science, where the goal is to figure out how it happened. A perfect example is the weeping statue of Jesus which turned out to be a broken water pipe along with capillary action.

I'm sure there are other obvious things to add, but that's good enough for now. Let's move along to the next point, when religion tries to invade the domain of science. The most obvious one is evolution vs. creation. The evidence for evolution is staggering and yet many religions deny it anyway. They literally intrude on the domain of science, trying to get creation taught in science class along side evolution, or ideally instead of it. They don't really want science and religion to occupy separate places in society, they just want science to back off and let religion get away with as much as possible.

I love Jesus and Mo

There's one last place where I've seen people try to apply non-overlapping magisteria, and that is to some sort of deist god. In this case I would agree that science really doesn't have much to say about such a nebulous God, but honestly, neither does religion. This isn't a situation where science has nothing to say but religion can enlighten us, it's a situation where god has been defined away to the point where neither can contribute anything useful. As far as I can tell, non-overlapping magisteria is garbage no matter how you slice it.

Genesis 30: Genetics Work How?

Download the podcast or watch on youtube and follow along

Jacob's Children [cont.] (v. 1-24)

Jacob's wives get real competitive with one another about having kids and they both enlist their servant for the cause. Jacob winds up having a bunch of kids with all 4 women. Is this the bible or daytime tv?

Jacob's Prosperity (v. 25-43)

Jacob asked Laban to let me gather his family and leave for his homeland. Laban didn't want him to go because he benefited so much from God blessing everything he does. In the time Jacob had worked for him his wealth had increased considerably. But after some discussion, Laban agreed to let him go and asked what he should be able to take with him. Jacob said that he would go through his flocks today and take every animal that is speckled and spotted. Any animal that is not so marked will remain Laban's.

It specifically says  that Jacob will go through the flock today, but that makes no sense because of what happens next, Jacob's plan involves breeding. All I can figure is that it is supposed to say "one day" or something, I did a compare translations but they seem to be pretty uniform in saying "today".

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown seems to be saying that the agreement was to remove the spotted livestock now, and only breed the ones without such markings. Then Jacob would get the ones that come up spotted in the next generation (or perhaps a few generations down the line). The idea was that this would make it unlikely that very many spotted animals would be born next generation, and that is why Laban was quick to accept this deal. That is clearly the way this went down, but it doesn't seem to be the deal that they made according to the way I read it.

v.32 "let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages."

That really seems like Jacob is supposed to get the spotted animals today doesn't it? JFB's interpretation doesn't seem to be consistent with this verse, but it certainly does match the rest of what happens here. Perhaps this is a translation issue, or perhaps I'm being dense and it's really not as confusing as I'm making it out to be. Whatever, this detail isn't that big of a deal, but it was peculiar.

Then Laban took all of the animals that should have gone to Jacob and gave them to his sons and they took them a three days journey away and took care of them there. But Jacob prepared sticks of poplar and almond, exposed the white of the sticks and put them by the water where the animals drank. They bred while being watered and this would make them reproduce with spots. Jacob did this for the strong animals but not the weak ones, so he would get the strong offspring and Laban would get the weak.

my comic archive

You heard it hear folks, if you want to control the coloring on your livestock you just have to be careful about what sticks they look at while they are breeding. Can we just agree that this thing isn't divinely inspired and whoever wrote this didn't understand how the world works? I'm guessing an apologist would argue that God is working behind the scenes and it really doesn't have anything to do with the sticks, but that really veers quite a ways from what the text actually says.

Guzik seems happy to just turn off his brain and take this as fact:

When Jacob put these branches in the the drinking troughs of the flocks it apparently increased the number of speckled and spotted offspring from the solid-colored flock Jacob managed on Laban’s behalf.

It's in the bible, must be true. No sense thinking critically about it one bit.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown also took this as fact

These, kept constantly before the eyes of the female at the time of gestation, his observation had taught him would have an influence, through the imagination, on the future offspring.

This is not how it works! Granted, they wrote their commentary in 1871, unlike Guzik, who as far as I can tell is still alive, they may not have had a reasonable opportunity to know how ridiculous this is. Hell, on the origin of species was only written 12 years earlier.

I'd also like to point out how terrible both Jacob and Laban are in this story. They can't just come to an equitable deal and go with it, they both are trying to game their arrangement and come out ahead unfairly.

for the verses of note post

--Honesty--

Genesis 30:35,41-42 Both Jacob and Laban were dishonest in this deal

"But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted...Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding...So the feebler would be Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's"

--Marriage--

Genesis 30:1-24 Everything about this marriage is dysfunctional

--Science--

Genesis 30:39 What you are looking at when breeding affects what traits you pass on

" the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted."

Genesis 1: The Reason Evolution Is Not True

Check out today's episode

The Creation of the World (v. 1-31)

Pic found here

Day 1:

God created the heavens and the earth, but it was without form and there was darkness everywhere. God was hovering over the waters and said "let there be light" and said the light was good. God separated the light and darkness, he called the light day and the darkness night.

So God created the heavens and earth, but it was all dark and without form. But there was water for God to hover over. The phrase that God separated the light from the dark doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense as darkness is simply an absence of light. But it does go on to say that he is calling this day and night, so we can be charitable and assume that God separating the light from darkness is creating the cycles of day and night.

From Guzik. 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth: This tells us that God used no pre-existing material to create the earth. The ancient Hebrew word bara (created) is specific. It means to create out of nothing, showing that that God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself.

In all honesty, I simply don't believe him. Does Hebrew really have a word for "created out of nothing"? No way! No human being has ever created something out of nothing in the way he is claiming God created something out of nothing. When we 'create' things, we rearrange matter and energy that is already there. We are transforming things that are already there. And we can look at the bible lexicon to see that 'bara' means "to shape, create", that sounds a lot more like what I am talking about than what he is talking about.

It is hard to know what to make of "without form and void", but Matthew Henry and Jamieson, Fausset & Brown seem to agree that it indicates some kind of chaos. 

In regard to the "darkness on the face of the deep", Guzik has this to say

Darkness was on the face of the deep: This may describe a sense of resistance to the moving of the Holy Spirit on the earth. Some speculate this was because Satan was cast down to the earth (Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:16) and resisted God’s plan, though his resistance was futile.

I don't really even know what to do but laugh here. It really seems like they are just making stuff up. It's darkness because he's about to create light, why would you interpret that as Satan? And if it was supposed to be Satan, why the hell would God make his first act to throw Satan down there?

Day 2:

God created a separation in the waters, some water above and some below. He called the expanse in the middle heaven (footnotes says this could also be translated as 'sky')

This is interesting, on the second day God created the sky, and that's it. Also, it suggests there is a body of water above and below the sky. Below makes sense, if there was no land yet there is nothing but ocean below the sky, but above? It sounds as if it is saying there is an ocean below and an ocean above the sky. It makes me wonder what their view of cosmology must have been, did they think there was an ocean in the sky that...leaked...on us when it rains or something? Also, if there was no sky yet on the first day, where exactly was God that he was hovering over the water?

From Guzik:

Here, the Bible recognizes the existence of water vapor in the sky.

From Matthew Henry:

divide the waters from the waters, that is, to distinguish between the waters that are wrapped up in the clouds and those that cover the sea, the waters in the air and those in the earth. 

From Jamieson, Fausset & Brown:

the atmosphere from its appearing to an observer to be the vault of heaven, supporting the weight of the watery clouds. By the creation of an atmosphere, the lighter parts of the waters which overspread the earth's surface were drawn up and suspended in the visible heavens, while the larger and heavier mass remained below. The air was thus "in the midst of the waters," that is, separated them

I guess the bible is so obviously wrong here they need to some up with some explanation, is it really reasonable to assume that the bible meant clouds here? It seems like quite a stretch to me.

Day 3:

God let the water gather in one place so dry land could appear. The land was called Earth and the water was called seas. God created vegetation, plants bearing fruit and seeds according to their kind.

So instead of the earth being one giant ocean, God created some land and sea, fine. He then created a bunch of fruit bearing plants. That whole "yielding seeds according to their kind", is that the basis of the bible being anti-evolution? If so I'm going to be pissed.

It appears that this is indeed the case, from Guzik:

According to its kind: This phrase appears ten times in Genesis chapter 1. It means God allows variation within a kind, but something of one kind will never develop into something of another kind.

Day 4:

God created the stars to separate the day from the night, and to be used for signs, seasons, days, and years. God made the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. He put them all in the sky to separate the light from the darkness.

Here we have somewhat of a problem. God created the sun, stars, and moon to separate the day from night and the light from darkness. But we already separated light from darkness on day 1. Further, God created light on the first day, but he is creating the light sources here, on the fourth day. This clearly makes no sense, unless they didn't realize that the sun was the source of all the light. Think about the sky in the daytime, light seems to be coming from everywhere, but the sun is just in one spot. It's reasonable to think the people at the time didn't realize the sun is actually the source of the light in the rest of the sky. Obviously, God shouldn't have made this mistake though.

In regards to where the earth is in relation to the sun, Guzik says:

God knew exactly how far to set the sun from the earth. A few million miles more or less and life as we know it would be impossible.

Wrong, the orbit of earth varies by about 5 million miles at it's extremes

I would also like to note that the common complaint I hear on this point is that God created plants on the third day, but the sun on the fourth. While this is ridiculous, I think it misses the point that is more at the heart of this, that God created the light before he created the light source. If you follow what the book says here, there was light for the plants on the third day, because light was created on day one, it's just that the source of that light doesn't come until day four.

From Guzik:

Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19). This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect.

Right, light is supernatural, it couldn't just be that the people writing this didn't know what they were talking about. Also:

Those who propose these days of creation were not literal days, but successive “ages” of slow, evolutionary development have a real problem here. It is hard to explain how plants and all vegetation could grow and thrive eons before the sun and the moon. No modern evolutionist would argue plant life is older than the sun or the moon, but this is what the Genesis record tells us.

Day 5:

God created all of the creatures in the sea and all of the winged birds in the sky. He told them to be fruitful and multiply, and they multiplied according to their kind to fill up the sea and the sky.

God created the animals in the ocean and the animals that fly, fine.

Day 6:

God created livestock, creeping things, and beasts of the earth.

What a strange way to describe "all land animals"

God said "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" and give him dominion over everything we have created. God created man and woman, then told them 2 more times that they have dominion over everything.

Who is God talking to? Who is 'us' and 'our'? I suppose Christians would argue that this is evidence of the trinity. It can't be the holy spirit, as he is just a ghost, I suppose it could be Jesus. Seems much more likely though that this is evidence of a pantheon.

---

With regard to creationism/evolution. Is this seriously the reason that people can't accept evolution? Because in Genesis 1 the creation account doesn't match up properly? It's so obviously written by people who don't know anything about space or the history of our planet. I took a quick look over at Answers in Genesis, and they really do seem to be using this as their reason for not accepting evolution. For example

It is important to note that the order of events listed is not compatible with current secular thought about the origin of the universe and life and, thus, precludes any attempt to allegorize the text to fit unbiblical ideas. For example, evolutionism posits that plants did not appear until after the sun coalesced and the first life appeared. However, the biblical account is quite clear that God created plants even before He made the sun.

Are you shitting me?

---

For the Verses of Note page:

--Science--

Genesis 1:3,16 God created light before he created the Sun and Stars

"3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light....16 And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars."

Revelation 7: Heaven is Serving God Night and Day

Listen to the podcast below (or right click this link for the mp3 file) 

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The 144,000 of Israel Sealed (v. 1-8)

Then John saw 4 angels standing on the corners of the earth, holding back the wind so that not wind would blow anywhere on the earth.

I thought I was reading a science textbook for a second there. Clearly the bible should be used as a primary source in science class in high school.

Again, today I will be relying on Guzik's commentary. He says that the 4 corners of the earth means the 4 points of the compass. I don't really know what that means, is it just north, south, east, and west? That doesn't really describe points on the earth. I suppose north and south could be the poles, but for east and west we really don't have something like that. At any rate, this clearly seems like they are trying to cover up the ignorance of the writers of the bible to me.

The winds are supposed to be the destructive force of God's judgement. Potentially the 4 horsemen he just unleashed. So basically, according to this interpretation, God unleashed the 4 horsemen, and then sent some other angels to hold them back until it was time for the to begin their reign of destruction. Why wouldn't God just wait to unleash them until the time is right?

Then John saw another angel with the seal of the living God who called to "the four angels who had been given power to harm the earth and sea" (presumably the 4 horsemen we met last chapter). He told them not to harm anything until "we have sealed the servants of our God on their forehead". 144,000, 12,000 from each tribe.

So the 4 horsemen have been told to wait until they mark 12,000 from each tribe, presumably so that they will avoid the coming destruction. Doesn't this mean that at most, there can only be 144,000 Christians at the time of the apocalypse. Further, last chapter didn't God say he is waiting until "their brothers should be complete"? That sounds to me like it means we are waiting until the numbers grow to 144,000. If I'm interpreting this correctly, that means there can never be more than 144,000 true Christians, otherwise the apocalypse would have already started.

Guzik tries to get around this by saying that it is mysterious what these 144,000 people are being marked for, but it is some kind of protection, but that protection isn't limited to these people. The holy spirit is also a seal of protection or something. Clearly seems like a later justification.

One other detail I picked out is that apparently Jehovah's witnesses claimed that their entire group would be the 144,000. This of course fell apart once their numbers exceeded 144,000 people.

A Great Multitude from Every Nation (v. 9-17)

John then looked around and saw a multitude of people from every nation wearing white robes crying out that salvation belongs to God. An angel then said that these are the people coming out of the great tribulation, they have washed their robes in the blood of the lamb.

So these people are clearly Christians. I bet this is the passage the people use to say that the apocalypse can't happen until Christianity is spread to every nation.

The multitude is protected by God's presence, and they will never be hungry or thirsty again. They are before the throne of God and they serve him day and night.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a really crappy afterlife? And why would an omnipotent God need to be served by a bunch of followers?

"Heaven is not only a place of rest from earthly toil but also a place of privileged service"

Yeah, I'll pass

What did we learn today?

--Afterlife--

Revelation 7:15 Heaven is serving God day and night

"Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple"

--Science--

Revelation 7:1 The Earth has 4 corners, where wind originates from

"After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree."

---

Today's comic: What is there to do in heaven?

Mech Suits are right around the corner

Given that I don't have time to do a proper post today, I figured I would share a freaking awesome story I saw on 60 minutes a few nights ago. They took this quadriplegic woman and hooked a robotic arm up to her brain and she was able to control it directly. I would say the obvious next step is to put her in a mech suit...so freaking cool.

There was also a guy whose arm was amputated who had a robotic arm attached and he was able to control it directly. It actually made me wonder about phantom limb pain. We know that it is possible to use mirror tricks to deal with phantom limb pain, I wonder if you had a robotic arm if it would do the same thing.

Check it out here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50137987n

Quantum Tunneling

Today will be a quick one, I was recently listening to the titanium physicist podcast on Quantum tunneling, which is the idea that through quantum processes, particles can make it to places where they shouldn't be based on classical mechanics. One thing about the idea that really caught my attention is that because of quantum tunneling, the sun is able to burn at a much lower temperature than it should be able to based on classical mechanics. Pretty neat stuff. I'm no physicist, so I'm not going to try to explain how it works, but if that little taste caught your interest I would definitely recommend listening to that episode.

A Universe From Nothing

Today instead of writing a post I decided to finally get around to watching the lecture by lawrence Krauss "A universe from nothing". I know I'm a bit late to the party here, most people reading this have probably watched it already, but if you haven't it's enjoyable and I definitely recommend checking it out.

As I was watching I made some notes of spots I thought were interesting, or things I might want to reference again later. Enjoy

8:45 describes how Hubble determined the universe is expanding, nice graphics

11:10 pope declares science proved genesis, Lemaitre tells him to stop that

17:00 Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here today

18:00 the universe is huge and old and rare things happen all the time

27:00 Gravitational lensing (also dark matter)

33:30 measure the curvature of the universe using geometry directly

40:40 why is there something rather than nothing?

42:20 70% of the energy in the universe resides in empty space

44:40 Discusses the fine tuning argument

55:30 Einstein was involved in experiments

57:30 Can we create a universe in the lab?

59:40 How do you deal with infinity? Answers with hilbert hotel...awesome