Richard Dawkins Speaks to CNN About Scientific Literacy, Morality & Creationism

CNN has a nice in-depth video interview with writer/biologist Richard Dawkins. It's definitely worth your time if you care about scientific literacy.

A few highlights:

On whether or not evolution should be taught to young children:

You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution. So I would teach evolution very early in childhood. I don't think it's all that difficult to do. It's a very simple idea. One could do it with the aid of computer games and things like that.

I think it needs serious attention, that children should be taught where they come from, what life is all about, how it started, why it's there, why there's such diversity of it, why it looks designed. These are all things that can easily be explained to a pretty young child. I'd start at the age of about 7 or 8.

There’s only one game in town as far as serious science is concerned. It’s not that there are two different theories. No serious scientist doubts that we are cousins of gorillas, we are cousins of monkeys, we are cousins of snails, we are cousins of earthworms. We have shared ancestors with all animals and all plants. There is no serious scientist who doubts that evolution is a fact.

On the source of morality:

We have very big and complicated brains, and all sorts of things come from those brains, which are loosely and indirectly associated with our biological past. And morality is among them, together with things like philosophy and music and mathematics. Morality, I think, does have roots in our evolutionary past. There are good reasons, Darwinian reasons, why we are good to, altruistic towards, cooperative with, moral in our behavior toward our fellow species members, and indeed toward other species as well, perhaps.

There are evolutionary roots to morality, but they’ve been refined and perfected through thousands of years of human culture. I certainly do not think that we ought to get our morals from religion because if we do that, then we either get them through Scripture – people who think you should get your morals from the Old Testament haven’t read the Old Testament – so we shouldn’t get our morals from there.

Nor should we get our morals from a kind of fear that if we don’t please God he’ll punish us, or a kind of desire to apple polish (to suck up to) a God. There are much more noble reasons for being moral than constantly looking over your shoulder to see whether God approves of what you do.

Where do we get our morals from? We get our morals from a very complicated process of discussion, of law-making, writing, moral philosophy, it’s a complicated cultural process which changes – not just over the centuries, but over the decades. Our moral attitudes today in 2012 are very different form what they would have been 50 or 100 years ago. And even more different from what they would have been 300 years ago or 500 years ago. We don’t believe in slavery now. We treat women as equal to men. All sorts of things have changed in our moral attitudes.

Watch:

Patterns In Data Realization: Maps Depicting Social Ills Look Eerily Familiar

Update (8/27/13): 
The website PornHub has just released a trove of data on America's porn habits. I couldn't help but notice that, once again, it's THAT MAP. I have added the map to the bottom of this previously-published post.

I'm fascinated by data realizations in map form. They say a picture's worth a thousand words.

I'm not going to make any statements about cause and effect, as we all know that correlation does not imply causation. But there certainly is much to be gleaned from correlation.

The below map has been making the rounds recently. It depicts the largest participating religious groups by county in the United States -- basically which religions are most represented in each county.

As fascinating as it is, it probably doesn't come as much of a surprise:

See that large swath of red across the South? That's the Bible Belt. It has a lot in common with many other maps (some of which have been discussed here before).

Here's a map depicting life expectancies for females, by county:

And here's the same for males:

Here we have a map of religiosity in America, with the darker green depicting the most religious areas:

Here we have a map depicting well-being in America. The lighter areas indicate those areas in which residents report a lower sense of well-being.

Here we have a map depicting poverty in the US. Darker portions of the map indicate higher rates of poverty.

In the below map, we can see the divorce rates for men by state (darker colors indicate the highest rates of divorce):

Here we have the same map for women:

The following colorful map depicts the state of same-sex marriage in America. The darker red states are those which are most hostile towards gay-marriage (see key).

And here we have teen birth rates:

Noticing a pattern here?

Here we have a map of active hate groups:

The following map shows the treatment of evolution in schools, by state:

How about the states accepting abstinence education funds (those in orange denied federal abstinence education funds)?

What about high school diplomas?

And here we have the 2008 presidential election red state/blue state map:

Here's a map showing which states spend the most time on PornHub, the third largest porn video site on the internet. Could it be that the most religious, most conservative, most anti-gay, most anti-evolution, most pro-abstinence education states are also the states spending the most time viewing hardcore pornography?

Again, there are many, many factors that play into each of these maps. There are certainly many complex correlations and causations (and some factors perpetuate others). For example, we know that areas of high poverty will likely (for obvious reasons) experience less well-being, lower rates of education, and lower life expectancies.

The religious and political correlations, however, are more curious.

Do lower levels of well-being and lower life expectancies cause higher rates of religiosity?

Are blue-leaning states more likely to deny evolution? Or are evolution-deniers more likely to vote conservative?

Does abstinence education lead to higher teen pregnancy rates? Or do high teen pregnancy rates lead to more abstinence education?

Are hate groups more likely to be comprised of religious conservatives?

Do lower rates of high school graduates play into higher rates of religious conservatism?

Would an increase in graduation levels decrease the number of religious conservatives, evolution denialists, and hate groups?

Is it offensive to ask these questions? If so, why?

Do you have the answers? Please share.

What Santorum Really Means By Indoctrination

Rick Santorum has said some silly things about higher education over the past week.

Not only did he say that Barack Obama was a 'snob' for wanting all Americans to go to college (funny, since Rick Santorum has a BA, an MBA, and a JD), but he also stated that “62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it.”

Where to start, right?

Oh yeah, he also called universities "indoctrination mills."

There's a few things going on here. First, we have Santorum's notion that to want kids to be educated and to succeed is snobbery -- all coming from a guy with several degrees. Isn't that kind of like the priest telling his congregation that they're a bunch of sanctimonious pricks for wanting their children to attend church?

Since when have we become a society that values an under-educated society? I have a feeling it has been ever since Barack Obama took office. This is also about the same time that we became a society that looks down on being healthy, boos the golden rule, and cheers for executions.

And where did Rick Santorum get this statistic that 62 percent of kids who enter college with a faith commitment leave without it? The claim is totally bogus.

Via Talking Points Memo:

A slight problem: multiple studies have found that the opposite is true — including the one that Santorum has reportedly been referring to.

A study published 2007 in the journal Social Forces — which PBS reports that Santorum’s claim is based on, although his spokesman didn’t respond to TPM’s request for confirmation — finds that Americans who don’t go to college experience a steeper decline in their religiosity than those who do.

“Contrary to our own and others’ expectations, however, young adults who never enrolled in college are presently the least religious young Americans,” the journal concluded, noting that “64 percent of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year institution have curbed their attendance habits. Yet, 76 percent of those who never enrolled in college report a decline in religious service attendance.”

Perhaps Santorum got his studies mixed up. A 2006 Harvard study found that 62 percent of college Republicans think “religion is losing its influence on American life.” Well, that's an entirely different thing, Rick. Republicans think a lot of things -- but that doesn't make them true.

The interesting thing about the Harvard study, if this is indeed where Santorum pulled his bogus figure, is that it found the opposite of Santorum's 'loss of faith' claim to be true. It found that “a quarter of students (25%) say they have become more spiritual since entering college, as opposed to only seven percent (7%) who say they have become less spiritual.”

Rick Santorum is scared of secular America. (He's not alone.) He knows that once children leave the nest, where they must think for themselves, they might actually embrace or formulate philosophies and life stances that are not in synch with their parents, or with their parents' faith.

He says he was ridiculed for his beliefs in college (quite frankly, he should've be ridiculed for some of them, such as his denial of evolution):

“I’ve gone through it,” Mr. Santorum said. “I went through it at Penn State. You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed.”

“I can tell you personally,” he added, “I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views.”

If Rick Santorum had his way, children would be home-schooled from kindergarten through graduate school, and would live under the same roof as their parents, and forced to attend church each and every Sunday.  We wouldn't want them to have to learn to defend their ideas about the world, would we?

Now, about those "indoctrination mills." I would ask Rick Santorum this: Is baptizing your child not a form of indoctrination? Is sending your child to vacation bible school not a form of indoctrination? If we are going to be honest with ourselves, we need to agree that there are many forms of indoctrination, and, sure, college might classify as indoctrination in some regards.

However, when we look at what indoctrination actually means, we find that indoctrination "is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned." We also see that "instruction in the scientific method, in particular, cannot properly be called indoctrination, in the sense that the fundamental principles of science call for critical self-evaluation and skeptical scrutiny of one's own ideas, a stance outside any doctrine."

What Santorum means by "indoctrination" is "critical thinking" and "skeptical scrutiny" and "critical self-evaluation" -- things that might lead a young person to question things they have been told.

What Santorum means by "indoctrination" is "discovering that the indoctrination received at home might not stand up to the skeptical scrutiny that is encouraged in a higher learning environment."

Santorum's rhetoric reeks of a man who knows his ideas don't stand up under scrutiny. His stance on evolution reveals quite a bit.

I think there are a lot of problems with the theory of evolution, and do believe that it is used to promote to a worldview that is anti-theist, that is atheist.

This is a man whose biggest problem with evolution isn't that he doesn't have enough data to formulate an opinion -- it's that acceptance of evolution might lead to questioning faith.

Rick, we are indoctrinated at every turn in our lives. Before we can even think for ourselves, we are told which sports teams to root for, which religion we believe in, which political party we align with. When we attend church as young children, we are told that, without a doubt, this particular religion will be our salvation.

If the biggest fear of higher education is that our children might stray from these beliefs once they leave the cocoon, then perhaps we should question the very beliefs we fear will be so easily unraveled.

Rick Perry Doubles Down On Homophobic, Theocratic Ad, Still Doesn't Understand Things

Rick Perry responded to the public reaction to his homophobic theocratic abomination of a political ad in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

In the interview, he doubled down on his anti-gay rhetoric, stating that he'd reinstate DADT if elected. He also defended discrimination against gays by the Boy Scouts and Catholic charities.

When pressed by Wolf on the issue of DADT, Perry served up one of his famous 'gut feeling' answers (if you recall, when Perry was asked how he knows abstinence works, he replied that he knows it works, "from my own personal life."

BLITZER: But military commanders tell me, in the past few months since the policy has changed, they’ve had no problems. Including the commandant of the Marine Corps, who was originally opposed.

PERRY: Well, I’m just telling you the members of the military I talked to, when this was being talked about, I didn’t talk to anyone who was for it…

When pressed on the topic of Obama's 'war on religion,' Perry didn't fare much better, and resorted to McCarthy-esque absurdity, ignoring the many instances of Obama publicly embracing religion.

PERRY: We’ve got a federal judge, for instance, in San Antonio that said these kids can’t say an invocation at school. I mean, they say you can’t even use the word “invocation” at their commencement.

BLITZER: Is that President Obama’s war on religion?

PERRY: I’m just giving you some examples of what we’re seeing from the left, of which, I would suggest to you, President Obama is a member of the left and, uh, substantial left of center beliefs, that you can't even have a Christmas party. You can't say a prayer at school.

Rick Perry is ignorant, ladies and gentlemen. He is dumber than a bag of hammers. Sure, we hear the old 'why can't my kids pray to Jesus at their public school' thing from our ignorant uncle on Facebook, but this guy is the Governor of Texas, and a potential (although unlikely, at this point) candidate for the highest office in the country.

PERRY: I ask people, 'Which one of the Ten Commandments do you not like?' I mean, why aren't our children allowed to pray in school? Why can they not celebrate Christmas? Those are, I think, traditional and solid American values that we're seeing trampled upon by this Administration.

Well, Rick, I'll tell you the problem with the ten commandments. Four of them are solely religious edicts that have nothing to do with ethics or law, and three of them are one-dimensional prohibitions that are irrelevant to modern law. So, as a non-religious tax-paying American citizen, I don't care for the enshrinement of religious edicts. That kind of reeks of theocracy. You're not crazy about Sharia Law, so I'd think you'd be able to get your head around this.

Why aren't our children allowed to pray in school? They can pray all they want. Prayer is very much protected in public schools by our Constitution. There are simply some restrictions -- mostly that prayer can't be mandatory, and you can't have 'sanctioned' prayers during school time or school events. Because, see, that would be forcing it on someone who has the right to not be proselytized to as part of a captive public school audience. I am sure that if you imagine a teacher leading the class in an Islamic prayer, you can understand how this might not be cool, Rick.

Why can't they celebrate Christmas at school? Well, first of all, Christmas has in no way been banned in public schools. Again, there are simply rules that are appropriate to follow to avoid alienating students or identifying them with a religion not their own. Because, Rick, aside from the above issues relating to proselytizing, we live in a melting pot. It's not as homogeneous as it was when you were a kid. If you want the kids to celebrate Christmas in school, then maybe we need to provide equal time for other religions. Here you go -- here's an inclusive, interfaith calendar of several dozen holidays and festivals observed by Americans. Good luck getting any actual teaching done.

Here's the Blitzer-Perry video, for those who are interested in killing a few brain cells:

Michio Kaku: What Physics Can Do For You

"If [your great-grandparents of the year 1900] could see you now, with iPads and iPods and satellites and GPS and laser beams, how would they view you?," asks Michio Kaku. "They would view you as a wizard or a sorcerer. However, if we could now meet our grandkids of the year 2100, how would we view them? We would view them as gods."

Via The Big Think:

From the standpoint of our agrarian ancestors, the marvels of the post-Industrial world would appear to be sorcery. (What would a Renaissance man make of a vending machine, let alone an Ipad?) Kaku predicts that likewise, the people of 2100 will have harnessed "the power of the gods" by present day standards, defeating barriers like age and distance. "We will have that flying car that we’ve always wanted to have in our garage," he says.

But the most interesting places in the universe are beyond the reach of Einstein's equations, says Kaku. He's searching for "An equation like E=mc². That equation is half an inch long and unlocks the secret of the stars. Why do the stars shine? Why does the galaxy light up? Why do we have energy on the earth?" These are the questions we can still only dream of answering.

Michio Kaku is a smart guy. He's a theoretical physicist, a professor, an author, a speaker, and happens to be the co-founder of string field theory.

He's also very good at explaining science to people who aren't quite as smart, like myself.

In the latest online course offered by The Floating University (a new media venture with the aim of democratizing education), Kaku serves up a lecture called "The Universe in a Nutshell: The Physics of Everything."

The course description:

What if we could find one single equation that explains every force in the universe? Professor Michio Kaku explores how physics could potentially shrink the science of the big bang into an equation as small as e=mc2. Physics powers every electronic device in your living room, underwrites every technological breakthrough, and thanks to advances in string theory, could allow us to escape the heat death of the universe, explore the multiverse, and unlock the secrets of existence.

In a profoundly informative and deeply optimistic discussion, Professor Kaku delivers a glimpse of where science will take us in the next hundred years, as warp drives, teleportation, inter-dimensional wormholes, and even time travel converge with our scientific understanding of physical reality. While firing up our imaginations about the future, he also presents a succinct history of physics to the present.

How did Halley's Comet manage to start the British Empire in 1066 and lead to the most important publication in human history in 1682? What are the four ultra-powerful forces that dictate all observable phenomena in the universe and how did we find them? How is 96% of matter in the universe undetectable? And why is the emergent field of string theory turning everything we thought we knew about physics upside down? In under an hour, Professor Kaku makes a compelling case that physics is the key to pretty much everything.

See below for an excerpt of his lecture. Visit The Floating University to subscribe and view it in its entirety.

Are You A Young Earth Creationist? Take The Quiz!

Are you a Young Earth Creationist? In case you're unsure, you may want to answer the 9 questions below, which Creation Ministries International put together to help "ascertain whether your future pastor, youth group leader or Bible College principal takes a straightforward view of Genesis."

You wouldn't want your child to learn actual facts would you? Heavens, no.

From the introduction to the quiz:

CMI periodically receives requests for us to identify Bible colleges/seminaries that believe/teach a straightforward reading of Genesis. We also know of pastoral search committees lamenting that they would not have selected certain candidates if only they had known in advance of their compromise (long-age, or theistic evolutionary) stance on Genesis.

For a number of reasons, CMI does not provide a list of ‘young-earth’ theological colleges, nor do we get involved in church staffing matters. However, in response to such enquiries we have prepared the following questionnaire to meet an evident need.

Please feel free to reference CMI's explanatory notes for each question.

Good luck!

1. SIX DAYS 

Do you believe that God created the earth and universe in six ordinary-length (earth-rotation) days?

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

2. AGE OF THE WORLD 

Do you believe that the earth and universe are only thousands (not millions or billions) of years old, as measured by Earth time?

☐  Yes

☐  No

___________________________________________________________________

3. THE FIRST HUMANS 

Do you believe that Adam and his wife Eve were the literal, historic ancestors of all (other) people who have ever lived?

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

4. ADAM AND EVE’S ORIGINS 

Do you believe that Adam and Eve had no physical parents, but were created directly by God; Adam from the actual dust, and Eve from the actual flesh and bone of Adam’s side?

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

5. HUMAN DEATH 

Do you believe that human physical death began only after Adam sinned?

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

6. CARNIVORY 

Do you believe that all animals were originally created vegetarian?

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

7. SUFFERING IN THE FOSSIL RECORD 

Do you believe that fossils showing evidence of bloodshed and suffering (e.g. half-eaten prey, dinosaur cancers,) could not have been formed before Adam’s Fall led to the Curse?

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

8. GLOBAL FLOOD

Do you believe that the Flood of Noah covered the whole globe? 

☐  Yes

☐  No

_____________________________________________________________________

9. THE SUPERNATURAL POWER OF JESUS

Do you believe that after Lazarus was physically dead for days, Jesus miraculously caused him to regain physical life? 

☐  Yes

☐  No

If you answered 'No' to any of the above questions, you have nothing to worry about. Wait -- I mean, you failed.

'The Magic Of Reality': Richard Dawkins' Science Book For All Ages

No matter what you think of Richard Dawkins, he has an extraordinary gift for explaining science's complexities in a way that anyone can easily understand. I credit him, along with Jerry Coyne, David Sloane Wilson, and others, with helping me (an English major who did never had much interest in science, and who can't recall hearing about evolution in school) to really grasp the complexity and beauty of evolution.

After several wonderful books written for adults, including The Selfish Gene, The Greatest Show on Earth, and The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins has undertaken the task of writing a sprawling, 272-page, illustrated science book for all ages. The book is called The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True.

As the father of 3 very curious young boys, I'm excited to get a hold of this book. It seems perfect for reading and discussing with children, and for keeping readily available for those times when kids ask questions about how things work. I've been disappointed with much of the books presently out there for kids about science, specifically those that address evolution (with the exception of Daniel Loxton's wonderful illustrated book, Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be). Dawkins' book will be a welcome addition to our shelves.

From the publisher:

Magic takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used in order to explain the world before they developed the scientific method. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods' bridge to earth. The Japanese used to explain earthquakes by conjuring a gigantic catfish that carried the world on its back—earthquakes occurred each time it flipped its tail. These are magical, extraordinary tales. But there is another kind of magic, and it lies in the exhilaration of discovering the real answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality—science.

Packed with clever thought experiments, dazzling illustrations and jaw-dropping facts, The Magic of Reality explains a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena. What is stuff made of? How old is the universe? Why do the continents look like disconnected pieces of a puzzle? What causes tsunamis? Why are there so many kinds of plants and animals? Who was the first man, or woman? This is a page-turning, graphic detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist as well.

Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous evolutionary biologist and one of science education's most passionate advocates, has spent his career elucidating the wonders of science for adult readers. But now, in a dramatic departure, he has teamed up with acclaimed artist Dave McKean and used his unrivaled explanatory powers to share the magic of science with readers of all ages. This is a treasure trove for anyone who has ever wondered how the world works. Dawkins and McKean have created an illustrated guide to the secrets of our world—and the universe beyond—that will entertain and inform for years to come.

How Evolution Works, in Comic Form: So Easy a Caveman Could Understand It

Until my dream of an IMAX 3D evolution documentary is realized, we have accessible, educational, and imaginative works by artists like Darryl Cunningham

Evolution is probably the most misunderstood concept on the planet. I still have some misconceptions to this day, I'm sure. I was an English major who grew up in Southeastern US public schools. I have no recollection of evolution being taught, and have been playing catch-up for quite some time.

I never really doubted evolution, for some reason, but I just didn't totally 'get it.'  When it finally clicked for me, after a devouring a handful of well-written primers on the subject, it was as if I'd unlocked a whole new way of looking at everything. Which I had. When you fully understand that every living thing shares an ancestor with every other living thing, it has a profound effect on how you view those things.  And when you understand how biological complexity arises in nature, you start to see examples of more complex, and less complex, mechanisms all around you.  You begin to see that many of the concepts and mechanisms found in evolution also have applications in non-biological areas, such as technology, religion, language, art, etc.

A recent Gallup poll shows that 4 in 10 of Americans do not accept evolution.  Granted, most of those who deny evolution do so because of their literal readings of scripture.  But, I do believe that, in addition, part of the problem is that people have misconceptions and misunderstandings about evolution.  They either have been willfully given misinformation by an opponent of evolution, or they have been the victim of oversimplifications, or flat-out wrong assumptions, such as the much-repeated fallacy that humans evolved from monkeys.

I've often thought that evolution could really use a boost from CGI.  I realize that there have been some short, and minor uses of CGI to demonstrate aspects of evolution on television documentaries, but I would love to see either a full-length documentary or a mini-series that really plunges in depth, leaving no stone unturned.

I imagine this thought experiment passage from Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth done in CGI -- IMAX 3D, even.  Picture it:

I’ll call it the hairpin thought experiment. Take a rabbit, any female rabbit (arbitrarily stick to females, for convenience: it makes no difference to the argument). Place her mother next to her. Now place the grandmother next to the mother and so on back in time, back, back, back through the mega years, a seemingly endless line of female rabbits, each one sandwiched between her daughter and her mother. We walk along the line of rabbits, backwards in time, examining them carefully like an inspecting general. As we pace the line, we’ll eventually notice that the ancient rabbits we are passing are just a little bit different from the modern rabbits we are used to. But the rate of change will be so slow that we shan’t notice the trend from generation to generation, just as we can’t see the motion of the hour hand on our watches – and just as we can’t see a child growing, we can only see later that she has become a teenager, and later still an adult. An additional reason why we don’t notice the change in rabbits from one generation to another is that, in any one century, the variation within the current population will normally be greater than the variation between mothers and daughters. So if we try to discern the movement of the ‘hour hand’ by comparing mothers with daughters, or indeed grandmothers with granddaughters, such slight differences as we may see will be swamped by the differences among the rabbits’ friends and relations gambolling in the meadows round about.

Nevertheless, steadily and imperceptibly, as we retreat through time, we shall reach ancestors that look less and less like a rabbit and more and more like a shrew (and not very like either). One of these creatures I’ll call the hairpin bend, for reasons that will become apparent. This animal is the most recent common ancestor (in the female line, but that is not important) that rabbits share with leopards. We don’t know exactly what it looked like, but it follows from the evolutionary view that it definitely had to exist.

Like all animals, it was a member of the same species as its daughters and its mother. We now continue our walk, except that we have turned the bend in the hairpin and are walking forwards in time, aiming towards the leopards (among the hairpin’s many and diverse descendants, for we shall continually meet forks in the line, where we consistently choose the fork that will eventually lead to leopards). Each shrewlike animal along our forward walk is now followed by her daughter. Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, the shrew-like animals will change, through intermediates that might not resemble any modern animal much but strongly resemble each other, perhaps passing through vaguely stoat-like intermediates, until eventually, without ever noticing an abrupt change of any kind, we arrive at a leopard.

Various things must be said about this thought experiment. First, we happen to have chosen to walk from rabbit to leopard, but I repeat that we could have chosen porcupine to dolphin, wallaby to giraffe or human to haddock. The point is that for any two animals there has to be a hairpin path linking them, for the simple reason that every species shares an ancestor with every other species: all we have to do is walk backwards from one species to the shared ancestor, then turn through a hairpin bend and walk forwards to the other species.

Fortunately, Dawkins' thought experiment is so elegantly written that we really don't need CGI to grasp it, but then again, we have the pesky problem of how to get that 40% of Americans to pick up a Dawkins book.

There are some other really wonderful (and accessible) books by less-controversial figures, such as Jerry Coyne, Sloane Wilson, and many others.

We also have a rising number of graphic artists serving up some pretty amazing works. There's Jay Hosler's Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth and Michael Keller and Nicole Rager Fuller's Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation.

And then we have Darryl Cunningham's forthcoming book, Science Stories, which will feature a version of an amazing comic strip about Evolution (he says the version on his blog is a beta version).

What I love about Cunningham's comic is his approach from the perspective of two people who are discussing evolution. One doesn't understand it, or does not accept it, and the other is very comfortable addressing these questions (all very common questions that we see time and time again). Cunningham allows us to learn about evolution through doubt, which is really how it works in real life for so many Americans.

I hope that Cunningham's strip receives a lot of attention, and hopefully reaches a much wider audience. At least until we have that CGI IMAX 3D movie I've been dreaming about.

Here are a few frames to enjoy. They are excerpted from the middle of the piece, to demonstrate his approach. Please visit his blog for the evolution comic from start to finish:

Again, I urge you to check out the entire piece.

That's Not In The Bible: Phantom Passages and Biblical Illiteracy

CNN's Belief Blog has an interesting look at sayings, proverbs, and quotes that people often inaccurately attribute to scripture.

A handful of examples:

"God works in mysterious ways."

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness."

"This, too, shall pass."

"Spare the rod, spoil the child."

“God helps those that help themselves.”

None of these phrases appear anywhere in the bible. 

There are many things that play into the emergence of such "phantom passages." The number one culprit is ignorance. Most who profess to love and live by The Bible have not actually read very much of it. Confusion is another factor. Sometimes the phantom passage is a distillation of a concept found in scripture (i.e. "Spare the rod" is likely a loose distillation of Proverbs 13:24: "The one who withholds [or spares] the rod is one who hates his son."

I have added some more quotations that are often inaccurately attributed to The Bible:

"Money is the root of all evil."

"Moderation in all things."

"God works in mysterious ways."

"God will not give us more than we can bear."

The Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference."

Aside from mis-attributed quotations, there are also numerous stories from the Bible that have become distorted over the years as people have passed them along in Bible classes, sermons, or in the living room. CNN points out the following examples:

The scripture never says a whale swallowed Jonah, the Old Testament prophet, nor did any New Testament passages say that three wise men visited baby Jesus, scholars say.

Those details may seem minor, but scholars say one popular phantom Bible story stands above the rest: The Genesis story about the fall of humanity.

Most people know the popular version - Satan in the guise of a serpent tempts Eve to pick the forbidden apple from the Tree of Life. It’s been downhill ever since.

But the story in the book of Genesis never places Satan in the Garden of Eden.

“Genesis mentions nothing but a serpent,” says Kevin Dunn, chair of the department of religion at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

“Not only does the text not mention Satan, the very idea of Satan as a devilish tempter postdates the composition of the Garden of Eden story by at least 500 years,” Dunn says.

To most, this is not a big deal. In most cases, the gist of the story is intact -- and let's not fool ourselves, these are simply stories. But what this does illuminate is the fact that most religious people do not really know this book which serves as a foundation for their lives.  And, as the CNN article notes, we tend to infuse the Bible with our own values and morals, rather than the other way around.

Take, for instance, the case of the phantom passage, "God helps those that help themselves." As mentioned above, this can be found nowhere in the Bible. It is so often cited as a validation of self-reliance, or to justify our voracious appetites for capitalism and consumerism. It evokes a reluctance to provide for others. No, this is not a biblical quotation.  It can, however, be attributed to Ben Franklin. 

Sidnie White Crawford, a religious studies scholar at the University of Nebraska, states:

Yet that passage contradicts the biblical definition of goodness: defining one’s worth by what one does for others, like the poor and the outcast, Crawford says.

Crawford cites a scripture from Leviticus that tells people that when they harvest the land, they should leave some “for the poor and the alien” (Leviticus 19:9-10), and another passage from Deuteronomy that declares that people should not be “tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.”

These examples point to a big problem in America, where, despite the Establishment Clause, scripture finds its way into the political sphere, informing everything from war to healthcare to presidential elections.  It's dangerous enough that we must tolerate religious ideology in public affairs, without having to worry about faux religious ideology.

From the March 22, 2007 cover story in TIME Magazine, The Case for Teaching The Bible:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the Bible holds the answers to "all or most of life's basic questions," but pollster George Gallup has dubbed us "a nation of biblical illiterates." Only half of U.S. adults know the title of even one Gospel. Most can't name the Bible's first book. The trend extends even to Evangelicals, only 44% of whose teens could identify a particular quote as coming from the Sermon on the Mount.

I know that many secular folks would argue that a diminishing understanding of an ancient religious text is not such a bad thing. Surely, they may think, every dead religion once had a period where people began to lose interest in, and knowledge about, their religious stories -- this is just one more instance of that.

Biblical illiteracy is a problem. Not because we need to be more religious as a society, but because the Bible is the most influential book (or, more accurately, collection of writings) on the face of the earth.  It informs countless literary works.  It reverberates throughout history and politics. One cannot study Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., or even George W. Bush without encountering allusions to biblical writings. Many of us would not last very long in a sales job if we only knew the name of one or two products in the company's inventory.  A chemist would be laughed out of the lab if he could only recall a handful of elements (and several faux-elements that were nowhere on the periodic table). Can you imagine receiving a lifeguard certificate only knowing the first step of CPR?  Why is it that we can ascribe to a belief system of which we apparently know so little about?  Not that everyone needs to have exhaustive knowledge of their belief system -- we can never know enough. But the figures from the TIME Magazine story illustrate a level of illiteracy that would be unacceptable in most areas of our lives.

Although much good is inspired by scripture, The Bible is used on a daily basis to justify violence, oppression, and discrimination (of course other religious texts do as well).  Most often, these justifications, like the phantom passage examples above, are distorted, erroneous distillations of passages devoid of context. They are often cherry-picked from larger passages which, if the context were understood, might encompass an altogether different sentiment or meaning. Too often, passages which are used to justify violence, hatred, or oppression, are adjacent to other passages that are ignored for their lack of relevance in modern society (but somehow, the cherry-picked passage is perfectly applicable).

Polls suggest that that over 60% of Americans favor secular teaching about the Bible.  Obviously, teaching the Bible, from a literary, historical-critical perspective would be a tough sell in America. Many evangelicals would have issues with this type of warts-and-all presentation that did not include a sales pitch, and many liberals (and those of other faiths) would have issues, since it would be difficult to ensure that teachers were teaching instead of preaching. Other faiths might wish that their holy books get equal time (maybe not such a bad idea, either).  And certainly some vocal atheists would object from the get-go on the grounds that religion is not appropriate for public schools, period, no matter how it is presented. 

If anything, our society needs to have a better understanding of the writings which have so greatly influenced our society. We should be familiar with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the great speeches from American history (Gettysburg Address, MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, Daniel Webster's Plymouth Oration, etc.), and the American literature which has contributed to our culture, and which reflects our past ("Huckleberry Finn," "The Great Gatsby," "The Scarlett Letter," "Invisible Man," etc.). Why is the Bible any less important for Americans to be familiar with?

One benefit that would come from a more biblically literate America would be a decline in scriptural literalism. As we saw above, from the examples of phantom passages, and from the surveys showing our lack of knowledge of what is actually in The Bible, the majority of Americans possess a blind allegiance to something that they truly do not understand.  This is not only embarrassing, it is dangerous.  Biblical literalism leads to a variety of societal ills, including the denial of science, the denial of human rights, sickness, and death. It leads to the rejection of logic.

If Americans really knew The Bible as well as they proclaim, they would understand that it is a cobbled-together collection of writings by many different people (often writing under the guise of someone else), written over many years, in many different languages, for many different audiences, for many different reasons, in very different times.  It has been translated, and re-translated, edited, and assembled, by a variety of people, with certain books rejected and certain books admitted, for a variety of reasons.  It should be read and understood as such.

If we, in our time, have erroneously associated this many quotations and passages to The Bible, we can only begin to imagine the misconceptions and embellishments contained within its very pages.

'Children Full of Life': Lessons in Compassion

We keep hearing about the decline of empathy in America's youth.  Empathy is an evolved trait, and is not confined to humans, or even to primates.  Infants have been shown to exhibit empathic behavior.

Although it's unclear what could account for a decline, Sarah Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor theorizes that increased isolation in recent decades has played a significant role.  It's not that we are no longer "hard-wired" for empathy, but that it is more fluid than we had perhaps believed.  This is not necessarily bad news.  It means that, although we can become less empathic through increased isolation, we can encourage and nurture empathy to create a more empathic society.

Enter homeroom teacher Toshiro Kanamori and his 4th grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo. He, and his class, are the subject of an award-winning documentary entitled Children Full of Life. The film was released in 2003, but I was only recently made aware of it, and I think it deserves much wider circulation. Thankfully, for those like myself who missed this gem, the film can be viewed online in full.

The film should serve as an example to parents and educators everywhere. It is a powerful reminder that happiness is an important part of living a successful life. And in order for us to live happy, successful lives, especially in our modern and increasingly isolated society, we must learn the importance of compassion, openness, and communication.

From the NHK Japan Prize Jury Comments:

This is a simple story, well told, that captures the essence of education. The program is an intimate portrait of a teacher and his classroom which subtlety presents a path for all educators who face the challenge of preparing students for life. Unobtrusively capturing extraordinary moments of drama and emotion inside a single Japanese classroom, the documentary demonstrates how individual teachers occasionally exhibit remarkable powers to shape the future of their students.

The documentary elicits tears of laughter and sadness as students and viewers discover the value of sharing powerful emotions, giving meaning to the life and death issues that arise in the classroom. Incidents of bullying, language instruction and outdoor activities are all opportunities to educate in this “School of Life”. Never preachy nor pedantic, the documentary reduces the myriad issues in education to a simple message - learning to care.

It is a powerful and inspiring piece of work.  It underscores the important role our educators play in our children's lives.  It urges us to address the changing educational needs of children in our rapidly evolving and increasingly complex societies.

Part 1 below (each successive part can be accessed at the end of each part):

Religious Affiliation and Your Earning Potential

According to data collected by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Hindus have the most college graduates, and Reform Jews make the most money.

Jehovah's Witnesses have the least amount of college graduates and Pentecostals make the least amount of money.

Of course, when it comes to our belief systems, money and education are often of little importance. But we would be naive to think that there are no correlations between religious beliefs and education (and earning potential), just as we would be naive to believe that religious affiliations (and their communities) do not play a part in our employment opportunities (or lack thereof).

As David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times:

The relationship between education and income is so strong that you can almost draw a line through the points on this graph. Social science rarely produces results this clean.

He also warns of making too much of the religious aspect, since there are so many factors at work here:

Some of the income differences probably stem from culture. Some faiths place great importance on formal education. But the differences are also self-reinforcing. People who make more money can send their children to better schools, exacerbating the many advantages they have over poorer children. Round and round, the cycle goes. It won’t solve itself.