SCIENCE: “Lawrence Krauss and ‘The Unbelievers'”
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Category Archives: Evolution
EVOLUTION: “Evolution Theory vs. Creation Myth”
EVOLUTION: “‘Murdersquishing’ Them To Death: How Little Bees Take On Enormous Hornets” / NPR / Robert Krulwich
Hornets From Hell
Japanese giant hornets have large yellow heads, enormous eyes, and they eat bees. “Eat” is too polite. They grab European honeybees, rip off their heads, tear off limbs, throw those parts away and take the big, juicy middle piece (the thorax) back to their kids (the larvae). They are unstoppable. A single hornet, you are about to learn, can kill 40 European honeybees a minute.
European bees, being new to Japan (brought in by cultivators), have evolved no defenses. They haven’t had time. But there’s a second group of bees — the locals, the Japanesehoneybees — who have found a way. It’s precise, orchestral and deadly.
h/t: Read more . . .
SCIENCE: “Theory vs. Hypothesis”
EVOLUTION: “It Starts Here”
SCIENCE: “We Are Star Dust Harvesting Starlight” / Krauss / Tyson / Sagan
ORIGINS OF LIFE: “The Difference of Years” / Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, Ph.D., (born 26 March 1941)
Ethologist, Evolutionary Biologist, Author, and Outspoken Atheist
“The difference between 6,000 years and 4.6 billion years it’s equivalent to believing the distance from New York to San Francisco is 7.8 yards. That’s the scale of the disagreement.”
EVOLUTION: “A Book vs. Books”
EVOLUTION: “Creationism Doesn’t Require a Leap of Faith”
ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM: “Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America” / Ray B. Williams / Psychology Today / 07.07.2014
There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It’s the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility.
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There has been a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in America, unlike most other Western countries. Richard Hofstadter, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his book, Anti-Intellectualism In American Life, describes how the vast underlying foundations of anti-elite, anti-reason and anti-science has been infused into America’s political and social fabric. Famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov made once said: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
[…]
We’re creating a world of dummies. Angry dummies who feel they have the right, the authority and the need not only to comment on everything, but to make sure their voice is heard above the rest, and to drag down any opposing views through personal attacks, loud repetition and confrontation.
Always Question Authority 