Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Evolution - Episode 1 - Darwins Dangerous
Evolution determines who lives, who dies, and who passes traits on to the next generation. The process plays a critical role in our daily lives, yet it is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood concepts ever described. The Evolution project's eight-hour television miniseries travels the world to examine evolutionary science and the profound effect it has had on society and culture. From the genius and torment of Charles Darwin to the scientific revolution that spawned the tree of life, from the power of sex to drive evolutionary change to the importance of mass extinctions in the birth of new species, the Evolution series brings this fascinating process to life. The series also explores the emergence of consciousness, the origin and success of humans, and the perceived conflict between science and religion in understanding life on Earth. The Evolution series' goals are to heighten public understanding of evolution and how it works, to dispel common misunderstandings about the process, and to illuminate why it is relevant to all of us.
Why does Charles Darwin's ''dangerous idea'' matter more today than ever, and how does it explain the past and predict the future of life on Earth? The first show interweaves the drama of Darwin's life with current documentary sequences, introducing key concepts of evolution.
EPISODE GUIDE
Evolution - Episode 2 - Great Transformations
What underlies the incredible diversity of life on Earth? How have complex life forms evolved? The journey from water to land, the return of land mammals to the sea, and the emergence of humans all suggest that creatures past and present are members of a single tree of life.
Evolution - - Episode 3 - Extinction
Five mass extinctions have occurred since life began on Earth. Are humans causing the next mass extinction? And what does evolutionary theory predict for the world we will leave to our descendants?
Evolution - Episode 4 - The Evolutionary Arms Race
Survival of the fittest: Is it raw competition, a level of cooperation indispensable to life, or both? Explore our own spiraling arms race with microorganisms -- the only real threat to our existence -- and trace the alarming spread of resistance among pathogens that cause disease.
Evolution - Episode 5 - Why Sex
In evolutionary terms, sex is more important than life itself. Sex fuels evolutionary change by adding variation to the gene pool. The powerful urge to pass our genes on to the next generation has likely changed the face of human culture in ways we're only beginning to understand.
Evolution Episode 6 The Mind's Big Bang
Between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, something happened that triggered a creative, technological, and social explosion, that allowed humans to dominate the planet. What forces may have contributed to the emergence of the modern human mind?
Evolution Episode 7 What About God
Of all species, we alone attempt to explain who we are and how we came to be. This final show explores the struggle between science and religion. Through the personal stories of students and teachers, it offers the view that they are compatible.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Richard Dawkins - Faith Schools Menace?
The number of faith schools in Britain is rising. Around 7,000 publicly-funded schools - one in three - now has a religious affiliation.
As the coalition government paves the way for more faith-based education by promoting 'free schools', the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins says enough is enough.
In this passionately argued film, Dawkins calls on us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which, he argues, bamboozles parents and indoctrinates and divides children.
The film features robust exchanges with former Secretary of State for Education Charles Clarke, Head of the Church of England Education Service Reverend Janina Ainsworth, and the Chair of the Association of Muslim Schools, Dr Mohammed Mukadam.
It also features insights from child psychologists and key players in faith education as well as insights from both parents and pupils.
Dawkins also draws on his own personal history as a father, arguing that the government must stop funding new faith schools, and urges society to respect a child's right to freedom of belief.
Category:
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Science Saved My Soul
Yes, many of those thinkers to whom I owe my mental freedom were religious, like Newton, a Christian, who believed God made the Earth but who then showed me why the Earth would have formed without a god's help. Or Plank and Schrodinger, two more Christians, who believed God ruled the Universe but showed me how God could not control a single electron. The discoveries these and many other people made, the laws they are famous for, are the very things that make gods getting humans pregnant, or angels whispering to prophets in caves, look infantile. I could never and would never question their intelligence. Their honesty and intellectual consistency are a different matter.
Weird...
I can stand on the shoulders of giants and see what even they seemingly could not.
I'm not against the Creator(s), if they exist, if they ever existed. I'm not against the search for the Creator(s). What blows MY mind is that people think religion has anything to do with it at all.
Wanna see "the grey-blue mist"?
http://www.astrosurf.com/sguisard/Pag...
The Four Horsemen - Discussions with Richard Dawkins
http://richarddawkins.net - On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen.
All four authors have recently received a large amount of media attention for their writings against religion - some positive, and some negative. In this conversation the group trades stories of the public's reaction to their recent books, their unexpected successes, criticisms and common misrepresentations. They discuss the tough questions about religion that face the world today, and propose new strategies for going forward.
This video is provided free online by The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) and http://RichardDawkins.net . If you would like to support our work and help us provide more videos like this, please purchase the DVD through our online store http://richarddawkins.net/store/index... and/or consider donating to RDFRS: http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/f...
Books by these authors:
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins
"The End of Faith" by Sam Harris
"Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris
"God is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens
"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" by Daniel Dennett
Filmed and Edited by Josh Timonen
BBC Horizon - The Day We Learned to Think
Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.
"We see features that are almost identical to living humans"
Prof Jeffrey Laitman, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.
Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.
Other scientists agree. They believe art defines humans as behaviourally modern, and its beginning must coincide with the ability to speak and use language. If someone has the imagination to devise a shared way to describe their environment using art then it seems inconceivable that they could not possess language and speech. The search for the moment our ancestors became behaviourally just like us is also the hunt for the first evidence of art.
Full Description: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/learnthink.shtml
Saturday, February 5, 2011
BBC Horizon - The End of God?: A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion
21 September 2010 BBC4
As the Pope ends his visit to Britain, historian Dr Thomas Dixon delves into the BBC's archive to explore the troubled relationship between religion and science. From the creationists of America to the physicists of the Large Hadron Collider, he traces the expansion of scientific knowledge and asks whether there is still room for God in the modern world.
The relationship between science and religion has been long and troubled: from the condemnation of Galileo by the Catholic Church in 17th century Italy, through the clashes between creationism and evolution in 20th century America, right up to recent claims that the universe does not need God.
Delving through the rich archive of programmes from Horizon and BBC Science, Thomas Dixon looks at what lies behind this difficult relationship. Using original footage from 1925, he tells the story of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher who was tried for teaching evolution. He sees the connections between religion and American politics in the story of a more recent court case -- the trial of Intelligent Design. He looks at what happens when new scientific discoveries start to explain events that were once seen as the workings of God, and explains how some of our most famous scientists have seen God in the grandest laws of the universe. Finally, he finds intriguing evidence from brain science which hints that belief in God is here to stay.
Broadcast March 2009 BBC3
Documentary about 13-year-old Deborah Drapper, who -- unlike other British teens -- has never heard of Britney Spears or Victoria Beckham. She is being been brought up in a deeply Christian family and her parents are trying to make sure she and her ten brothers and sisters have grown up protected from the sins of the outside world.
Deborah is a bright, confident girl who has big ambitions for her life, and the film spends a summer with her as she ventures out into the world to see what life outside her family could be -- as she starts putting her beliefs forward to a wider audience.
Friday, February 4, 2011
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