Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Because evolution is science and not philosophy/ideology/religion/politics. Thats the short version. For a more complete and articulate version check out Michael Shermer's new book.

I recently heard Dr. Shermer interviewed on Skepticality (now Skeptic is the official sponsor of Skepticality - woot, and welcome back Derek!) where the main topic was the book: Why Darwin Matters. Shermer has a great communication style that is concise, accurate and approachable even in dealing with sometimes controversial subjects. It was a great interview. At the end Swoopy reads "Genesis revisited" from the book (also posted on Shermers HuffBlog, brilliant:

In the beginning. specifically on October 23, 4004 B.C., at noon, out of quantum foam fluctuation God created the Big Bang. The bang was followed by cosmological inflation. God saw that the Big Bang was very big, too big for creatures that could worship him, so He created the earth. And darkness was upon the face of the deep, so He commanded hydrogen atoms (which He created out of Quarks and other subatomic goodies) to fuse and become helium atoms and in the process release energy in the form of light. And the light maker he called the sun, and the process He called fusion. And He saw the light was good because now He could see what he was doing. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be lots of fusion light makers in the sky. Some of these fusion makers appear to be more than 4,004 light years from Earth. In fact, some of the fusion makers He grouped into collections He called galaxies, and these appeared to be millions and even billions of light years from Earth, so He created a tired light, light that slows down through space so that the 4004 B.C. creation myth might be preserved. And created He many wondrous splendors, including Red Giants, White Dwarfs, Quasars, Pulsars, Nova and Supernova, Worm Holes, and even Black Holes out of which nothing can escape. But since God cannot be constrained by nothing (can God make a planet so big that he could not lift it?), He created Hawking radiation through which information can escape from Black Holes. This made God even more tired than tired light, and the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the continents drift apart by plate tectonics. He decreed sea floor spreading would create zones of emergence, and He caused subduction zones to build mountains and cause earthquakes. In weak points in the crust God created volcanic islands, where the next day He would place organisms that were similar to but different from their relatives on the continents, so that still later created creatures called humans would mistake them for evolved descendants. And in the land God placed fossil fuels, natural gas, and other natural resources for humans to exploit, but not until after Day Six. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And God saw that the land was lonely, so He created animals bearing their own kind, declaring Thou shalt not evolve into new species, and thy equilibrium shall not be punctuated. And God placed into the land, strata, fossils that appeared older than 4004 B.C. And the sequence resembled descent with modification. And the evening and morning were the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, the fishes. And God created great whales whose skeletal structure and physiology were homologous with the land mammals he would create later that day. Since this caused confusion in the valley of the shadow of doubt God brought forth abundantly all creatures, great and small, declaring that microevolution was permitted, but not macroevolution. And God said, Natura non facit saltum, Nature shall not make leaps. And the evening and morning were the fifth day.

And God created the pongidids and hominids with 98 percent genetic similarity, naming two of them Adam and Eve, who were anatomically fully modern humans. In the book in which God explained how He did all this, in chapter one He said he created Adam and Eve together out of the dust at the same time, but in chapter two He said He created Adam first, then later created Eve out of one of Adam's ribs. This caused further confusion in the valley of the shadow of doubt, so God created Bible scholars and theologians to argue the point.

And in the ground placed He in abundance teeth, jaws, skulls, and pelvises of transitional fossils from pre-Adamite creatures. One he chose as his special creation He named Lucy. And God realized this was confusing, so he created paleoanthropologists to sort it out. And just as He was finishing up the loose ends of the creation God realized that Adam's immediate descendants who lived as farmers and herders would not understand inflationary cosmology, global general relativity, quantum mechanics, astrophysics, biochemistry, paleontology, population genetics, and evolutionary theory, so He created creation myths. But there were so many creation stories throughout the land that God realized this too was confusing, so he created anthropologists, folklorists, and mythologists to settle the issue.

By now the valley of the shadow of doubt was overrunneth with skepticism, so God became angry, so angry that God lost His temper and cursed the first humans, telling them to go forth and multiply (but not in those words). They took God literally and 6,000 years later there are six billion humans. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.

By now God was tired, so God said, Thank me its Friday, and He made the weekend. It was a good idea.

And if any of that interests you, and you live on the East coast, you may be able to get a signed copy of the book on the tour - from the eSkeptic newsletter today:

Michael Shermer's
East Coast Book Tour
Why Darwin Matters

From October 9th October 13th, Dr. Michael Shermer will be speaking at the following venues and signing copies of his latest book Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Director of the Skeptics Society, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech. He is the author of Science Friction, The Science of Good and Evil, How We Believe, Why People Believe Weird Things, In Darwin's Shadow, Denying History, and The Borderlands of Science.

MYSTIC, CONNECTICUT
Monday, October 9th, 7:30pm
Mystic Seaport, in the River Room at the Seamens Inne.
Tickets $12 ($10 for members). Limited, reservations recommended.
To purchase tickets, call 888-973-2767
For more information, visit www.mysticseaport.org.
Contact Michael Farrell | 860-572-5317 | michael.ofarrell@mysticseaport.org
NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT
Tuesday, October 10th, 12:00pm
Connecticut College, Ernst Common Room, Blaustein Humanities Center
This event is free and open to the public.
Directions: www.conncoll.edu/admissions/visiting/directions/
Contact Stuart Vyse, Dept. of Psych. | 860-439-2330 | stuart.vyse@conncoll.edu
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Tuesday, October 10th, 7:30pm
Harvard University, Science Center Hall D
presented by the New England Skeptics Society
Contact Steven Novella | stevennovella@comcast.net
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Wednesday, October 11th, 7:00pm
Shetler Studios, 244 West 54th St, 12th floor
presented by the Secular Humanist Society
Contact Conrad Claborne | 212-288-9031 | Cclaborne@aol.com
WASHINGTON, DC
Thursday, October 12th, 12:00pm
Cato Institute,, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Lecture followed by commentary by Intelligent Design proponent Jonathan Wells.
Register online www.cato.org, by email events@cato.org,
by fax 202-371-0841, or phone 202-789-5229.
Contact David Boaz | 202-842-0200 | dboaz@cato.org
WASHINGTON, DC
Thursday, October 12th, 7:30pm
Oakton High School, 2900 Sutton Road, Vienna, Virginia
presented by the National Capital Area Skeptics
For more information and directions, visit www.ncas.org
Contact Chip Denman | cdenman@gmail.com
SWARTHMORE, PENNSYLVANIA
Friday, October 13th, 10:30am
Swarthmore College, Scheuer Room, in Kohlberg Hall
www.swarthmore.edu/visitordash/dash_visitors.php
Contact Colin Purrington | 610-328-8621 | cpurrin1@swarthmore.edu
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Friday, October 13th, 7:00pm
Ethical Society Building, 1906 South Rittenhouse Square
Includes lecture, book signing, and Friday-the-Thirteenth Party.
presented by the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia
Contact Margaret Downey | 610-793-2737 | downey1@downey1.cnc.net
or Eric Krieg | erickrieg@verizon.net