Evolution The kangaroo is the first organism, but the fungus is not the biggest 12 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 So the record for the “world’s largest organism” has again been claimed for a fungus, something Stephen Jay Gould wrote about in his wonderfully titled essay “A Humongous Fungus Among Us” back in 1992, and which was included in his volume A Dinosaur in a Haystack. The previous fungus, Armillaria… Continue Reading
Evolution The World According to Genesis: Other peoples 8 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 This is the last section I will discuss in detail. It is, of course, the story of Cain and Abel. Cain is a farmer, and Abel is a herdsman. Both of these are agrarian pursuits, in the new agricultural period. But YHWH (just the single name now) seems to value… Continue Reading
Evolution Schadenfreude for AiG 7 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 Schadenfreude , n. Pleasure found in the misfortunes of Answers in Genesis, who employed a pornography actor to play Adam. Well, at least it makes sense – didn’t Adam and Eve fall because they had sex? I’m sure some Baptist told me that once… Continue Reading
Evolution Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 3. Science is a Dynamic Process 6 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 In this post, I want to propose my own view, or rather the views I have come to accept, about the nature of science. [Part 1; Part 2] Continue Reading
Evolution The World According to Genesis: Moral Knowledge 6 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 Like any middle eastern deity, YHWHW Elohim is a fairly petty individual. He doesn’t want competition from his creations, so he blocks access to the “Tree of Life”, which is a magical tree whose fruit can make you live forever. We have two magical trees, a corporeal deity of limited knowledge and good will, a snake that talks and has intentions like any trickster god to thwart the designs of the deity, and a justification for wearing clothes, which is not a matter just of shame, but of intended purpose. Continue Reading
Evolution Genesis 2 rewritten 5 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 It is also likely that if God re-issued Genesis 2, he’d do it as a comic strip like this. Oops I forgot to link it… fixed now. Continue Reading
Evolution Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 1. Introduction 4 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 This three-part series is a talk I gave a while back to some ecologists and molecular biologists. It is a brief overview of the aims and relationship between science and philosophy of science, with a special reference to the classification wars in systematics, and the interface of science and the… Continue Reading
Evolution The World According to Genesis: Humanity 2 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 So in chapter 2, we shift stories. Now we have a story that is far older than the first chapter, and is regarded by scholars as the “Yahwist” creation story, and it focuses primarily on humans. The story is far more familiar than the first chapter is (the first few… Continue Reading
Evolution The World according to Genesis: Stuff that grows 1 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 We’re in the third day, and Elohim has made dry land, but no sun or stars or moon. Still, he’s keen to see something growing, so he tells the land to produce, by spontaneous generation as it was later known, “seed bearing plants and plants bearing fruit with their proper… Continue Reading