Evolutionary Psychology and its Top Ten Failures

This is worth reading… Via Dr. Beetle: Evolutionary Psychology and its Top Ten Failures.

The dreadful pseudo science of evolutionary psychology is founded upon concepts such as survival of the fittest, selfish genes, inherited instincts and mind modules. It has shot to prominence in science and societies’ thinking, and found many a willing ear.

Continue ReadingEvolutionary Psychology and its Top Ten Failures

Alabama needs better sex ed classes. Seriously.

The website goodasyou.com pointed out an anti-gay “sex-ed” (no actual education included) pamphlet distributed by an Alabama Middle School that has a quote that literally made me snort soda out of my nose a few minutes ago.

These same sex “unions” cannot provide an adequate means of achieving a genuine physical relationship with another human being because this type of “union” is contrary to the laws of nature. There can be no real union because same sex bodies do not even fit together.

Somebody seems to have a lack of imagination, there. Apparently, they’ve never read my post on intelligent design, or they’d know better than that.

Continue ReadingAlabama needs better sex ed classes. Seriously.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster and “Pastafarianism”

Flying Spaghetti Monster
I put a new emblem on my car last night. It’s the image of the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.”

Wikipedia explains it best:

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is a parody religion created to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught in science classes alongside evolution.

The “religion” has since become an Internet phenomenon garnering many followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (sometimes referring to themselves as “Pastafarians”, a pun on Rastafarians) who claim to have been touched by “His Noodly Appendage” and preach the word of their “noodly master” as the one true religion. Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is primarily the invention of Bobby Henderson, a graduate of Oregon State University with a degree in physics.

In June 2005, Bobby Henderson submitted an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education in response to their decision on giving intelligent design equal time with evolution by natural selection in biology classes. He demanded that Flying Spaghetti Monsterism also be given equal time in classrooms, along with the other, more traditional religious creation stories.

I’m not sure right now whether I actually am interested in becoming a Pastafarian. I started out Catholic, of course, until the church decided it hated me. I got a degree in philosophy in college for which I had to study world religions, and I really appreciated Taoism. And for the past couple years, Hanuman the Hindu monkey God has been my very favorite imaginary friend.

On the other hand, the designated outfit for worshipers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster IS full pirate regalia, so that’s a major plus in his column.

So I don’t know if I’m ready to convert again. Maybe Hanuman and the FSM can be best pals. I’ll see what Hanuman thinks.

Continue ReadingThe Flying Spaghetti Monster and “Pastafarianism”

Homophobia in the News

Gay teenager forced by parents to go into a “sexual re-orientation” camp to “cure” him of his homosexuality. Nevermind that all licensed, legitimate psychological and psychiatric professionals say it isn’t possible to change sexual orientation because it isn’t a disease.
Read Salon’s four part expose on these “ex-gay” camps.
The New York Pizza Depot in Ann Arbor, Michigan is undergoing a boycott by a catholic group for displaying an rainbow flag sticker — a symbol of tolerance of diversity — in the window of their store. “I find the rainbow flag offensive because it is a symbol of the homosexual movement that, in my opinion, indicates a validation of the homosexual lifestyle, as opposed to a sign that indicates ‘openness’ to customers who are of the homosexual orientation” — said one of the boycotters.
In Washington, D.C., Rev. Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church, has been demonizing gay and lesbian people in his church sermons. “Sisters making more money than brothers and it’s creating problems in families… that’s one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians” Wilson said.

Continue ReadingHomophobia in the News

I wanted to be a Darwinist, but I wasn’t selected

If you’re following the news at all, you’ve read that Kansas is having a second Scopes Monkey trial wherein they’re planning on teaching creationism in the classroom as a form of science. In 1999, Kansas decided to drop the teaching of evolution in the classroom (this decision has since been reversed). But today the Kansas Board of Education are having a trial to change state standards to allow the introduction of creationism under the guise of “intelligent design” the bonehead idea that the pattern behind natural laws is devised by a higher power.

So far the people arguing in favor of “intelligent design” have shown their intellectual level of thought: they admit they haven’t even read the state’s current standards for education, so they don’t even understand what they’re planning to amend. That’s some Republican smarts for ya, right there.

If plain common sense isn’t enough for you, read “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense” from Scientific American magazine to learn how to answer their inane drivel.

I have some more thoughts on intelligent design, but if you’re at all squeamish, you might not want to read on. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Here’s the best argument IN FAVOR of intelligent design, but I have a feeling that the creationists won’t be keen on arguing this point: God designed the male body for gay male anal intercourse. You heard me. God intended men to take it up the ass. Why else would the prostate gland, a gland that sits INSIDE the body, be a sexually-sensitive organ that when stimulated, causes an intense orgasm? Why on earth would God give this organ the ability to do that, unless he intended men to put something up there to stimulate it? In addition to that, men have much larger anuses than women do, and they’re angled differently, to accomodate something going in.

Something I’ve never understood about heterosexual men is how they are terrified of anal intercourse when it comes to two men doing it, but they’re all keen on getting their girlfriends to participate. Why is that? What is the appeal of it with a woman? Especially when it’s much more dangerous for women to do than it is for men, because of the way women are built. The same straight guys who will say crap like “it’s an exit, not an entrance” (untrue for men!) are the ones trying to persuade their girlfriend to turn over (where it really IS an exit!).

Another “intelligent design” conundrum for you: why is the clitoris outside the vagina? Why, if God intended for us all to use the heterosexual missionary position, didn’t God put the clitoris inside the vagina to encourage women to participate in penis-in-vagina sex? Why put the clitoris outside where it’s easy for, say, me, to reach? Yes, because God intended women to be gay.

That really is some intelligent design.

Continue ReadingI wanted to be a Darwinist, but I wasn’t selected

‘Cambrian Explosion’

Remember when you were a kid, and all of the sudden, for no apparent reason, you shot up several inches one summer? Like growth wasn’t a slow, glacial process but an abrupt one? Sort of like some of the theories on evolution that suggest mutations aren’t as gradual as we think. (A Cambrian Explosion, per Jim C.)

Although, when you look closely at the theories, the idea of a real ‘explosion’ is probably a misnomer:

The Cambrian explosion, or Cambrian radiation, was the relatively rapid appearance, around 542 million years ago, of most major animal phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record.[1][2] This was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms.[note 1] Before about 580 million years ago,[note 2] most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude[note 3] and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today.[5] All present phyla appeared within the first 20 million years of the period,[6] with the exception of Bryozoa who made its earliest known appearance in the upper Cambrian.[7]

Continue Reading‘Cambrian Explosion’