Sunday, September 7, 2014

At chess.com where I play chess there is an opportunity to talk to other chess players about chess and everything else including science.

I was recently released from chess.com prison. Apparently there is some rule about being nice.

OK, I get it. From now on I'm totally in love with science deniers. I'm also in love with the ISIS terrorists, axe murderers, and child molesters. I'm in love with everyone.

I'm especially in love with the science deniers. I worship the science deniers. They have a few minor problems, for example they're wrong about everything, they harass and threaten biology teachers, they're extremely dishonest, and they brainwash children, but still I love them all.

I actually have a good reason to be grateful for the existence of science deniers. Many years ago when I first started using the internet, I noticed the world was infested with people who preferred a god fairy's magical powers to explain the development of new species. I thought that was strange because this is the 21st century, not the Dark Ages.

Unfortunately back then I knew virtually nothing about the evidence for evolution and how evolution works. I just assumed it made sense because the alternative, magical creationism, was ridiculous.

Obviously I had to do something about my ignorance if I wanted to defend science. So I got to work, visited countless science websites and science blogs, and I read 4 books about evolution (see list below). I'm currently reading about the evidence from molecular biology from the Encyclopedia Britannica at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/197367/evolution/49850/Molecular-biology

The more I studied evolution the more I wanted to learn because the subject is extremely interesting. Studying evolution and playing chess are my two most important hobbies, all thanks to the evolution deniers I love so much.

I remember the first time I read about some of the evidence from molecular biology. It was what Brown University Ken Miller biologist said about human chromosome two at the 2005 Dover trial (which was necessary because god-soaked evolution deniers on a Pennsylvania school board wanted to force biology teachers to read a statement about magical intelligent design creationism which every teacher refused to do).

What Ken Miller said at Dover shocked me. I never realized scientific evidence could be so powerful. It was so obvious this evidence (the predictions made about human chromosome two which were shown to be perfectly correct in every possible way) was so strong even the extremely god-soaked would not be able to deny it.

I was wrong. I found out the god-soaked are not interested in understanding any scientific evidence, no matter how powerful it is. They either refuse to read about it, or they refuse to understand.

Obviously these evolution deniers (who I will love forever) are a complete waste of time. What's the point of explaining science to somebody who doesn't want to learn anything?

The four books about evolution I read all explain different evidences, there is virtually no overlap. This should make people realize the evidence for evolution is way beyond overwhelming.

Why Evolution is True

Your Inner Fish

The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Just one more thing: Some stuff I wrote at another website. Here it is.

As a normal person, aka atheist, I love evolutionary biology. Evolution, which is the strongest and most important fact of science, explains the entire Four Billion year history of life. It explains who we are and how we got here, and that story is fantastically interesting. How new species develop, the mechanisms of evolution, the evidence for evolution, are all very interesting.

Most interesting of all are the predictions made that test evolution, predictions which must be correct or else evolution is false, and so far evolution has passed every test. The evidence against evolution is exactly zero.

One of the most famous predictions about evolution:

Human apes (we are one of the ape species) have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but chimpanzee apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes. That looked like a problem for evolution so molecular biologists made two predictions which absolutely had to be true or else evolution would have to be thrown out. This is what biologists do all the time, they test evolution.

The first prediction would be one of the human chromosomes would be two chromosomes fused together. They found that chromosome so the first test was successful. The 2nd prediction was they would be able to find two chromosomes in chimpanzees that matched the human chromosome they found.

The 2nd prediction was spectacularly correct. A biologist wrote:
"Once the chimpanzee genome was sequenced, things got even more interesting. One of the chimpanzee's chromosomes was pretty much identical to the top half of the human Chromosome 2. Another chimpanzee chromosome was nearly identical to the bottom half of Chromosome 2. On top of this, the banding pattern of these two chromosomes (as well as the same chromosomes in many other species of primates) was a complete match to the banding pattern of Chromosome 2."

Evolution passed the test. We most definitely share an ancestor with the other ape species.

Of course the religion industry has organizations that spread lies about this evidence. They of course are not scientists and they don't know what they're talking about.

I encourage science deniers to consider the possibility their uneducated preachers are wrong and the world's brilliant scientists are right. The scientists have all the evidence. The professional science deniers have nothing but their total ignorance of science and their dishonesty.

My point is the science deniers don't know what they're missing. Science is many thousands of times more interesting than the boring and ridiculous "god-did-it".

Everything you wanted to know about Chromosome 2 and evolution but were afraid to ask:  http://cwgk.blogspot.com/2009/04/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.html

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