"Darwin was the first to use data from nature to convince people that evolution is true, and his idea of natural selection was truly novel. It testifies to his genius that the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred-page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science." -- Jerry Coyne
Friday, December 25, 2015
A bullshit New York Times article called "The Christmas Revolution" is about the Magic Jeebus Man. I copied and pasted a comment written by someone else.
Socrates
is a trusted commenterDowntown Verona, NJ6 hours ago
Because the virgin birth fairy tale has been repeated for so long, it’s easy for biblically-concussed Christians to forget that evolution explains everything and that the Earth and its humans are not 6000 years old.
Genetic studies and fossils show that primates diverged from other mammals 85 million years ago.
Humans are closely related to gibbons, apes, orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas.
The earliest documented representative of the genus Homo is Homo habilis, which evolved 2.8 million years ago,.
The brains of these early hominins were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, but at about that time the human SRGAP2 gene doubled, producing a more rapid wiring of the frontal cortex.
During the next million years a process of rapid encephalization occurred and human cranial capacity doubled.
The human brain grew significantly.
Modern humans evolved in Africa and migrated outward about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Archaic Homo sapiens, the forerunner of anatomically modern humans, evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago.
Behavioral modernity with culture and language, and specialized stone tools happened around 50,000 years ago.
The important point to remember is that the evolutionary increase in the size of the human brain not only helped humans survive better, but it also gave him the dubious ability to make up stories, fables and religious fairly tales.
Welcome to Peter Wehner's religious fantasyland of virgin births, devoid of history and science.
Genetic studies and fossils show that primates diverged from other mammals 85 million years ago.
Humans are closely related to gibbons, apes, orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas.
The earliest documented representative of the genus Homo is Homo habilis, which evolved 2.8 million years ago,.
The brains of these early hominins were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, but at about that time the human SRGAP2 gene doubled, producing a more rapid wiring of the frontal cortex.
During the next million years a process of rapid encephalization occurred and human cranial capacity doubled.
The human brain grew significantly.
Modern humans evolved in Africa and migrated outward about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Archaic Homo sapiens, the forerunner of anatomically modern humans, evolved between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago.
Behavioral modernity with culture and language, and specialized stone tools happened around 50,000 years ago.
The important point to remember is that the evolutionary increase in the size of the human brain not only helped humans survive better, but it also gave him the dubious ability to make up stories, fables and religious fairly tales.
Welcome to Peter Wehner's religious fantasyland of virgin births, devoid of history and science.