Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
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We might fault the wolf for fighting a losing battle, but there is something to admire in their tenacity compared to the dog, which is all too eager to beg for a meal rather than obtain one on its own. Though wolves and dogs share enough DNA that they can successfully mate, producing offspring that… Continue reading How humans have gone from the equivalent of wolves to domesticated dogs in just a few generations
As my lovely wife is fond of saying, we and our beloved doggies are thrown together by fate, but I want to go much further back in time than she’s normally thinking to consider what fate had in store up to a hundred million years ago when humans and canines were one species. Since every… Continue reading Me, my dogs, and our long march together through evolutionary time
For a distance of over fifty yards on reasonably flat ground, our greyhound and our whippet tore across the lawn at well over forty miles per hour in a full-fledged race, almost neck and neck until the greyhound pulled ahead towards the end, despite having only three legs. That’s the heart of a champion. We… Continue reading Life lessons from a three legged greyhound
In January, our family welcomed a new arrival, a whippet named Carlitos rescued from China, but less than three months later, our beloved greyhound Rosie suffered the tragic loss of her leg, leading me to conclude that many times dogs fare better than humans. Neither my wife or I are morning people, but our new… Continue reading Life lessons from a Chinese whippet and a three-legged greyhound
For the first time ever, scientists observe a doubling in the size of a genome with an immediate evolutionary advantage, solving a longstanding riddle that goes back to Darwin himself, and proving that complexity can arise spontaneously and persist through the generations. Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species on November 24,… Continue reading The origins of evolutionary complexity
For the past three years, I have wandered mostly alone after being driven from the pride of my birth, doomed to lurk at the edge of my elder’s territory, always on the outside, looking in, but all that has changed since I drove off my father and killed his cubs. I am a young lion,… Continue reading I am a young lion and this is my pride, being a fictionalized account from the perspective of the King of the Jungle
Are we masochists when it would be much, much easier not to have one in the first place, both in terms of mourning their loss and the truth that this animal depends on you for everything? Or does it represent something far more wonderful and special in human nature, that we voluntarily bring another creature… Continue reading Lessons on the passing of an aged coonhound
While the raging debates over cats – first childless cat ladies and now whether or not Haitian migrants are actually eating felines in Springfield, OH - might seem small on the surface, the ferocity reveals much more fundamental issues underneath. Six months ago, if you were to suggest that the presidential election would be dominated… Continue reading From cat ladies to eating cats, a presidential election like no other in microcosm
Is your beloved dog really excited about a treat or is looking excited simply an evolutionary strategy to get more treats? How about our own emotions, can they be as selfish or even more so? Our greyhound, Rosie, is by all outward appearances a very happy dog most of the time, literally hopping with excitement… Continue reading The dogs we love, the emotions they might or might not experience, and what it means for ourselves
There is, apparently, a “robust scientific literature [that] leaves no doubt about the anguish pets experience.” This anguish includes “physical confinement, social isolation, and chronic exposure to stress.” In other words, we are torturing our pets and should let them run free... Last week, people were a threat to the planet itself. This week, people… Continue reading Progressives are coming for your pets
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 