Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
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We, indeed all life on Earth, are as ancient as we are new, as grandly complex as we are simple. Indeed, it is fair to say that complex life wouldn’t exist at all without this contradiction. The mammalian ear is significantly more complex than our bird and lizard cousins in the vertebrate family. Rather than… Continue reading Evolution: Three new studies highlight the marvelous contradictions between preserved forms and new innovations that support complex life on Earth
A new study from the University of Vienna on the inner ear in mammals offers valuable evidence and insight, while upending at least some of the conventional wisdom by finding the shape of the ear in some lineages is more directly connected to habitat and lifestyle than genetics alone. Counter intuitively, we can find evidence… Continue reading The shape of your inner ear, convergent evolution, and the evolution of evolvability
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
Here is land where birds nest directly on the trail, crowding in the thousands. The sea lions play with you in the crystal waters. Schools of eagle rays drift by like silent specters in the night while sea turtles make their way beneath. Lizards lounge on the beach, daring you to get close. The sun… Continue reading An expedition to the Galapagos Archipelago and all the beer on the boat
For hundreds of millions of years, life persisted on Earth with no meaning at all. Trillions upon trillions of creatures lived and died, born as dust and returned to it without remark. Humanity changed all that, making the meaningless, meaningful. Nature means nothing without people might seem a bold statement on the surface. Nature, after… Continue reading Nature means nothing without people and the experts have all gone insane
When Charles Darwin set off on a five year journey around the world in the Beagle, he was not yet the thinker he would become. Instead, he was merely a product of his time on his way to becoming a man for all time, as all world-changing geniuses are. Charles Darwin is among the most… Continue reading Charles Darwin, colonialism, cancel culture, and the irrepressible nature of genius
“I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God,” so said master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick about his breakthrough movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Learn more in this YouTube video... The imagery throughout the film strongly suggests the monolith is the working of God,… Continue reading Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey | The God Complex | Film Analysis on YouTube
In many ways a dog navigates the same world as we do with shared systems and processes across our senses, but in others their reality is dramatically different with a sense of smell so powerful they can count molecules in the air and see ghosts. I can’t be the only dog lover who frequently looks… Continue reading How a dog sees and navigates the world
Next generation chat software that delivers a more realistic conversational experience, can do research, and write stories has set the technology and media worlds on fire, but beneath the surface ChatGPT reveals one of the things that makes human intelligence so unique. We have physics built into our brain by evolution. The technology and media… Continue reading ChatGPT and the physics evolution built into our brains
As humans, we live in a world of feeling, that is our experience of the world always feels like something either good or bad, but does it truly have to be that way and, perhaps more importantly, why is it that way in the first place? The only way to answer the question is to… Continue reading Could you be an unconscious zombie and not even know it?
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 