syrinx

Those wacky scientists and their functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines are at it again! Now they're using them to locate the parts of the brain that light up when you think about religious beliefs.
Of course, this will be reported in Fox News as Finding God in the Brain. You Betcha! Awesome!
Jordan Grafman and his team write in their abstract:

We propose an integrative cognitive neuroscience framework for understanding the cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. Our analysis reveals 3 principle psychological dimensions of religious belief (God's perceived level of involvement, God's perceived emotion, and doctrinal/experiential religious knowledge), which functional MRI localizes within networks processing Theory of Mind regarding intent and emotion, abstract semantics, and imagery. Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks, and support contemporary psychological theories that ground religious belief within evolutionary adaptive cognitive functions.

So belief in God evolved as a useful adaptation through natural selection...hmmmmmmm. That's what I thought, too.
Read all about it: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/03/06/.abstract

tags: science evolution religion fmri

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online, that is.
Assuming one is evolved enough to read and comprehend symbols used as communication over time and space. See, he thought something, made scratches on paper with dark liquid, had someone else make other impressions of dark material on light background in physical form, and now, years later, we can retrieve either iconic representations of those original abstract arbitrary representations of logical symbols, or we can retrieve equivalent abstract representations of those abstract symbols. For example,

tags: evolution darwin charles language symbols semiotics

February 12th, the birthday of Charles Darwin, founder of the theory of evolution.
Evolutionists around the world honored the memory of their hero today by making observations, collecting data, considering alternative explanations, forming hypotheses, conducting experiments and testing theories, asking questions, and doubting authority. ...

tags: scientific evolution holiday darwin day celebration method

Found this while browsing Pharyngula, PZ Myer's science blog.

Cute little tune about some of the stories in the book of Genesis. Some pleasant fingerpicking on the guitar. Chuck Darwin, DNA, procreation, and "intelligent design" get a nod and a wink in the last verse.

tags: evolution reproduction pollution alligators