Evolution

My Summer Reading List

October 12th, 2011  |  Published in Evolution, My Life, Religion, Science Fiction, Society

Some may not call this a “Summer Reading List,” but as it is my reading list that I compiled over the summer. A few I’ve read before, but I figured they’d be good to go through again. I’ve marked through the ones I’ve already finished reading this summer.


Social Interactions / Management Skills:

How To Win Friends and Influence People

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

The One Minute Manager

The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey


Science:

The Pluto Files

Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

The Selfish Gene

The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution


Psychology of Belief:

How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God

50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God

Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith


Skepticism:

Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions

Pirates, Pyramids, and Papyrus

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson


Atheism:

God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Hitch-22: A Memoir

Science and Reason on Youtube

April 3rd, 2010  |  Published in Evolution, My Life, Religion, Society, YouTube

I was compiling an email for a good friend and decided that the list was worthy of a blog post so that all of you could benefit from these YouTube channels.

First, I want to introduce you to cdk007. This YouTuber has created some of the best animations I have seen showing evolutionary ideas and refuting arguments against them.

This video from cdk007 refutes the often-used “blind watchmaker” argument. I have played around with and modified the MATLAB code cdk007 created and it has been the source of entertainment for hours on end. I am in the process of porting the code to C++. I still need to get permission to release the resulting code though.

Now we have another great video from cdk007 refuting, through analogy, the claim that “micro-evolution exists but that can’t possibly be proof of macro-evolution.”

As a final example of cdk007‘s work I give you one of his arguments against “irreducible Complexity.”

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