The Atheozoan Channel

I've created a Youtube channel for convenience of looking for videos and playlists that I've recommended on my blog.

So here it is: Atheozoan Channel.

And here's the list of playlist I have created so far. You can click on the links below to go each of the playlist and view the videos that make up each playlist or hit the "Play All Videos" button to watch the whole thing.

Evolution

These playlists deals with Evolution (with other sciences) owning Creationism/Intelligent Design. Occasional creationism arse kicking is a common feature.

From Big Bang to Us - Made Easy by potholer54

This series by potholer54 explains the scientific evidence for our origins, from the Big Bang to the human migration out of Africa. It challenges people who believe we were created by a deity 6,000 years ago to confront the evidence instead of ignoring it.

Evolution is REAL Science by standup4REALscience

Here's a series describing the various aspects of the theory of evolution. This includes the history and findings leading towards the establishment of the modern theory of evolution. Later in the series, it goes into the predictions made by the theory as well as the details of its supporting evidence.

HHMI Holiday Lectures 2005 - Evolution uploaded by djarm67

This series consist of 4 holiday lectures (approx 1 hour each) by HHMI on the topic of Evolution.

► Lecture 1 — Endless Forms Most Beautiful

► Lecture 2 — Selection in Action

► Lecture 3 — Fossils, Genes, and Embryos

► Lecture 4 — From Butterflies to Humans

How Evolution Works by DonExodus2

This series by DonExodus2 deals with the various topics on the subject of evolution.

Proof of Evolution by DonExodus2

Another series by DonExodus2 dealing with the evidence for evolution.

How Evolution is Scientific by shanedk

This is a six-part series by shanedk which explains the scientific basis for evolution while refuting lies from creationists. This series was made in response to Creation Ministries International's article found here.

Creationism

These playlists deals with creationism more directly. However, there's lots of science and evolution tidbits along the way.

The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism by AronRa

A series by AronRa which deals with the creationism movement. While exposing the fallacies and lies the movement is based upon, this series brings with it truckloads of information tidbit on the theory of evolution.

Judgement Day - Intelligent Design on Trial uploaded by atheistonly

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in a landmark battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. This is the trial where Intelligent Design fell flat on its face in all possible aspects.

Evolution: Fossils, Genes and Mousetraps uploaded by agnosticman77

This series is a fantastic lecture by renowned Cell Biologist and author Dr. Ken Miller. In the lecture, he discusses some of the evidence for Evolution from the fossil record, genetics, and genome analysis. He also discusses his role in the Dover trial where Intelligent Design collapsed in federal court.

Why Young Earth Creationists must deny Gravity by cdk007

This series by cdk007 shows how a belief that the universe is 6,000 years old requires one to deny the theory of gravity.

Why do people laugh at creationists? by Thunderf00t

Here's a series by Thunderf00t exposing the funny stupidity of creationists and why they deserve to be laughed at. In each case, the creationist statements are shown to be outrageously stupid by even the most rudimentary knowledge of science.

CrAP (Creation Astronomy Propaganda) Debunked by AndromedasWake

This series by AndromedasWake deals with the CrAP that is creation astronomy propaganda.

Creationist Junk Debunked by potholer54debunks

In this series by Potholer54debunks will look at the various lies, myths and misunderstandings creationists like to spread about science and bust them.

Science and Skepticism

These playlists deals with general sciences and its public perception and misconceptions. Mainly focusing on the scientific method and general skeptic thought.

Here Be Dragons uploaded by morsec0de

Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

Break the Science Barrier uploaded by PiroNiro

This series follows Richard Dawkins as he meets with people who have experienced the wonders of science first-hand. We'll also see how dangerous the ignorance of science can be in classrooms, courts, and beyond.

Slaves to Superstition uploaded by keuriseudo

Professor Richard Dawkins tackles the epidemic of irrational, superstitious thinking which is blotting the light of logic and evidence. After garnering tips on psychics' entirely earthly trade secrets from the illusionist Derren Brown, Dawkins attends a seance and confronts the medium. Time and again, the interviewees appeal to personal revelation or second-hand anecdote to justify their belief.

The Irrational Health Service uploaded by keuriseudo
Professor Richard Dawkins examines the growing suspicion the public has for science based medicine, despite its track record of successes like the germ theory of disease, vaccines, antibiotics and increased lifespan.

God, Religion and Atheism

Here are the playlists that deals with belief and non-belief in god.

The God Delusion uploaded by keuriseudo

Along with his million-copy bestseller The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins has helped inspire people of reason worldwide to say "Enough is enough!" Our modern world is the product of a long march from ignorance and fear to the Enlightenment and beyond, always guided by the power of science and reason. To now abandon our endeavour toward progress and knowledge for faith and superstition puts humanity in peril.

The Virus of Faith uploaded by keuriseudo

Dawkins argues that the process of non-thinking called faith is not a way of understanding the world, but instead stands in fundamental opposition to modern science and the scientific method, and is divisive and dangerous.

Christianity

Here are the playlists that deals with discussion about Christianity and the bible.

An Honest Search for the Truth by holysinecure

This video series by holysinecure addresses inconsistencies & contradictions in the Bible that were studied and researched on the way out of organized religion.

An Atheist Reads the Bible by 43alley

This series by 43alley uses a verbatim reading from lesser-known stories from the Bible. And by "lesser-known," that means horrible stories that the religious either pretend do not exist, or wish didn't.

To view videos that do not belong to any particular series, you can go straight to my favorites.

I'd also highly recommend all the channels that I'm subscribed to.

* Note: This page is no longer updated. If you find a broken link, head straight for my YouTube channel to find the playlist instead.

Fallacious Reasoning

According to my brother, a teacher in his school spouted a logical fallacy in school with reference to the theory of evolution. She was trying to explain the usage of the word "relic" and somehow she touched on evolution. The following is paraphrased from my brother's memory.

Can you believe that scientists believe that we evolved from apes? That's so low life. We are superior beings.

Er. What?

You don't want to believe in evolution because it's low life and therefore it is not true?

Wow. Perhaps cancer patients could just believe cancer is not real since it's awful.

What is the logical pathway that goes from "I don't like it" to "therefore, it is false"? Just because some fact is unpleasant to you, it doesn't follow to the conclusion that it is false. That's fallacious. That's stupid reasoning. That's also ignorance in this case.

Facts are not falsified because you don't like them. Deal with it.

Secondly, what's with the notion that we're superior? Well, yes, of course it's nice to think that but the truth is, we aren't superior in many aspects.

We are superior in terms of intelligence. That I agree. But that isn't the only criteria by which comparisons can be made.

We certainly aren't the fastest. The cheetah would win paws down if we raced with it.

We certainly aren't the fastest in the water as well. Most marine lifeforms can darn well swim faster.

We definitely cannot fly without assistance.

We don't have the sharpest teeth.
We don't have the sharpest claws.
We don't have the longest lifespan.
We don't have the best eyesight.
We don't have the keenest sense of smell.
We don't have the widest hearing range.
We don't generate enough electricity to stun.
Etc...

There's much more comparisons that can be made.

We aren't superior in most aspects but we are special indeed. We have the ability to think. For the first time, the natural processes in the universe brought about the evolution of a lifeform with an intelligence powerful enough to understand those very natural processes that brought about its existence. We are the universe's way of understanding itself.

I think that's beautiful.

So don't stop thinking.
Don't resort to fallacious reasoning.
Don't deny the theory that scientists worked so hard on in finding the multitudes of evidence that supports it.

Believe because the evidence supports it.
Evolution is a FACT.

"Gems of Creationism"

I guess I had too high of an opinion of Singapore. Or rather, of Singaporeans.

Our education system focuses much on applications when the subject of Science is taught. Sure, of course, application of our scientific knowledge is important. Very important indeed.

But I find that the appreciation of Science and the scientific method is very poor here in Singapore. I think that is important. Probably more important than the applications. The scientific method can be incorporated into our thinking and enable us to think more logically, more rationally and more critically.

How is that important? Lots of things. Basically anything that requires you think. Thinking critical might as well prevent you from getting conned by con-men. Keep you from falling prey to pseudoscience and superstition. Make astrological columns on newspapers disappear. There's more to it but I'll stop here.

I realized that creationism in Singapore is, well, pretty rampant. The ignorance of evolution here is utterly tragic (oh my, I seem to use this pretty often).

So, the gems of this entry: The "Gems" of Creationism.

"Evolution is flaw to me basically bcos there are too many missing link. Just the forming of an eyeball alone could make all evolution beholder dumbfounded."

Wow, this must be really "new".

Evolution of the Eye:
► Creationism disproved? (Frankly, I think this video title sux)
► Evolution of the Eye
► Dawkins makes the eye

Transitional Forms:
► The 9th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism

"They don't understand humans are made in God's likeness, they chose to be the same category as animals using the pathetic (theory of) evolution created by man and yes, they believe they came from apes"

"do you believe man comes from ape?"

"But for apes to evolve into man.... hehe... it's just seems like a joke to me. And after so many years from the beginning of human history, why apes stopped evolving into man?"

Still in denial of human ancestry?

Try these videos:
► Evolution is REAL Science #1
► Human Ancestry Made Easy

how the animals world would need to have predators and prey to keep the system balance etc.

I'm pretty sure this has already been nicely explained by the theory of evolution. And of course, the arms' race between predator and prey species is, in itself, really interesting.

and earth which is fitted for the humans and animals to live in it.

This is like a puddle of water sitting in a hole after a thunderstorm saying to itself: "Wow, this hole fits me really well. God must have created this hole."

if one day, an atheist were to ask me a question, you got a nice watch, where you got it from. I would answer, one day, suddenly there's a small explosion in front of me and this watch just appear. I believe he would agree with me too.

Oh my, poofing into existence?

No.
That's not evolution.
Neither is it abiogenesis.
That's the creationists' own conjecture: Goddidit. *Poof*

buy a cheap watch I suggest, and place it among Rolex and Omega, chances are it will evolved to become one of them.

So watches have sex and give birth to baby watches who inherit their parents' genetic material?

Apparently not. Duh.

(Theory of) evolution is not proven. If apes can turn into man, why did Ah Meng [This was a famous Orang Utan in Singapore] die still in a form of an ape? It's not just that simple, studying further and you will find evolution(ist) can't support their claims.

THE Gem of the day.

Evolution within one lifetime? Utter and complete ignorance.

Just to recap: Evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.

That means no evolution within your own lifetime. You don't evolve. Your species do.

The Art of NOT Listening

I finally understood what some of the forum-goers at the RichardDawkins.net forum meant when they found that believers are REALLY difficult to talk to.

Once believers presuppose the existence of god, it is impossible to get them to check the position. It's automatically thought to be correct and never questioned.

Worst of all, some do not question at all because of the implications of the position. It goes something like this:

God created everything. [Original assumption]
Hence, god created my intelligence/wisdom/knowledge as well.
Only god is perfect, I am not perfect.
Therefore, I am unable to understand god completely and thus, should never question him.

There.
Perfect.
They've just put themselves out of the reaches of any form of rational discussion.

Other times, it appears as though they are deliberately missing point. Any argument, explanation or analogy doesn't seem to work no matter how I try to phrase it.

My explanation skills must really suck, I guess. Gotta work on that, I think.

That was my conclusion after engaging in conversations on Stomp.com.sg. And one of which in particular involved a typical christian fundie. Even talking to cow would produce more results.

Not to forget, his utter and complete ignorance of evolution. Of course, that's not his fault. But to reject evolution because he was presented a creationist caricature of evolution? That's tragic.

Evolution

As a tribute to Darwin Day, today's entry shall be all about evolution.

Well, I shan't be the one doing all the talking (well, writing actually). I will leave the talking to several Youtube videos that addresses the subject of the day: Evolution.

If you want to read articles instead, TalkOrgins have quite a number of articles pertaining to the topic. Otherwise, check out the following videos!


How Evolution REALLY Works
► Part 1: Natural Selection
► Part 2: Selection and Mutations

Here's a two part series by cdk007. The first part is basically about the mechanism by evolution occurs: Natural selection. The second is about how natural selection weeds out deleterious (AKA bad) mutations and spreads the good ones around.


The Origins
► The Origins of Life - Abiogenesis
► The Origin of the Genetic Code
► The Origin of Sexual Reproduction

This is supposed to be a 5 part series by cdk007. However, only 3 has been completed so far. So let's enjoy those first. I believe the titles of each part is self-explanatory.


Evolution is REAL Science
► Part 1: Human Ancestry
► Part 2: Common Ancestry
► Part 3: Endogenous Retroviruses

This incomplete series by standup4REALscience explains facts in evolution along with the timeline of discoveries. Not bad, clear explanation with helpful diagrams & images.


Evidence for Evolution
► Part 1: Preservation of codons in closely related species
► Part 2: Phylogeny and predictions
► Part 3: Endogenous Retroviruses

This is another 3 part series by cdk007. This series touches on some of the evidence for evolution


Increasing Information in the Genome
► How Evolution cause an Increase in Information, Part I
► How Evolution cause an Increase in Information, Part II

Mutations only destroys information? Don't understand mutations at all? This 2 part series by cdk007 explains


Other miscellaneous video by cdk007
► The Evolution of Sex
► The Evolution of Irreducible Complexity
► The Evolution of Flagellum

Here's some videos dealing with evolution by cdk007. Check them out.


Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
► Part 1: Evolution ≠ Atheism, Creationism ≠ Christianity
► Part 2: Worshipping man-made holy books
► Part 3: Knowledge, Truth and Interpretations
► Part 4: Believing ≠ Knowing
► Part 5: "Evolutionism?" - Evolution is not a religion
► Part 6: Misunderstanding Evolution
► Part 7: Evolution is NOT random
► Part 8: Mislead about Mutations
► Part 9: Transition forms? There's plenty
► Part 10: Common Ancestry explained
► Part 11: Speciation: We've seen it
► Part 12: "Creation Science" is not science
► Part 13: Fabricating the lies that Evolution is fabricated
► Part 14A: Lying for God and creationism
► Part 14B: Lying for God and creationism

This series by AronRa is super interesting and informative. Though it deals mainly with the "controversy" with creationism but stringed along the series are lots of information on evolution. Watch it!

Interpretations, you got it wrong

Ahh... Interpretations. One of the favorite defense by believers for their holy books.

"You have misinterpreted that phrase."

"That's not the true meaning of that line."

"It's supposed to mean metaphorically."

"God didn't mean it that way."

"You need to go for bible study lessons."

Hmm... I supposed that these (from the Bible) and these (from the Koran) were misinterpreted as well?

Here's some questions to think about:

Why suppose that the holy books require "special interpretation"?

What makes certain people so special such that they are "authorized" to interpret "correctly"?

What's the reason for god to allow his/her/its holy book to be open to so many "misinterpretations"?

Does the holy books have little footer notes that say "interpret this metaphorically" or "this one is literal"?

In particular, the large amounts of lines in the Koran that advocate death for unbelievers, are they literal or metaphorical? If metaphorical, metaphorical for what?

They can... because they are not...

Today, during class, there was a mini hooha over a phrase. It went something like that...

Student (Christian): I am who I am.

Teacher (Also christian): No, you can't say that, you know?

*Brief pause*

Teacher: God said that. You're a christian so you cannot say that. The others can say that but you can't.

Me: *Rolls eyes*

First things first, that probably isn't exactly how it was said but it should be sufficiently accurate so as not to lose its original meaning.

Some might be thinking: So? What's the big deal?

You know what? There actually is.

The phrase "I am who I am" implies that the person who said that is the "uncreated creator" which is basically Yahweh (since it's Christianity we're talking about). Hence, the little hooha.

Okay, fine. Christians are not supposed to say that since that would be "disrespectful" to their god. But whatever does it mean that the others can say it?

Taken to worst of conclusions, it could very well mean: "They can disrespect god since they are going to hell anyway." Of course, I seriously doubted the teacher meant it that way so let's see the alternative reasons.

I'm thinking of religious pluralism or relativism. Vaguely, it means that all religions are equally valid. For some people, it may simply mean that my god (of my religion) takes care of me and your god (of your religion) take cares of you. People with polytheistic tendencies (perhaps, the chinese) would be more emphathetic to such an idea.

But unfortunately, religions typically claim that each is the one true path and thus make pluralism/relativism look like bullshit.

What other reasons might there be?

Oh Their God...

Looks like somebody is desperate for suicide bombers.

Iraqi woman had 80 women raped to recruit suicide bombers
A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

Seriously, what the fuck was she thinking? I mean, she IS a woman and she organized the rapes of 80 women.

This is what happens when you have ambiguous instructions from your "holy book".

Morality becomes a non-issue.

The God Virus

*Book Alert!*

The God Virus.

It's official website can be found here. And apparently, it's hosting a "Create-a-Religion" contest. LOL.

This book extends the idea that religion is a virus which was introduced in "The God Delusion" and "Breaking the Spell". Chapters 1 and 2 are available online as a preview. I read a bit and I think I'm going to get it!

I also read this article tonight. It's the Objectivist point of view. I'd think I agree with everything. Just wished I could explain my disbelief with the eloquence that I've seen others did.