The analysis of 334 species of bat found that in species where the females were promiscuous, the males had evolved larger testes but had relatively small brains. In species, where the females were monogamous, the situation was reversed. Male fidelity appeared to have no influence over testes or brain size.
We now stand on the threshold of the 21st century where enormous challenges face us: staggering poverty, continuing racism, raging wars, pandemics, and the possibility of nuclear annihilation or of the irreversible despoliation of the planet. We cannot afford to approach these problems based on myths, religious or otherwise, however comforting. Religion cannot be our guide. And the alternative is not so metaphysically bleak as some would have us believe. Darwin himself said that there was a “grandeur” in his view of the unity of life. And there is hope in it too, since the scientific view of the world can lead us to a life that might be the envy of the gods, were there any.
Well, it’s because the credibility of the evidence is not predicated on its complexity. If SETI were to announce that we’re not alone because it had detected a signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality. An endless, sinusoidal signal—a dead simple tone—is not complex; it’s artificial. Such a tone just doesn’t seem to be generated by natural astrophysical processes. In addition, and unlike other radio emissions produced by the cosmos, such a signal is devoid of the appendages and inefficiencies nature always seems to add—for example, DNA’s junk and redundancy.
And while scientists—who have long been outspoken critics of alternatives to evolution—find themselves again embroiled in a defense of evolution, they have found an unlikely ally in this battle: divinity faculty.
Leading scholars on the issue at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) and other divinity schools say their faculties have almost no proponents of intelligent design.
Standard-sized needles failed to reach the buttock muscle in 23 out of 25 women whose rears were examined after what was supposed to be an intramuscular injection of a drug.
“Just a Theory” also covers the broad arena of science to provide perspective. For example, it discusses how creationism fits with other pseudosciences, such as astrology and homeopathy, showing why none deserves to be called science. While battles continue in the political arena and letters to the editor, the progress of science is guided by specific rules—evolution meets the requirements of those rules; intelligent design and other pseudosciences do not.
Good science does not move forward via political lobbying. Einstein did not insist that relativity be taught in physics class. He argued his case before his peers through scientific publication and through scientific presentations to those peers. He provided testable hypotheses, and when those hypotheses were confirmed by experimentation and observation, his ideas made it into high school physics textbooks. Einstein did not take out a large advertisement in The New York Times stating, “We the undersigned have serious problems with Newtonian gravity.” He did not hire a lawyer to have relativity inserted in high school textbooks. He did not insist on a disclaimer in textbooks that said, “Newtonian gravity is a controversial theory.”
