Long Live Darwin

One of my favorite biologists, and all around people, is Richard Dawkins, - and he has reminded me just how brilliant Charles Darwin was. His new series "The Genius of Charles Darwin", is fantastic.
Darwin was able to stand up and tell the world that they're wrong, and it was a strikingly tremendous event.- But why is it still not accepted unanimously, why are the further implications it leads to not being withheld?

When new ideas, facts, and figures arrive on the scene, old ideas are thrown out for their incredulity.
To say that human women were born of a rib, or that a rainbow serpent swam around and created the geology of Earth (Aboriginal Aussies), or that gods actually gave birth to our earth, Gaea, is just..out of date. It's as out of date as a flat earth, a geocentric universe, or spontaneous generation.
There is a perfectly valid scientific way of looking at this world - in fact, what other way is there to observe anything?

I was watching a special on National Geographic of how Muslims execute homosexuals, dissenters of their own religion, and adulterers (often without a proper trial and evidence). It was so difficult to watch such archaic thinking. Moral people scoff and are disgusted at such barbarism. Yet, the Muslim executioners (usually beheading or hanging), are simply being religious. They're not being extremists, they're being just as religious as when Moses slaughtered the golden calf worshipers.
This archaic thinking gets society nowhere.

I do not know how people can disregard such blatant evidence. The world was not created in 6 days. Oh, it's supposed to be allegorical? Really? Why?
I feel sorry for many people who still are convinced they are religious. Any bright person must surely be embarrassed. Do they really still believe in Noah's Ark? Or that one man named Adam went through every animal and named each one, and while he was in a deep sleep, from a rib, God made the first woman? Any intelligent person must feel embarrassed to admit they prescribe to this.

People must rethink what our ancestors, who do not know as nearly as much as we do today, taught about origins.

Charles Darwin had the fortitude to provide the new blueprint for how life has come to be on this planet. There are a majority of people today that still believe that everything was designed by a creator.
Why are the proven ideas of a man that lived and died 100 years ago still such an exasperatingly discussed idea?
I simply wish that we do not move forward with failed ideas of yesterday.


...or maybe the Earth IS flat.

What is Speciation? And Why is it Everywhere?

Speciation is the formation of a new species. While that's simple enough, what's beautiful is the process of speciation. As we can see the phylogenic tree here, a "speciation event" can bring about a new species.
For example, if we have a species X, and some members of that species travel to a new geographic location and encounter new obstacles - over evolutionary time, these new surroundings will force individuals to bring about new adaptations - so profound, that eventually, the group that traveled to the new area will become reproductively isolated to the former group of animals that did not cross the river.
This is speciation.
Allegorically, we can look at the continuum of speciation in ourselves. Humans are not stagnant and static (at least I hope not, for your sake), but instead, to fully appreciate life, it's important to explore and critically think about what is around us. It's important for us to...cross the river into new land. - Only then, can we become better adapted for this life, and hopefully, better than we were before.
Never stop learning.