Answers Research Journal is totally fair and unbiased....

I mean, clearly if you only publish evidence for creation, then you can clearly deny all evidence for evolution with a clear conscience, right?

From the Answers Research Journal "Instructions for Authors:"

 

"VIII. Paper Review Process

Upon the reception of a paper the editor-in-chief will follow the procedures below:

A

Receive and acknowledge to the author the paper’s receipt.

B

Review the paper for possible inclusion into the ARJ review process.

 

The following criteria will be used in judging papers:

1

Is the paper’s topic important to the development of the Creation and Flood model?

2

 

Does the paper’s topic provide an original contribution to the Creation and Flood model?

3

Is this paper formulated within a young-earth, young-universe framework?

4

If the paper discusses claimed evidence for an old earth and/or universe, does this paper offer a very

constructively positive criticism and provide a possible young-earth, young-universe alternative?

5

If the paper is polemical in nature, does it deal with a topic rarely discussed within the origins

debate?

 

6

Does this paper provide evidence of faithfulness to the grammatical-historical/normative interpretation

of Scripture? "

On the validity of scientific theories

Hypotheses, sometimes colloquially defined as educated guesses, are testable and falsifiable ideas based on evidence which predict future outcomes. Many hypotheses can be phrased as if-then statement (e.g. If land-dwelling tetrapods evolved from fish, then we should be able to find transitional fossils in near shore environments just before the age of the first fossils of land-dwelling tetrapods.*) Scientists then perform experiments or make observations, which either support or refute the hypothesis. Unfortunately, common usage of the word "theory," and even its usage by the media in coverage of science, is nearly synonymous with a hypothesis.

Scientific theories coherently explain hundreds of thousands of confirmed or refuted hypotheses and millions of observations in a relatively simple way. Theories deal with mechanisms and underlying principles. In other words, theories address why all the observations and experiments came out the way they did. Because there is usually the possibility of some yet to be discovered alternative explanation or mechanism, many scientific theories can never be 100% proven. By definition, they may be falsified at any time.

For a scientific theory to gain acceptance and remain accepted in the scientific community, by definition, it is necessary that it explain all or nearly all of the available data. Anomalies are not counter examples, but if you can demonstrate a couple "anomalies" are not anomalous experiments or observations at all, but consistently yield the data which cannot be explained by the theory, then the theory in its current form begins to lose scientific acceptance. It will ultimately be revised or replaced.

Organisms evolve. We know this purely based upon experiment and observation. Evolution is a fact. The theory in question is evolution by natural selection, first proposed by Darwin and Wallace. Natural selection theory could be disproven at any time, by definition, if an alternative mechanism which better explained evolution were to be demonstrated. To disprove all of the observations of evolution, however, would be remarkably difficult.

If you really want to try to disprove evolution though, here are some silver bullets: - Demonstrate that rates of radioactive decay vary widely over time, and that when this new variable is accounted for, the world is extremely young - Demonstrate numerous out-of-sequence fossils of several phyla in place in rocks (e.g. rabbits in pre-Cambrian strata)

No one has yet done these or similar things to the satisfaction of the scientific community; therefore, by definition, there is no evidence against evolution.

*Note: This is obviously leads to an inductive argument, not a deductive one. Most hypotheses cannot be proved 100% for sure; in many cases, only the null hypothesis can be disproved. Rather, experiments and observations can lend support to, or reduce confidence in, a h

Believing in God may make you less likely to live green...

Read more here. And here.

Re: "Trans women aren't real women"

Trans women are real women. 

Sure, they may not be born as biologically female, but being a woman has much more to do with how you identify, how your "brain is wired," than with breasts, ovaries, uteruses, vaginas, labia, and clitoruses. If it were otherwise, pre-pubescent female children would be less of girls than their friends who had started breast development and menstruation, and female children who due to various medical conditions never have a true puberty might never become "real women," as some put it.

 Likewise, does a female adult cease being a "real woman" if she had a few bouts with cancer or other medical conditions resulting in a double mastectomy, a total hysterectomy, and surgical removal of the clitorus? I mean, all she has left to make her a "real woman" are a vagina and labia. If, for whatever reasons, she chooses not to take replacement female hormones, she may start to take on some traditionally masculine characteristics, like facial hair. Do you really want to say a couple of medical procedures and a 5 o'clock shadow can make an adult female no longer a woman?

Perhaps you object that it's not the breasts that make the woman, but the extra X chromosome. So are you saying that people born with Turner's Syndrome (anatomical females born with only 1 X chromosome) aren't real women? And what about the women who were born with a Y chromosome (genetically male) but developed female parts in utero (anatomically female since embryo) and have always identified as female? Many of these women would never know about their Y chromosome unless they are Olympic athletes, go to a fertility specialist because they can't get pregnant, or the genetic-anatomic mismatch causes other medical problems. Do you need to run a genetic test on every possible woman you meet to make sure she isn't secretly carrying a Y chromosome that even she doesn't know about?

It is absurd to define manhood and womanhood based on parts or genes. Biology doesn't define gender. Most of us so-called "real women" are just lucky that we are cis-gendered and that our bodies' appearances, our medical histories, and our genetics are all in line with stereotypical womanliness. If Y-chromosome-bearing anatomical women are real women, and if women lacking breasts and overies and uteruses are real women, then trans-women, even if they never undergo any gender-alignment procedures, surgeries, or hormones, are clearly as real of women as any other woman on the planet.

The Pill OTC only? Bad for women

Certain Republicans have been recently advocating for over-the-counter (OTC) oral contraception. As covered by NPR and others, this accomplishes two goals:

1. Divorces the most popular female contraception from the insurance companies (most insurance doesn't cover OTC meds), and, per the ACA, from corporations required to offer health insurance to their employees.
2. Allows the political right to appear pro-women and pro-reproductive rights, which may give them an edge among women voters in November.

But is an OTC birth control policy good for women? Sure, for some women. Such a policy would be beneficial for those women who are able to afford spending $300-600/year on birth control, especially well-to-do women under 26 who don't want to have their parents' insurance paying for their contraception. It could also be good for women who work odd and unpredicable hours, since they could pick up their pill any time day or night, not just during a pharmacy's buisness hours.

For many other women, however, OTC birth control pills this would be very bad. Currently, under the ACA, the birth control pill is free to an insurance-carrying patient with a prescription. In other words, health insurance pays the entire cost of the contraception, and the woman has no co-pay. The current system allows lower-income women more equal access to birth control. Spending $25-50/month on OTC oral contraception may be cost-prohibitive for the average woman, leading her to use less-effective forms of pregnancy prevention in lieu of the pill. This will mean more unintended and unplanned pregnancies among women who are already financially struggling. What's more, womeb with health insurance would presumably have to pay out-of-pocket for The Pill even when taken for reasons other than contraception, such as treating PCOS  or PMDD.

It's been a long time, Internet friends

It's been a long time, Internet friends. Like months, actually. I might start posting and reposting again soon. Maybe.

In the past several months, I moved. I adopted kittens. I got married. I have been busy, but I have not been at all disconnected from feminism, LGBTQ equality, atheism, or current events. I just haven't been writing about them on here.

Purity rings and purity balls

Ever heard of purity balls? Me neither, and one of Hement Mehta's latest videos totally blew me out of the water.

I came from the evangelical community and I didn't even know this was happening, but I did do something kinda similar at around 13 where I signed a pledge to not have sex (of all kinds) until marriage. I wore a purity ring all through high school. When I started getting intimate with a partner, I felt like I had lost all moral standing. I felt so guilty about what were, in retrospect, relatively harmless activities that I withdrew from friend circles and ran away from church. I felt worthless when I had done nothing wrong. Even after I stopped believing in the God for whom I had pledged to be abstinent, I felt like scum.

Even now, getting married in just a few months, there are times where sex makes me feel guilty, and I really doubt that it will change after my wedding ceremony. I think a lot of women coming from the evangelical community, even those who do remain abstinent until marriage, feel intense guilt about responsible, loving intimacy with a committed, gentle, and respectful partner because all these years they had it drilled into their brains that sex was bad, wrong, and dirty. These women feel worthless because they enjoy something so "vile."

I'd go a step further than Mehta. Practices, like purity balls and the Silver Ring Thing, which tell young girls that sex is bad and makes them a bad person are inherently emotionally abusive, and can leave permanent scars.

TV churches?

Televangelists are using "church" status to prevent release of their spending rather than filing as a "religious organization," who must disclose how they spend their donations.

Can a TV network be a church?

I'm 100% for the state staying out of church affairs, but only actual churches should be able to receive the tax and financial benefits that come with the label "church." The IRS really should force this place to change to a religious organization status. Donors deserve to know that only 5% of the money to Daystar actually goes to charities and missions.

Creationists in pre-med

When I was finishing my undergrad a couple of years ago, I was a TA for a freshman Honors discussion course who had been reading and discussing Micheal Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. Most of the course had been about critical thinking, learning how to do good research, etc., and they usually did a decent job in their essays and classroom discussions. The professor, the other TA, and I were shocked when we discovered many of them were young Earth creationists. These brilliant kids, cream-of-the-crop freshman at a state university, about 50% of them science majors, believed Genesis literally. 

Several of them will be sitting for MCATs this year. 

Since the other TA and the professor come from liberal arts and social sciences backgrounds, I had the opportunity to lecture on how natural selection works, how we know that evolution happens. how we know the age of the Earth, and what words like "theory" mean in science. The geology department was kind enough to give me some samples to use to illustrate some of my points. 

I saved about half of my time for a Q & A session, and it was clear that some of the students were hearing some of this very basic information for the first time. It was also clear that a few students had read up on some Creationist and apologetic literature before coming to class. I hope I helped open some eyes, but I fear it was too little, too late. 

When students are learning about Adam and Eve and about Noah and the flood long before they can talk, college is way too late to be talking about evolution for the first time. High school is far too late. Middle school is even too late. When children are convinced over 10-15 years that all the stories are literally real, it is no wonder that these preteens and young teens don't accept evolution like they accept practically all information presented to them in Algebra and English and US history. 

We need to be emphasizing the fundamental concepts which ultimately lead to a robust understanding of evolution (e.g., the Earth is old, animals with camouflage are harder for birds to find and eat, kids usually look like their parents, trilobite fossils don't go with dinosaur fossils which in turn don't go with people fossils, etc.) from Kindergarten on More importantly, we need to make sure these topics are not only in the Core Curriculum, but also on the test (if the concepts aren't on the test, they just aren't taught). 

When the basics are reinforced year after year, however, it makes understanding evolution much easier, and it makes believing creationist nonsense much harder, even for the heavily indoctrinated. 

Notes from the Ken Ham- Bill Nye Debate

I might flush some of these out later, but here are my real-time notes. The video can be found here . My timestamps are off a little from the YouTube video, but it should be close enough.  

Jot list:

Ham's Opening

·         18:00 minutes - No. Virtually no scientists are creationist. You found one. Cool, Mr. Ham...

·         19:10 - No scientists use "science" as a synonym for knowledge. It is closer to a synonym for "the process of  observation and experimentation."

·         20:28 - Historical sciences are testable.

·         20:50 - How the hell could we "test" the supernatural? How could we observe it?

Nye's Opening

·         24:45 - Bill is right. Science is science is science. If we couldn't do historical science, we couldn't do forensics.

·          26:00 - Great job Bill (although a bit too simplistic) Uniformitarianism baby!!!!

·         26:40 - You don't have to be a creationist to be a Christian. Yay Bill!

Ham's 30 minutes

·         29:00 - I need to look up what else the MRI scanner is used for....

·         31:20 - So I guess Ken Miller is really interesting just because he believes in Jesus, even though he assumes uniformitarianism?

·         31:50 - Bill is not a philosopher. Not his problem. Ask Dr. Garrett.

·         32:30 - SO DO BIOLOGISTS!!!! SO DO PHYSICISTS!!!! And uniformitarianism isn't absolute. Extraordinary things have happened in Earth history and those things can be demonstrated; it's the kinds of processes that do not change (i.e. oxygen will not suddenly become a greenhouse gas, glaciers won't form at the equator, etc.)

·         33:50 - You are not a geologist, clearly. Otherwise, you would see that glaring unconformity.

·         34:40 - So you don't understand how half-lives are experimentally determined OBSERVATIONALLY IN THE LAB!!!

·         36:30 - Geoscientists literally observe, test, repeat "historical science" every single day. Fossils in outcrops, man...

·         37:30 - What the hell is a "kind?"

·         39:20 - And you can use DNA, homologous structures, etc. to confirm the tree of life.

·         39:50 - So all we have to demonstrate is a couple of instances of changes between families in the fossil record? EASY!!!

·         41:00 - PLoS is not the best journal but let it slide....

·         42:10 - HOW IS THE FOSSIL RECORD UNOBSERVABLE??? Mr. Ham, can I please take you to one of any number of Cincinnati Arch outcrops?

·         43:00 - When did you establish that creationism is science? All you have done is  bash evolution. If you disproved evolution tonight, you still would not have proved creationism. You need positive evidence...

·         45:00 - So, for realz, it is telling that you can only find a handful of scientists who agree with you, and some of them are not even PhDs.

·         46:00 - Thank you, Dr. Fabich, for explaining exactly how most of evolution works.

·         47:00 - So what if Darwin was racist? Who the hell cares?

·         48:20 - Anti-God religion????? What the hell does that mean?

·         49:00 - I can see the age of the Earth.

·         49:30 - Because historical science IS observational science, Mr. Ham. You made up the distinction (and abused the title of a fundamental geoscience course).

·         52:00 - No death before the fall? So what did Adam and Eve eat? Rocks?

·         52:30 - Is the gospel really necessary to explain your so-called "science"?

·         53:00 - Oh no you didn't!

·         53:45 - Tehehe... he talked about marriage and then when Christ comes it's "consummation".... Ken Ham clearly needs some sexy time.... His wife should get on that.

·         54:40 - But you're not an academic....

·         55:30 - NO!!! She doesn't want Buddhist and Hindu and atheist and Wiccan and Jewish and Muslim and liberal Christian young people forced to believe your nonsense.

·         56:30 - You just don't get it...

·         56:40 - Divorce, out-of-wedlock babies, teen pregnancies, STDs and abortions are all more prevalent in areas with a higher density of conservative Protestants. Just so you know.

Nye's 30 minutes

·         59:00 - And now Mr. Bill Nye is bringing out the science... :)

·         1:00:00 - Why are we going to the ice cores? Cores drilled by oil and gas industry might be a better argument.

·         1:01:15 - Bad choice... They'll call each one a single snow fall.

·         1:02:00 - Mmmm... sexy  disconformities.

·         1:03:40 - Yeah, why aren't we a world of Grand Canyons?

·         1:04:00 - The classic "rabbit in the Cambrian" challenge. I love it.

·         1:05:20 - Bad choice. Never ever say "Take my word for it, none of these is a gorilla."

·         1:06:30 - What? A testable prediction of creationists just didn't work out. How strange...

·         1:07:00 - 1:08:59 - Today's 11 new species!

·         1:09:30 - I LOVE ANCIENT LAKE MISSOULA!

·         1:13:30 - Bill Nye just accused Noah of animal abuse. That will go over well...

·         1:14:45 - Excellent cladogram choice. Putting mammals to the left of the upper right corner gives a less human-centric view of evolution as it really is: goal-less.

·         1:16:10 - Tiktaalik - the ideal transition between kinds.

·         1:17:00 - Shit. Bill Nye said "sex." Oh my God. In the creation museum in Kentucky.

·         1:17:50 - If you acknowledge that viruses and bacteria evolve, then we must also evolve in order to survive as a species.

·         1:20:00 - This section is about why we accept the Big Bang. I am not really qualified to critique this, so I am going to just assume Nye knows what he is talking about. 

·         1:25:00 - Understanding of nuclear decay is applicable to medicine as well as radiometric dating.

·         1:26:30 - 1:28:00 - How could there be billions of stars further than 6,000 lightyears away if the universe is only 6,000 years old? and so on... A wonderful finale!

Rebuttles

·         1:29:30 - Why can't we observe the age of the Earth? Didn't Nye give you at least two ways (if you assume the Earth and the universe are about the same age for the sake of your argument)?

·         1:30:50 - Was it a basalt flow or was it a dike? Were there unconformities? What lab?

·         1:31:00 - K-Ar is not too accurate after a few tens of millions of years and that is known. U-Pb would be more accurate for any dates over 1 million years. Look it up.

·         1:35:15 - Two millennia, Nye. Go back to grade school on that one.

·         1:35:50 - I love you, Bill Nye. Did the fish sin? lol

·         1:37:00 - Veggie lions.... prove it. "I give you lions teeth, you give me verses ... from a book ... that was translated to English..."

·         1:37:00 - NOT 30 CENTURIES!

·         1:28:20 - It means Mr. Ham's words are somehow to be trusted over the fossils in your backyard in Kentucky.

·         1:39:10 - Thank you, Nye, for distancing us from Darwin's racism.

·         1:40:30 - The fact that you can list creation scientists, MR. Ham, proves Nye's point.

·         1:41:10 - Bill's confused because you made up the term "kinds."

·         1:41:30 - But you already declared "kinds" = families.

·         1:41:40 - But some animals came onto the ark in 7s... your calculation is wrong, Ken.

·         1:42:30 - Ken Ham's first decent point of the night.

·         1:43:45 - Seriously. The pyramids? READ THE INTERNETS!!!

·         1:44:30 - Cool. You established that scientists are allowed to say "I DON'T KNOW." Big whoop.

·         1:48:00 - You are right, Nye. You are not a theologian. You only throw out the OT when you don't want to kill adulterers or poorly behaved children. lol

·         1:49:30 - If I wasn't engaged, Mr. Nye...

Q&A (by the way, I was upset they were not accepting e-submissions) 

·         1:50:00 - The moderator made a Kentucky joke.

·         1:51:20 - Well, in context, the Earth is flat and God wants to kill people: Isaiah 40

·        21 "Do you not know? Have you not heard?Has it not been told you from the beginning?    Have you not understood since the earth was founded?²² He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,    and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.²³ He brings princes to naught    and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.²⁴ No sooner are they planted,    no sooner are they sown,    no sooner do they take root in the ground,than he blows on them and they wither,    and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff."

·         1:54:00 - "I don't know." Thank you for your intellectual honesty, Mr. Nye.

·         1:56:00 - THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH!!! ;D

·         1:59:00 - All your so-called predictions are also consistent with modern evolutionary theory, Ken.

·         2:01:30 - Yay Nye.

·         2:02:00 - Astrobiologists looking for a second genesis. Go be one!

·         2:03:44 - Live for now! Discover for now! Why else?

·         2:04:20 - Why do you have this museum is you cannot demonstrate creationism? Why did you have this debate? What is the point?

·         2:05:10 - So I was once a sincere believer who genuinely repented and sought God, and yet I still accepted evolution and later became an athiest. How do you explain that, Ken?

·         2:06:30 - Nye is actually willing to change his mind. It takes one sound paper. That's it. Ham refuses to change his mind because God.

·         2:07:30 - Nye fell flat. Sad.

·         2:08:00 - Nye came back. Yessss!

·         2:11:10 - Do you believe in plate tectonics, Ham?

·         2:12:10 - Cool, you do. Then you should know that catastrophic plate movement (like that in the pre-Cambrian) is very very bad for multicellular life.

·         2:12:50 - It is really really easy to get published in the journals of creation research. The peer review is a joke compared to the mainstream.

·         2:15:00 - Earth is not a closed system; therefore, we are allowed to build complexity here so as long as we create more randomness elsewhere (like heat, smaller hydrocarbons, etc.)

·         2:17:10 - Really? If life is not composed of matter and energy, then what the hell is it and how do you demonstrate it without appeals to matter and energy?

·         2:18:30 - Way to dodge the big question. Obviously, you are trying to get more liberal Christians to visit your Musuem.

·         2:20:40 - Nye has done a fantastic job at bringing us back to the basics of the scientific method and of skepticism.

·         2:22:10 - Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a method.

·         2:24:30 - Either you take it all literally, or you admit some of this is metaphorical. Also, the Isaiah passage you quoted earlier as God discussing the expanding universe is obviously poetry. Most of Isaiah is poetry.

·         2:26:00 - If the Bible is the inerrant work of God, then you say that killing disobedient children and taking virgin girls as sex slaves is somehow morally justifiable as God ordered it and you (I assume) believe God is moral?

·         2:28:00 - 2:30:20 - Bill Nye daftly avoids saying anything that might imply that God is improbable. Well done.

·         2:31:40 - So what does Ken Miller do? Do you really want to say that Jesus informs his science, or that his church informs his science, even though he is a pro-evolution advocate?

·         2:32:30 - So atheists cannot create technology???? 

·         2:33:00 - Nye. Stay away from theology!

·         2:35:00 - The Anthropocene is the evidence of the remarkable advantages we have obtained over other animals via natural selection.

·         2:37:20 - Again, Ken, you just explained evolution. The ones that survive, survive and REPRODUCE.

·         2:40:10 - Carl Sagan "When you are in love, you want to tell the world."

Why the Creation-Evolution Debate is Important

Salon.com featured an article about the Ken Ham -  Bill Nye debate. The authors expressed the view that evolution-creation debates are fruitless because philosophical changes in Christendom must come from the inside. The entire argument can be found here.

I fundamentally disagree. A movement away from fundamentalism does have to come from the inside, but unless pressure is exerted from the outside, there is no motive for change.

Fundamental contradiction the Bible #1

Is belief in Christ based on reason or on faith?? It seems dependent upon to whom you talk. The Bible seems to support both, but the problem is that faith (belief without evidence) and reason (logical arguments based on evidence) are mutually exclusive. If you believe in something, it is either for good reasons or bad reasons. "Neutral reasons" as a phrase is meaningless, and "belief for no reason at all" is a bad reason to believe.

So where is the evidence that this Biblical contradiction exists? In the New Testament.

 "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. " 1 Peter 3:15-16

'"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1 
~and~
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

So, either you can follow the Word of God, as written by Peter, and have good reasons (ready at all times) for your belief in Christ OR you can follow the Word of God, as written by Paul and the anonymous writer of Hebrews, and be saved only by belief without evidence or human wisdom (i.e. logic), which we call faith.

A Biblical contradiction fundamental to salvation.

Thank you, neighbors! I definitely needed MORE stress in my relationship...

I can't say this any better than Hemant Mehta, so just take it from him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpqXtmaGQhc

As a non-believer in the Bible Belt, getting married largely because of the religious beliefs of my family, I know exactly these societal pressures. Even though my fiance's family is not religiously affiliated, they are also very supportive of our impending marriage. Good to know that, as recent college grads, we are being set up for martial failure. At least my fiance and I have lived together for the past 8 months...

Here's hoping we beat the odds!!!

Tim Tebow did not bring God's Word to 92 million people

A viral meme has been circulating the Internet for 2 years concerning Tim Tebow wearing John 3:16 on his eye blacks at the 2009 college bowl championship. The meme claims after the game, 92 million people searched John 3:16 on Google.

This claim is bunk. Given that 200.5 million people in the US have Internet access, that only the biggest NFL games top 100 million viewers, and that the vast majority of Americans are Christians or were raised Christians, 92 million searches of John 3:16 by individual people is unbelievable. Even if it were true, that would mean almost all of viewers with Internet access searched the verse, and if football fans represent religious diversity in the US, 69 million searches were conducted by Christians.

What's more, Google Trends shows that, by far, the most searches of John 3:16 on the search engine occurred in January 2012, due to curiosity following an ad during a playoffs game showing footage of Tebow's John 3:16 eye blacks. Google Trends doesn't give the actual number of searches, but if we believe Tebow generated 92 million searches in 2009, he must have generated well over 100 million searches in 2012. In 2012, a little over 100 people claimed to have been saved because of the ad. So, basic math tells us a mere 1 in 1,000,000 were saved because of the ad. For perspective, 1 in 700,000 people are stuck by lightning each year in the US. You are more likely to be struck by lightning then to be converted by Tebow face paint.

But, of course, that is all nonsense, for that would imply everyone who watched the 2012 Super Bowl also watched the Broncos-Pats game, saw the ad, happened to have Internet access, and searched for the verse. Unlikely? I think so.

Check your sources. Google Trends is the expert on searches on their own website over time, not religious websites. All the reputable mainstream news sites that still have this old story up cite Tebow or his coach for this information, not Google.The only primary sources I can find cite 92 million Google searches, not 92 million people, and to assume searches equal individuals is an equivocation fallacy.

Furthermore, does it make sense that nearly 1/3 of the US population would watch a college bowl game AND have Internet access AND not have the verse memorized AND search the verse, when only 1/3 of the US population watches the Super Bowl?

It doesn't really matter though if 92 million searches of John 3:16 were made, because 92 million searches does not necessarily equal 92 million people, as mentioned above. That is an equivocation fallacy, and thus still unbelievable.

Don't make up statistics unless you wish to be proven wrong.

A Simple Case for Human-Driven Global Warming

Global warming is just one facet of human-induced global environmental change, and facet that has been shown to be occurring. Global warming is the phenomenon of mean (average) global temperature rising.

The Earth has experience global warming and global cooling numerous times in the 4+ billion years of Earth history, and will presumably continue to do so until the planet ceases to exist. The Earth (and multicellular llife) have survived both higher mean global temperatures and higher levels of CO2, and these extremes obviously occurred naturally due to factors such as Milankovich cycles, plate tectonics, extreme volcanic activity, etc. However, humans have not been around for billions of years. In fact, we have not been around for millions of years. The first remains of modern humans appear a mere 150,000 years ago. We are adapted for the kind of climate we have seen in the past 200,000 years, not a greenhouse world or a waterworld. The fact that the Ordovician, the Devonian, and the entire Mesozoic were extremely warm is irrelevant, because that was hundreds of millions of years ago.

Climate generally happens on the timescales of decades to centuries and longer. Weather happens on the timescale of hours to days to weeks to years. Climate influences weather, but weather may not directly reflect climate. So even though this winter has been extremely cold and severe in the US, it does not disprove global warming (it may, in fact, be evidence OF global climate change, but I will set that aside due to the relative complexity).

So, back to the CLIMATE issue, which is separate from day-to-day or season-to-season weather. We know the Earth is warming, and we can be reasonably sure it is due to greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are a perfectly normal and healthy part of the Earth's atmosphere. By effectively "holding in" some infrared radiation that our planet reflects off its surface, it helps keep the planet warm enough to sustain life.

In the Earth's past, we know that carbon dioxide levels and mean global temperature were extremely closely correlated (Figure 1: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/.../glob.../temperature-change.html ). Correlation does not imply causation, but we know from chemistry how the molecules of the greenhouse gases oscillate in such a way to promote the Earth to "hold in" heat, so the proposition that increases in carbon dioxide levels will cause global temperature increases is a perfectly plausible explanation. 

We also know what how carbon dioxide levels have fluctuated over the past 800,000 years (Figure 2: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg ). Notice how carbon dioxide did not exceed 300 ppm (parts per million) over the past 800,000 years. Now consider Figure 3 ( http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/.../ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.pdf ). While there are clearly seasonal variations in carbon dioxide levels, the trend is approaching 400 ppm! Humans, along with numerous animal species, have never encountered carbon dioxide levels so high!

Just as you would expect with rising concentrations of greenhouse gases, global temperatures are also rising. Figure 4 shows the change in mean global temperature as the deviation (the temperature anomaly) from the average temperature in the mid-twentieth century (a value we can assume is already elevated from what it naturally "ought" to be) ( http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.pdf ). Notice also that while there are fluctuations in mean global temperature, the general trend is rising. The rises in global temperature are not evenly distributed around the globe due to climate variables driven in part by the current positioning of the continents (Figure 5 : http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.B.pdf ).

Some object that the mean temperature of Earth is not increasing as much as it "ought." But pull out your old chemistry book and think about what happens during phase changes. That's right: the temperature does not change during the phase change, effectively letting the melting process of arctic ice "eat up" some of that excess heat.

This melting of Arctic ice is one of the large reasons why global warming is so alarming. How many global cities are on low-lying coasts? How many island nations are there? How many nations with long coasts? The economic and cultural costs of sea-level rise alone are alarming. Our planet is only years away from the first climate refugees (and some scholars will tell you we already have climate refugees because of the way climate change creates more severe weather patterns).

So, in conclusion, global warming is real, and NOT just in name only. The globe is literally warming, and we know that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the reason why. But the biggest questions are a.) Are humans to cause?, and b.) Can we do anything about it? I am only qualified to answer the first.

From wood or coal in a stove to the coal, oil, and natural gas burned in industry and transportation (starting in full force in the late 18th century and continuing to present day), we know burning of any organic results in the release of greenhouse gases. We know that modern industry burns far more organics than did earlier civilizations,who used them primarily to cook, heat homes, and forge tools. We know, as explained above, that greenhouse gases cause global warming. Therefore, if human burning of fossil fuels is the cause of global warming, we would expect to see a massive increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases around the year 1800, correlated with the Industrial Revolution. This is what scientists call a hypothesis. It is both testable and falsifiable.

When you test this hypothesis, you find that the data supports human-induced global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions (Figure 6: http://www.globalchange.gov/HighResImages/1-Global-pg-14.jpg ). Note in Figure 6 that the exponential growth in greenhouse gas levels begins around 1800, exactly as our hypothesis predicted. Note also that our hypothesis is not purely deductive reasoning, so we cannot say with 100% certainty that humans are the source of all this carbon dioxide, only that it is very likely that we are. Could there be another cause for the increase in greenhouse gases around 1800? Climate models suggest "no" (Figure 7: http://www.globalchange.gov/HighResIm.../1-Global-pg-20L.jpg ).

For more info on Milankovich cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles For more info on the climate history of Earth: http://nature.nps.gov/.../climate_change_earth_history.cfm