Declining Church Weddings in Spain

Church weddings hit historic low in Spain - Olive Press News Spain

Spain has to be one of my favourite countries and not just for the sun, sand and sangria.

But one thing that used to put me off was the overt religiosity. If you don't like public displays of piety don't go there in Holy Week (Semana Santa) - the week leading up to Easter. Whole town centres will be closed and antiquities made inaccessible because one church or another is having one of those bizarre processions where dozens of men in costumes carry immensely heavy tableaux depicting Jesus and Mary.

Was Human Intelligence Made Possible By A Virus?

Viruses in the genome important for our brain | Lund University.

Well no, perhaps human intelligence was not caused by a virus as such but according to new research, its evolution may well have been made possible by an ancient retrovirus which infected an early vertebrate ancestor.

In a blog just a couple of days ago, I explained the origin of the endogenous retroviruses (EVRs) which now form 5%-10% of the human genome, much of it believed to be junk. I also explained that some of it might well have been exapted for other purposes, just as you might expect of a lot of 'spare' DNA hanging around for tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of years.

Catholic Influence Waning in The Philippines

Manilla Slum

Duterte orders full implementation of modern family planning by 2018 - CNN Philippines

Good news last Wednesday from the normally devoutly Catholic Philippines, where, as in the rest of the civilised world, secularisation and rejection of papal authority seems to be gaining ground.

According to CNN, President Rodrigo Duterte signed an executive order providing funds and support for modern family planning, in a bid to make it fully available to the poor by 2018. This comes at the end of a titanic 16 year battle with the Catholic Church which had seemed to have ended in victory for secularists and those campaigning for an end to poverty in 2012.

Something Good From Religion!

Just occasionally, something good can come from religion!

Take for example, something that you'll see everywhere in Lisbon, Portugal, and in most other Portuguese-speaking countries - the wonderful pastel de nata or custard tart!

You see them everywhere in Portugal, in specialist shops and cafés and street vendor's vans. They are consumed in vast quantities and not just by tourists experimenting with local cuisine but by the Portuguese themselves as snacks and treats and just because they are sublimely delicious, glorious in the mouth and very, very moresome. Eaten warm, they are a delight of crisp pastry case and lush, soft egg custard, often flavoured with a light sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar. One is never enough!

Something Fishy About Retroviruses

Un-rooted phylogenies, estimated from a reverse transcriptase protein alignment.

Marine origin of retroviruses in the early Palaeozoic Era | Nature Communications.

Retroviruses are enough to induce extreme denialism in creationists because they can't be explained in terms of intelligent (sic) design, or design of any sort, but they can easily be explained by standard genetic evolutionary theory. In fact, they can only be explained by evolution.

Retroviruses are a class of related RNA viruses which, on gaining entry to a host cell, insert the DNA counterpart of their RNA into the genome, making themselves practically invisible to the normal antibody defences of the host. They can lay dormant for many years before being activated and, if they infect the germ-line cells, can be passed on to the next generation.

Bacterial Evolution Recorded in Byzantium

The skeleton of a woman who died 800 years ago on the outskirts of the ancient city of Troy in modern Turkey

Photo: Gebhard Bieg

Byzantine skeleton yields 800-year-old genomes from a fatal infection | University of Wisconsin-Madison News.

A 30 year-old woman who died 800 years ago in what was Troy has unwittingly left us a snapshot of evolving bacteria and a serious infection in humans as it was 800 years ago.

The bacteria were recovered from calcified nodules found just below the ribs of a skeleton of the woman who died during pregnancy and who showed skeletal evidence of a hard, agrarian existence which may have made her vulnerable to infection. The recovered genome of two species of bacteria are of such high quality that they can be used to compare changes in one of the bacteria, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, in the intervening 800 years. The other bacteria, Gardnerella vaginalis, showed little change.

Abstract
Pregnancy complications are poorly represented in the archeological record, despite their importance in contemporary and ancient societies. While excavating a Byzantine cemetery in Troy, we discovered calcified abscesses among a woman’s remains. Scanning electron microscopy of the tissue revealed ‘ghost cells’, resulting from dystrophic calcification, which preserved ancient maternal, fetal and bacterial DNA of a severe infection, likely chorioamnionitis. Gardnerella vaginalis and Staphylococcus saprophyticus dominated the abscesses.

Early Neanderthals Had Religion Before Modern Humans?

Early Neanderthal constructions deep in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France | Nature Letters.

This paper passed beneath my radar last August but it illustrates something rather nice about science - the way it continually challenges our assumptions and, if we are honest, causes us to change our minds and revise our understanding. It also shows that Neanderthals may have had religion before modern humans had left Africa.

The paper deals with the discovery in a French cave of artefacts which could only have been made by Neanderthals and a very long time ago.

Ask And It Shall Be Given

Arkansas State Rep. Micah Neal, Republican.
Asked for and was given $38,000 in bribes.

Evangelical Christian Arkansas Republican pleads guilty in $600K Bible college bribery scheme

A couple of Good Christian principles seem to have motivated evangelical Arkansas Republican State representative, Micah Neal. He appears to subscribe fully to the idea that:

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)

Malevolent Design or Evolution?

Carla Cerami, M.D., PhD., is the lead scientist on the study and said its results reveal the relationship between anemia, iron supplementation and malaria risk.

Anemia Offers Stronger Protection Than Sickle Cell Trait Against the Erythrocytic Stage of Falciparum Malaria and This Protection Is Reversed by Iron Supplementation - EBioMedicine

I've yet to find an intelligent (sic) design advocate who doesn't believe their putative designer is anything other than the god they purport to believe in, whether they call it God, Allah, Dios, Gott, Yahweh or any other of the names for the god of the Bible and Qur'an.

It's fair to assume therefore that this putative intelligent designer, in the minds of its advocates, has all the characteristics they assign to their particular version of this god. This includes having made humans as it's special creation with everything else there merely to serve the needs of these special human creations. So this open-access paper presents intelligent (sic) design advocates with a special problem. If it was intelligently designed, there is no way these findings can be presented as anything more than a work of extreme malevolence and mendacious sadism.

Signals From Space - Keep Calm and Carry On!

Source of mysterious deep space radio wave discovered for the first time | Science | The Guardian

Scientists have identified the source of a pulse of radio signals first detected in 2016 of a type only known about since 2007.

The so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) most probably came from a dwarf galaxy some 3 billion light years from Earth, so the pulse only began its journey when Earth was just a few million years old, maybe when life was just getting going.

But it's nothing for alien conspiracists to get excited over; nor is it anything for creationists to start to panic over. It almost certainly isn't a signal from some other intelligence in a distant galaxy. However, exactly what it is is still a bit of a mystery.

Christian Crime Wave

Pastor John Thomas Lindsey, armed robber

Church Pastor Arrested For Nine Armed Robberies in Charlotte | WSOCTV.com

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked him to forgive me." - Emo Philips

It seems that John Thomas Lindsey, 47, a pastor at True Love Church of Refuge, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA also understood that basic Christian principle and the great benefit to be had from having a faith that means a few magic words can conveniently re-set your sin counter to zero without needing to make reparation to those you have wronged. He has been arrested and charged with nine counts of armed robbery!

After enquiries from a local tv station, Chanel 9, the True Love Church of Refuge issued the following statement:

We, the leadership and membership of True Love Church of Refuge, are deeply saddened and disappointed that our leader and brother, John Thomas Lindsey, is facing charges associated with criminal activity. Though we denounce any involvement he may have had, we love him and will continue to pray for him. The ministry will continue to stand strong despite the latest allegations and will continue to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Religious Persecution - Spain and Portugal Making Amends

Expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal following the Alhambra Decree, 1492.

Source: Wikipedia - History of the Jews in Spain

Brexit vote sparks rush of British Jews seeking Portuguese passports | World news | The Guardian

News that large numbers of British Sephardic Jews are applying for Portuguese and Spanish citizenship in order to retain their citizenship of the European Union when Britain leaves has prompted me to look a little deeper into the historic background to this story.

Study of Spanish history is well worthwhile if you want to see how religion brutalises people and poisons communal relations. It's not the only example, of course, as examples can be found in the history of just about every European country but, outside the Balkans, Islam was not normally involved; inter-communal strife and bloodshed normally being confined to anti-Semitic Christians or different warring Christian sects. Spain managed all the blood-letting, persecution and hate perfectly well without Protestantism to provide an excuse.

Rwanda Football Moves to Outlaw Witchcraft - Seriously!

Witchcraft!

FERWAFA sets tough measures to curb ‘witchcraft in sports’ - The New Times | Rwanda

The Rwandan Football Federation (FERWAFA) has acted decisively to clean up the game following a serious spell-casting incidents in a league match which rocked the Rwanda football world a week ago.

An emergency meeting between the executive committee of the Association and all First Division football club presidents was call following the match in Huye stadium between Mukura Victory Sports and Rayon Sport. The game saw clashes on the pitch with Mukura players accusing a Rayon player, striker Moussa Camara, of gaining an unfair advantage and scoring a goal using witchcraft. The meeting decided unanimously that henceforth:

Brits Would Now Vote 'Remain' If Given The Chance

Source: WiN/Gallop International - End Of Year Survey 2016 (Page 32)

Every country surveyed would now vote Remain in an EU referendum... Including Britain | indy100

More evidence, if more were needed, that the 'Leave' vote in the EU referendum was a mistake. A clear majority of Brits (54%), according to an EU-wide WiN/Gallop International poll published a couple of days ago, would now vote 'Remain' if the referendum was repeated. Not a single country would have voted to leave.

It is clear now that a very large number of people who voted 'Leave' either did so believing their vote would not affect the result because all the polls were telling us that the vote would be to stay in, or they realise now they were lied to and, in the cold light of dawn, realise that leaving the EU will not bring the benefits they were led to believe.

What Does Terrorism Tell Us About Religion?

YouGov | What the world thinks.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter, martyr, liberator or defender. It's just a matter of perspective; of the perception of right and wrong.

This was illustrated by the results of the above YouGov poll published recently. The question asked of the 4812 respondents, weighted to make them representative of the GB population, was, "Do you think terrorist acts that are carried out by Muslims do or do not tell us anything about the nature of Islam?"


The result by political view was (terrorist acts carried out by Muslims):

Pope Francis Aware Of Child-Abusing Argentinian Priest



Priests the Rev. Nicola Corradi (wheelchair) and the Rev. Horacio Corbacho, left.

Photo credit: AP/Emmanuel Rodriguez Villegas

Pope Francis 'told about alleged child rapist' two years before his arrest | The Independent:

You might expect the Argentinian Catholic cleric, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to be especially interested in what happens to Argentinian school children, especially when, as Pope Francis, he has expressed determination to put an end to the scandals of child-abuse by Catholic priests that have engulfed just about every Catholic diocese throughout the world.

But not so, it seems.

In 2014, Pope Francis was allegedly made aware that the Catholic priest, the Rev Nicola Corradi, had been transferred from Italy to Argentina after being accused of abusing children at the Verona school of the Antonio Provolo Institute for hearing-impaired children. He has now been arrested and charged with raping children at the Institute's school in Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza Province, Argentina, 620 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. According to the the Independent:

It's Time To Disestablish the Church of England

The Lords Spiritual

With the news of yet another fall in the number of believers in the UK, the Church of England's claim to be the official church in England and Wales (and by extension though not in law, in Scotland and Northern Ireland) is now surely untenable.

Even taking all religions and different churches into account, those who actively believe there is no god or 'higher power' have a ten percent lead over those who still believe in a god or a higher power of some sort. Within that small and dwindling minority, Anglicans are but one group amongst many that includes Catholics, Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Mormons, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais, Shintoists, etc., etc., etc.

Fall in Religious Belief in UK Accelerates

Those saying that they do not believe in any god or higher spiritual power has gone up from 33 to 38 per cent; those saying they believe in a god or a higher power has declined from 32 to 28 per cent.

Getty Images

Belief in God slumps after turbulent year | News | The Times & The Sunday Times

One of the few bits of good news to come at the end of 2016, and maybe because 2016 has been such an awful year, is that decline in religious belief in the UK, according to a poll commissioned from YouGov by Times Newspapers, has accelerated, falling by a full four percentage points in a single year.

This is one of the biggest falls ever recorded and comes at the end of a year which saw the Brexit debacle, the election of Donald Trump, supported by a lot of very un-Christian Christians, an asylum-seeker crisis in Europe caused by warring religious factions in the Middle East, some appalling religiously-inspired terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere and the deaths of several poplar celebrities.

Toothless Old Dinosaur Bites Creationists!

Limusaurus inextricabilis (Artist's impression)

Extreme Ontogenetic Changes in a Ceratosaurian Theropod: Current Biology

Creationists are probably getting sick and tired of having to deny all the evidence that birds are evolved dinosaurs that has been flooding into the scientific literature over the last few years, but here's some more.

Not only is this pretty convincing evidence, if any more were needed, but it's an example of that other thing that creationists must be sick and tired of having to deny - a transitional species! Creationists like to pretend transitional species and evidence that birds evolved out of therapod dinosaurs is as rare as hen's teeth. It's doubly ironic therefore that this find helps explain just why hen's teeth are so rare - unlike the evidence for the evolution of birds from dinosaurs!

It was discovered by a team from George Washington University visiting the Gobi Desert in Central Asia.

By examining a series of nineteen fossils of the species Limusaurus inextricabilis, a therapod dinosaur from

How Science Works - Big Changes Evolved Small Cells

Photomicrograph showing a blood smear with the large red blood cells of the African clawed frog and the small red blood cells of a rodent side-by-side.

Photo credit: Photomicrograph by Adam Huttenlocker
Wood mouse by Anne Burges
African clawed frog by Tim Vickers

Bone Microvasculature Tracks Red Blood Cell Size Diminution in Triassic Mammal and Dinosaur Forerunners: Current Biology.

One of the requirements for a highly active species, especially one capable of scurrying around, is to be able to get oxygen around the body quickly to keep the tissues supplied with enough to maintain the high metabolic activity.

This in turn means getting the oxygen-carrying blood cells into the tissues as close to the point of need as possible and this means having a rich supply of small capillaries through which small red blood cells can pass.

Why small red blood cells? Quite simply because small is more efficient. It is quicker to get oxygen out of a small cell than a large one because the surface area