How Self-Replicating RNA Got Made - Naturally

A hydrothermal vent on the Niua underwater volcano in the Lau Basin, southwest Pacific Ocean. The sort of place abiogenesis could have happened.

Chemical evolution in a tiny Gulf Stream - LMU Munich

I hate to say, "I told you so!", but... I told you so!

Readers of my books and blog-posts may remember how I elaborated on the ten-step process, proposed by Nick Lane and Michael Le Page in New Scientist in 2009, to explain how abiogenesis could have come about, in my blog-post Perfectly Plausible Abiogenesis, and in my popular book What Makes You So Special? From the Big Bang to You, in which I wrote:

Modern Humans, Not Climate Change, Exterminated the Neanderthals

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal man.

Credit: Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals of the western Mediterranean did not become extinct because of changes in climate — University of Bologna

Scientists from the University of Bologna believe they have shown that the climate was relatively stable for the three thousand years that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis coexisted.

This means that climate change alone would not have caused Neanderthals to become extinct, pointing the finger at moderns as the culprit - probably by having better hunting technology.

They reached this conclusion by examining stalagmites in a cave in the Murge karst plateau Apulia, Italy where Moderns and Neanderthals are known to have coexisted between 45,000 and 42,000 years ago.

What's The Point of Vine Weevils?

Vine weevil, Otiorhynchus sulcatus.

Photo: Opuntia
Source: Wikipedia

The Vine weevil, Otiorhynchus sulcatus, is an annoying garden pest that, as I know to my cost having lost a spectacular cascading orange begonia last year, can destroy a plant growing in a container almost overnight. It appears to have no other purpose but to produce more vine weevils.

The damage is done mostly by the larvae which live in the soil or container compost and eat the roots of plants. When they have finished the roots, they move into the corms and stems. Meanwhile the entire plant above ground wilts and dies.

The Vine weevil is actually a flightless beetle of the Curculionidae family. The elytra, the characteristic modified forewings that act as protective covers of most beetles, have become fused to form a protective, grooved black or dark grey shell. A population of vine weevils is always entirely female and reproduction is parthenogenic, so a single female can quickly establish a new population. No males have ever been found.

Covidiots - Mask-Burners of Boise, Idaho

Idaho Leads Way in Positivity, Boiseans Burn Masks

As health authorities in Boise, Idaho, struggle to cope with a resurgent Covid-19 epidemic, following a too-soon-too-far reopening of the economy, fruitloop Trumpanzee covidiots are doing their bit by organising face-mask burning parties and urging people to defy the order mandating their wearing in all public places, including sidewalks.

According to this report by Karen Bosstick:

Covidiots - Californian Pastor For God and Covid-19

Greg Fairrington, Destiny Christian Church. "Mandated by God to disobey lockdown"

California Pastor Vows Church Will Defy Lockdown Order

Is it really too much to expect Christians to start behaving like caring and compassionate people, willing to give a little self-sacrifice to the welfare of others or is there something deeply ingrained in their faith that tells them to be selfish at all times and never to put the needs of others above their own personal needs?

It really looks that way when you look at the reaction of Christian fundamentalist to the measure introduced to try to reduce the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and reduce the number of people killed or made sick by the virus.

Covidiots - Louisiana Christians to Cast Spells to Cure Covid-19

John Bel Edwards, Governor of Louisiana
Three days of prayer and fasting to cure Covid-19!

Louisiana Catholic governor calls for prayer and fasting to end coronavirus

While scientists are working to find a vaccine against Covid-19 - two research programmes are already producing promising results - and better treatments for its victim, Christians in Louisiana are to do their bit - they are going to fast and cast magic spells, if Catholic governor, John Bel Edwards, gets his way.

Covidiots - Christian Fruitloops Against Altruism

DeAnna Lorraine, Fruitloop Trumpanzee Fundamentalist Christian
"Face-masks are a Marxist globalist Satanic conspiracy"

Right-Wing Conspiracy Theorist: “God Does Not Want Us Wearing Masks” | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

American Right-wing Christian fruitloop covidiots are continuing their campaign to Make America Sick Again with Covid-19, as though having the highest infection rate in the world (above 77,000 new cases per day and rising at the time of writing) was not good enough.

Not only did they promulgate the covidiot notion that the whole thing was some sort of hoax - either man-made or Satanic - to stop Christians from going to church (and paying their tithes), they then campaigned against all lockdown measures and are now campaigning against wearing a face-mask.

Tsunamis Leave Noah's Ark Myth Devastated

The North Sea, Storegga underwater landslide event run-out, associated deposit locations and core ELF001A. Location of deposits associated with Storegga slip follow data in summarized [8].

Doggerland tsunami - 2020 - News - University of Bradford.

With some 40% of Americans still believing in Noah's Ark, it's necessary, even though astonishing for the 21st Century, in an age in which information is so readily and freely available, to debunk it yet again. Fortunately, two articles published recently help to do just that.

The first concerns a paper published by a team of scientists led by Professor Vincent Gaffney of the School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, England, which presents evidence that about 8,150 years ago, three successive giant waves tore across ancient land bridge between UK and Europe, in the area now submerged beneath the North Sea - some 4,000 years before the Biblical flood is supposed to have happened.

Malevolent Design News - Toxoplasmosis Triumph

Tachyzoites of Toxoplasma gondii

Credit: Bobbi Pritt, M.D.
Source: PathologyOutlines.com

Toxoplasma at the wheel: Study reveals how a dangerous parasite controls its host cell to spread around the body | Indian University News.

Another example of the length the intelligent [sic] designer is prepared to go to to make people sick (if you believe in the intelligent design hoax).

First, a little bit about Toxoplasma gondii. According to the CDC:

Causal Agent:

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that infects most species of warm-blooded animals, including humans, and causes the disease toxoplasmosis.

29,000 Years of Australian Aboriginal History

Mussel shells collected and dated from along the River Murray downstream of Renmark in SA’s Riverland.

29,000 years of Aboriginal history on the Murray – News

Does anyone still take the story of Noah's Ark seriously, apart from simple-minded creationists and Bible literalists?

If so, they have some explaining to do now we have yet more evidence of human activity from way before the alleged global flood which is central to the biblical story of a vengeful, genocidal god drowning nearly everything and everyone just a few thousand years ago.

A team of archaeologists from Flinders University has discovered evidence of human occupation of South Australia’s Riverland region 29,000 years ago. Their results are published in Australian Archaeology:

Is This Why Evangelicals Support Trump?

Study links attraction to ‘tyrannical’ leaders to dysfunctional family dynamics | SF State News.

One of the great mysteries of recent years is why apparently devout American evangelical Christians supported the very unChristian Donald Trump in such large numbers.

The answer may be in the finding by San Francisco State University Assistant Professor of Management, Dayna Herbert Walker, that there is a connection between a person's childhood family environment and the types of leaders they are drawn to as grown ups. Walker and his colleagues noticed, from an analysis of data from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study that there was a correlation between those who, as adolescents reported a high level of conflict at home and those who later identified socially undesirable traits as ideal leadership qualities.

Death of an Old Fraud

Morris Cerullo

Christian fraud Morris Cerullo is ‘alive and well’ in the arms of Jesus | Barry Duke

The self-aggrandizing, avaricious old faith-healing fraud, Morris Cerullo has died - unless you believe Christian Post reporter, John Whittle, that is. He has announced that Cerullo is alive and well and living with Jesus.

Apart from a brief mention of 'some controversy' over allegations of tax evasion by filing false income reports on three consecutive years (dismissed by a district judge on a technicality because ther grand jury which indicted him had not been told that a donor’s intent is key to determining whether money given to religious ministers is subject to tax), there is no mention in Christian Post of the unethical and ruthless way way he amassed a fortune by exploiting gullible and desperate sick people.

Civilising the Uncivilised with Humanism

Sudanese women campaigning for reforms

Sudan scraps apostasy law and alcohol ban for non-Muslims - BBC News

Good news that under Sudan's new 'reforming' Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, Sudan is abolishing many of the old Islamic fundamentalist laws of the ousted former president, Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted by a coup following street protests. Sudan is now governed by a council which includes military officers who staged the coup.

What is striking is how the laws being abolished are being replaced by more humanitarian, even Humanist laws such as one might expect to find in a modernt civilised state.

Catholic Child Abuse News - Fiji's Predatory Priests

Father Peter Loy Chong, Archbishop of Suva, Fiji.
"No allegations and we have procedures..."

Historic child sex abuse in Fiji’s Catholic schools uncovered | 1 NEWS | TVNZ

New Zealand TV has uncovered another major child sex abuse scandal involving Catholic priests, this time at a Catholic boys' school on the pacific island of Fiji.

One victim told TV1 News that Catholic priests would lure boys into their bedrooms with gifts of candy and oranges (a rare luxury on the island) and would then sexually assault them. Shocking though that is, it's come to be expected, where Catholic priests have power over children and unsupervised access to them.

But perhaps the worst aspect of the case is that these predatory paedophiles were sent to Fiji in the time-honoured Catholic Church method for dealing with sex-abuse scandals - move the offenders to a different, unsuspecting location and allow them to carry on with their recreational abuse of minors.

How the Malevolent Designer Beats Medical Science

H3N2 influenza virus particles, coloured transmission electron micrograph (TEM). Each virus consists of a nucleocapsid (protein coat) that surrounds a core of RNA (ribonucleic acid) genetic material. Surrounding the nucleocapsid is a lipid envelope that contains the glycoprotein spikes haemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). These viruses were part of the Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968-1969 that killed approximately one million worldwide. H3N2 viruses are able to infect birds and mammals as well as humans. They often cause more severe infections in the young and elderly than other flu strains and can lead to increases in hospitalisations and deaths.

Credit: CDC / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Fast-Spreading Mutation Helps Common Flu Subtype Escape Immune Response - 2020 - News Releases - News - Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News today of how creationism's malevolent designer keeps ahead of medical science by giving the common influenza virus H3N2 strain a mutation that makes it immune to human antibodies by preventing our antibodies from binding to a protein on the viral coat.

Additionally, the mutation makes the virus so good at spreading that it is now present in virtually all strains of H3N2.

The study was conducted by two researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is published open access a few days ago in the online journal PLOS Pathogens:

Southern Baptist Paedophile Convention

This collection of mug shots includes a portion of the 218 people who, since 1998, worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches and were convicted of or pleaded guilty to sex crimes.

Source: Houston Cronicle

Bellevue Baptist sued after volunteer coordinator sexually abuses teenager

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is the largest Protestant organisation in the USA and has a record of child sexual abuse resembling that of an average Catholic archdioceses. Since 1998, 218 people who worked for Southern Baptist churches have either been convicted of or pleaded guilty to, paedophile sex crimes.

All too familiar is the case of 43-year-old James Hook, a paid volunteer coordinator with the crown jewel church in the SBC, Bellevue Baptist Church, who was discovered under a blanket in his car with a 15 year-old girl volunteer. He was later convicted of sexual assault and given a six-month sentence followed by 4.5 years probation. Now the girl's parents are suing the church for failure to protect their daughter.

According to this report in Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Evolution News - Fish Teeth Refute Creationism

Radotina, a primitive jawed vertebrates with teeth from 409 million years ago.

Scientists trace the origin of our teeth from the most primitive jawed fish.

Scientists have found what can only be described as the common ancestors of the teeth of both bony vertebrates and cartilaginous fish, bearing characteristics of both types - what creationists would refer to as a 'transitional' fossil, only it's not transitional between two major branches of the vertebrates, but ancestral to them.

The teeth were discovered by scientists from Uppsala University, Charles University (Czech Republic), Natural History Museum in London (UK), National Museum in Prague (Czech Republic) and the ESRF

The ESRF press release explains:

Covidiots - Rishi Sunak Waives the Rules

The chancellor served customers at a Wagamama restaurant in central London on Wednesday.

Photograph: Simon Walker/HM Treasury

About half of health care workers positive for COVID-19 by serology have no symptoms | VUMC Reporter | Vanderbilt University

The discovery by a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, that almost half the healthcare workers tested for Covid-19, tested positive but displayed no symptoms is evidence, if any more were needed, of the importance of wearing a face-mask in all public places.

Among 249 front-line health care workers who cared for COVID-19 patients during the first month of the pandemic in Tennessee, 8% tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies by serology testing, suggesting they had contracted COVID-19 in the first several weeks of taking care of COVID-19 patients. Among these health care workers with positive serology results, 42% reported no symptoms of a respiratory illness in the prior two months. This suggests that front-line health care workers are at high risk for COVID-19 and that many health care workers with the virus may not have typical symptoms of a respiratory infection. These results were published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on July 6.

Rats! Penis Enlargement Homeopathy Fraud!

Coming up short: Journal retracts penis enlargement paper after realizing it was homeopathy – Retraction Watch.

In a nice example of the self-correcting nature of science, the editor of the International Journal of Impotence Research - a Springer Nature title - has retracted a paper despite the disagreement of all the authors, because he realised it was a homeopathy promotion with no basis in science.

The paper had slipped past the peer-review process but, when examined in detail fell far short of the standard science normally expects of medical research. It had purported to show that a drug, Impanza, manufactured by OOO NPF Materia Medica Holding, of Moscow, gave rats an enlarged penis and might therefore be useful in treating erectile dysfunction in humans. There were also claims that it increased libido and enhanced intercourse satisfaction!

The Paranoia that Causes Americans to Hate Atheists

Why Americans Hate Atheists | Psychology Today

It probably comes as no surprise to most American Atheists that Atheists rank even lower than Muslims in the American Christian demonology. 43% of Americans would not vote for an Atheist for president against 40% for a Muslim, 30% for a homosexual, 18% for a mormon with Latinos, Jews, Catholics, Women and African Americans getting 7%, 6%, 5%, 5% and 4% respectively. Incidentally, that 43% figure is close to the percentage of American adults who believe Noah's Ark was a historical event and that humans were created by magic out of dust and ribs.

Institutionalised 'Secularphobia' is normal in the USA with people giving a lower priority to an Atheist or agnostics waiting for a kidney transplant then for believers and Atheists are much less successful in custody battles after a divorce that religious parents. In addition, despite the First Amendment which guarantees freedom from religion as well as freedom of religion, it is illegal for an Atheist to hold public office in seven states. Atheists are barred from membership of the Boy Scouts, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Humanist chaplains are barred from serving in the US military.

Covidiots - Kenneth Copeland Keeps On Scamming

Scamvangelist’s Church Tells COVID to “Cease and Desist NOW”… Again | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Should we blame covidiot televangelist frauds like Kenneth Copeland for continuing to scam fundamentalist Christian simpletons, or should we blame the fundamentalist simpletons for allowing him to continue to scam them?

The fact is that these simple-minded fundamentalists have created the environment (the market-place) in which these parasitic frauds operate with the moral scruples of a bed bug and the manipulative tactics of a snake-oil peddler, in their desperation to shore up their fragile beliefs. And they will keep coming back for more the more they are rewarded for their dishonesty.

Covidiots - Israel "Has Lost It"

Israeli Covid-19 Daily Cases

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Israel public health chief quits amid rise in coronavirus cases | World news | The Guardian

Being the 'Chosen Ones' has proved to be no more protection against the Covid-19 virus in Israel, than it's proving to be in Bible Belt USA. As with America's most religious states, Covid-19 cases are rising exponentially again in Israel.

The top Israeli health official, Siegal Sadetzki, has resigned in protest at the government's handling of the affair following a 'broad and swift' opening of the economy. All the gains from the original strict lockdown appear to have been lost.

Covidiots - Texas Turnips

Pastor Ron Arbaugh, Calvary Chapel San Antonio.
"Responsible for 50 Covid-19 cases"

'I accept full responsibility:' Calvary Chapel pastor talks church's COVID-19 outbreak | WOAI

Pastor Ron Arbaugh, of Calvary Chapel San Antonio, Texas, has belatedly accepted that he is responsible for the fact that 50 of his church congregation have Covid-19, including himself, due to inadequate social distancing precautions when he decided to reopen his church.

One person is now on a ventilator. The church has contributed to the high and rising second wave now requiring strict lockdown measures to be reimposed in Texas, due to a bungled lifting of the first lockdown. New cases in Texas were above 8,000 yesterday and the trend is relentlessly upwards.

Trumpanzee Christian Fruitloop Saves the Day

Kat Kerr, Christian "Prophetess"

Christian “Prophetess”: I’m the Reason Satan Didn’t Disrupt Your Holiday Weekend | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

With news of science papers that debunk creationism again, of child-abusing Catholic priests and of Christian covidiots spreading Covid-19, being thin on the ground today, I thought I'd write about the deranged Trumpanzee "Prophetess", Kat Kerr, who featured in this blog a few days ago when she announced her measures for defending the GOP National Convention. She has ordered 100 million angels to station themselves around the town to keep the evil demons out.

Now, Kerr has retrospectively claimed the credit for everyone staying safe on the 4th July National holiday. Kat cast a magic spell that ensured everyone's safety.

It needed her sister Jen to repeat the spell line by line to make sure God got the instructions.

Covidiots - California's 'Persecuted' Christians

California Covid-19 timeline

Data Sources: Cases and deaths data from JHU CSSE. Policy actions from the National Governor’s Association, D.C. Policy Center, and Washington, DC’s Coronavirus website.

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Evangelicals Are Furious That California Temporarily Banned Singing in Churches | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

In addition to the resurgence of Covid-19 cases in California, there has been an resurgence of persecution mania amongst California's evangelical Christian community.

This time, their indignation is over not being allowed the privilege of spreading Covid-19 in the manner of their choosing - by gathering together in an enclosed space and bellowing at the top of their voices.

The cause of their self-righteous outrage?

The attempt by the governor, Gavin Newsom, to introduce measures intended to bring under control the serious and accelerating second wave of Covid-19 cases in the state. The new guidelines include discontinuing singing in church services:

Malevolent Designer News - More Malevolent Designs

Black-legged or deer tick, Ixodes scapularis.

Photo:Scott Bauer.
This image was released by the Agricultural Research Service, the research agency of the US Department of Agriculture, with the ID k8002-3 (next).,
Public Domain, Source: Wikipedia

Repression of tick microRNA-133 induces organic anion transporting polypeptide expression critical for Anaplasma phagocytophilum survival in the vector and transmission to the vertebrate host

Here's a real treat for the followers of the intelligent [sic] designer and those who appreciate the length this malevolence is going to to make humans and other creatures sick.

The first is an account of how the Anaplasma phagocytophilum, tick-borne parasite that causes anaplasmosis, manages to live in the tick which the intelligent [sic] designer has chosen as the means of injecting it into its target hosts.

Scientists at the Department of Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA and Department of Entomology, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Connecticut, USA have discovered that A. Phagocytophilum interferes with a tick gene. This gene normally produces a chemical which inhibits the production of OATP on which organisms such as A. Phagocytophilum depend. This results in more OATP and so more A. Phagocytophilum to infect a host with.

The team published their findings, open access in PLOS Genetics:

Evolution News - Beginnings of Snake Venom

Ringed caecilian, Siphonops annulatus

Dias, I - Dias I, Medeiros T, Vila Nova M, Solé M (2014) Amphibians of Serra Bonita, southern Bahia: a new hotpoint within Brazil’s Atlantic Forest hotspot. ZooKeys 449: 105-130.
doi: 10.3897/zookeys.449.7494, CC BY 4.0, Link

First evidence of snake-like venom glands found in amphibians -- ScienceDaily

Scientists believe they have found evidence that some amphibian ancestors of snakes could have evolved venom. What look suspiciously like venom glands have been found in the ringed caecilian, Siphonops annulatus. Caecilians are a group of legless amphibians that looks superficially like snakes and live mostly underground.

The discovery was made by Pedro Luiz Mailho-Fontana, of the Structural Biology Lab, Butantan Institute, São Paulo, Brazil while examining the mucous glands of the ringed caecilian. The Cell Press press release, quoted in Science Daily, explains:

Deeply Religious, Exemplary Christian, Hungarian Paedophile

Gábor Kaleta, former Hungarian ambassador to Peru and member of a paedophile ring.
"A deeply religious man who has led an exemplary life"

Photo: Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI

Hungarian Ambassador Charged with Child Pornography Pleads Guilty in Court - Hungary Today

If you're 'a deeply religious man who regularly exercises his faith', possession of 19,000 images of child pornography on your laptop will only get you a small fine of €1,535 and a 1 year prison sentence, suspended for 2 years and 6 months, in Catholic Hungary.

So Hungary's former ambassador to Peru, Gábor Kaleta, found when he pleaded guilty to the charge of possessing child pornography last Wednesday.

According to his lawyer, Kaleta had:

Covidiots - Republicans Abandon Common Sense.

"Wear a face mask to show you're smarter, more rational and morally superior to a Trumpanzee" Alex Castellanos

GOP Strategist Dismisses COVID Masks as a “Secular Religious Symbol” | Val Wilde | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

According to Covidiot Trumpanzee Alex Castellanos, one of the Republican Party's key strategists, wearing a face mask shows you're better than him. But then so would tying your own shoelaces if his pronouncements concerning facemasks is anything to go by.

Despite the unambiguous evidence that wearing a facemask in public places is the best way to reduce the person-to-person transmission of Covid-19, he has declared it to be both a political and a secular symbol. In other words, if you're a Christian and/or a Republican, you're a traitor if you take steps to avoid spreading any Covid-19 viruses you may be incubating unknowingly.

Malevolent Design News - The Covid-19 Designer Fights Back

Newer variant of COVID-19–causing virus dominates global infections | Los Alamos National Laboratory

If you're a believer in intelligent [sic] design, you'll no doubt be full of admiration for the way your designer created the deadly Covid-19 virus out of a harmless (to humans) virus which normally infects bats.

So you'll probably be delighted to know that he then added a small refinement that made Covid-19 more infective, so it eventually replaced the less infective form.

More Loopy Trumpanzees for Racism

Sheila Zilinsky. Went full Trumpanzee.

Christian Host Posts Video Showing “Demons” Around Fallen Confederate Statue | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

The Black Lives Matter campaign is exposing the sort of deranged fruitloops white Christian racist conspiracy theorists who support Donald Trump and who are against extending equal rights to black people.

One such is Conservative Christian radio host Sheila Zilinsky. Zalinsky is on record as claiming the NFL was brainwashing people with "alpha, gamma, theta waves, the delta waves lulling people into trances."

Catholic Priest Calls BLM Activists, "Maggots and Parasites"

Rev. Theodore Rothrock, "They are maggots and parasites"

Catholic priest suspended for comparing BLM activists to 'maggots’

Were you under the impression that Christianity is about caring and compassion and regarding everyone as equally deserving of life and respect as children of God, and that Christians are people who would burn with indignation at the idea of a fellow human being treated as an inferior, lesser being?

Well, it seems it's not just the fundamentalist white evangelicals who disagree with you when it comes to black people, but an ordained Catholic Priest, the Rev. Theodore Rothrock, of St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church in Carmel, disagrees with you too.

He has now been suspended by his bishop, Bishop Timothy Doherty, of the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, for writing in his weekly bulletin:

Christian Racist Gun-Nuts for Jesus

Church Faces Backlash for Giving Out Free AR-15 During Sunday Service

Preacher of hate, John Koletas of Grace Baptist Church, Troy, Albany, NY has hit on a new idea for spreading the teachings of Jesus. He gives away guns to people who come to listen to his sermons in which he explains why killing things is good, why Greeks [sic], blacks and Jews are cursed, and why gun controls are "Socialist" and anti-Christian.

But then, when you live in a society where at least three minority groups are 'cursed' you can't take any chances. What you need is the means to kill thine enemies, and the smug certainty that you're doing God's work when you pull the trigger.

Episcopalians For Bigotry and Race-Hate

Scott and Debra Volland

Mississippi Church Ousts Pastor For Taking a Stand Against Racism | Val Wilde | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

The Black Lives Matter campaign, following the casual public murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, while his colleagues stood and watch the crime being committed, has polarized America like few other issues could have done, and has force people to show their true colours and take sides. This is, after all, what polarization does.

Evolution News - How The Mammalian Jaw Evolved

When mammalian middle ear bones develop, they begin as part of the arch of cartilage that makes up the embryonic jaw. In reptiles, these structures remain connected to the jaw as developmental processes gradually convert the cartilage to bone.

Carl R. Woese Intitute for Genomic Biology | News

Hints at jaw evolution found in marsupials and monotremes | For the press | eLife

It's not a good day for creationists.

Back in 2017, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, King’s College London, and the University of Chicago showed how the mammalian ear evolved from the reptilian jaw, so, incidentally, showing how the mammalian jaw evolved.

Now researchers at King’s College London, UK, have found more evidence for this in the developing young of marsupials and monotremes.

Infant marsupials and monotremes use a connection between their ear and jaw bones shortly after birth to enable them to drink their mothers’ milk, new findings in eLife reveal.

This discovery by researchers at King’s College London, UK, provides new insights about early development in mammals, and may help scientists better understand how the bones of the middle ear and jaw evolved in mammals and their predecessors.

Common Ancestry - Monkeys and Humans Think Alike

Macaque monkeys. Think like humans.

Native Amazonians, Americans and monkeys show similar thinking patterns | Berkeley News

Humans and monkeys have similar thinking patterns, according to research from UC Berkeley, Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Recursive thinking - a cognitive process of arranging words, phrases or symbols in a way that helps convey complex commands, sentiments and ideas - was thought to be unique to humans - has now been shown to exist in macaque monkeys. This thinking enables us to arrange ideas into nested hierarchies, rather like a linguistic expression of a venn diagram or the nested hierarchies found in cladistics, for example. This ability is crucial to syntax and semantics in human language.

Talibangelical News - SCOTUS Strikes Down Louisiana Restriction on Abortion

Chief Justice John Roberts. Voted with the liberals.

US top court strikes down law limiting abortions - BBC News

Conservative Christian hopes of using the Trump-given conservative majority on SCOTUS to force their religious bigotry into law took another blow today when, by a majority of 5-4, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts voting with the liberals, SCOTUS struck down a restriction on abortion services in Louisiana.

Only a few days ago, SCUTUS enraged fundamentalist Christians by confirming that all Americans, of whatever sexuality, are entitled to the full protection of the law, so cannot be sacked on the grounds of their sexuality.

Making Excuses for God's Psychopathy

The Battle, Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665)
Sporting contest, biblical style.

Christian Apologist: God’s Calls for Genocide Were Just “Figures of Speech” | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

It's a mark of just how far decent Humanist values have penetrated into Christianity that Christian apologists are now having to make excuses for the things God supposedly ordered in the Bible that nowadays would be thought of as barbaric and unacceptable - the actions of a tyrannical war-criminal.

When it was written in the Bronze Age, no doubt the terrible things they wrote about God ordering were the sort of things you would expect a powerful despotic tribal leader to order his people to do, so, naturally, any self-respecting god would be expected to behave the same way. A brutal, merciless tyrant who rewards his loyal followers with plenty of land, war-booty and women captives and in return sanctions and glorifies their savage and brutal behaviour.

Talibangelical Christian Subversion in Mississippi

Mississippi State flag, adopted 1894, 29 years after the South lost the covil war.

Look away, Dixie: Mississippi to lose rebel emblem from flag

The extremist Christian campaign to subvert the US Constitution and impose a fundamentalist theocracy on the people, moved a small step towards its goal in Mississippi last Sunday.

The Mississippi legislature passed a bill to set up a commission to redesign the state flag to remove the racist Confederate Battle Flag and replace it with one which must incorporate the words "In God we trust". In other words, the Mississippi state government has at last accepted that the South lost the civil war and has jumped at the chance the "Black Lives Matter" campaign has created to establish Christianity, or at least theism into the state flag and to endorse a religion that 14% (and growing) of the population don't believe in.

Catholic Abuse News - A Massive Increase in Complaints

The U.S. Catholic Church Spent $281,611,817 on Child Sex Abuse Cases in 2019 | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

In the year ending June 2019, the number of allegations of sex abuse by US Catholic clergy quadrupled to an astonishing 4,434 cases - up from 1451 cases the previous year, according to an annual audit of more than 200 diocese and Catholic Church entities produced by CARA.

The report also highlights the fact that child abuse is continuing in Church establishments and that there is complacency with continued failure to publish reporting procedures, poor recordkeeping of background checks, dysfunctional Diocesan Review Boards and a lack of formal monitoring priests who have been removed from ministry.