Purpose and Goals of Creationism

Barbara Forrest explains the end result sought by many creationists.

Epistemology: The Study of Gaining Knowledge

Barbara Forrest and James Powell talk about the methods employed by scientists to "know" what they know.

The Machine

Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Eugenie Scott, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers and Charles Darwin busting a move against Creationism in a satirical video that pokes fun at the ridiculous characterization of scientists by the producers of the movie expelled.

The Process of Science

Kenneth Miller, Eugenie Scott, James Hoffman and James Powell explain the processes used by scientists to help us better understand the natural world.

Experts vs. Scientists and Peer Review

Kevin Padian talks about the scientific process of peer review and how Intelligent Design proponents avoid it.

Is Hearing Both Sides Fair?

Kenneth Miller, Eugenie Scott and James Powell explain why the appeal to fairness from Intelligent Design proponents lacks merit.

Teach the Controversy: Evidence Against Evolution?

Kenneth Miller, Eugenie Scott, and David Deamer explain how the phrase "teach the controversy" is merely a misrepresentation of fact when used by creationists to refer to evolutionary theory.

No Controversy: Evolution's Acceptance in Science

Kenneth Miller explains the lack of "controversy" with respect to scientist's acceptance of evolution.

Is Evolution Just a Theory?

Eugenie Scott, James Powell, and Kevin Padian explain what scientists mean when they use the term "theory".

Evolution vs Creationism

The first in a series of videos that address the Evolution Creationism controversy.

Transitional Fossils in 18 Minutes

Part I



Part II

[Hat tip Panda's Thumb]

The Giant Tortoise's Tale

The Salamander's Tale

This video discusses a phenomenon known as Ring Species, which provides strong evidence for evolution.

The Lava Lizard's Tale

Defining Science

In the January edition of Evolution: Education and Outreach is an article called What's So Special About Science? It was written by Ian Tattersall and does an absolutely fabulous job defining science.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

All any honest scientist is really trying to do is to approximate the truth, in the realization that ultimate truth is unknowable through scientific means and that the knowledge he or she generates is invariably susceptible to modification.

...the core of the scientific endeavor amounts simply to the corporate effort to describe nature and its workings as accurately as possible.

What matters is that science as a whole is a self-correcting mechanism in which both new and old notions are constantly under scrutiny.

For this system of provisional knowledge to work, it is necessary that, to the extent possible, scientific hypotheses be proposed in such a way that they are at least potentially falsifiable-provable to be wrong.

Essentially, to understand science, there are two very important concepts:

1) Falsifiability

Science cannot prove, only disprove. When a hypothesis contradicts observations, then it's disproven; if it agrees with the observations made thus far, it's not disproven. Science doesn't search for truth, because we can never be certain that future observations won't disprove what we currently believe to be true. And even if we thought we could search for truth, how would we verify it? We couldn't compare it to the truth, since we don't have the truth, therefore TRUTH falls outside the bounds of science.

Hypotheses that include the workings of sufficiently ineffable deities are useless to science, since they cannot be falsified. You are only doing science when you can answer the question "If I were wrong, how would I know?". When you can't answer that question, you aren't doing science.

2) Occam's Razor: the principle of parsimony

When there are multiple hypotheses that explain our observations equally (meaning our hypotheses have not been disproven) then scientists will choose the simplest one (meaning the one that requires the fewest additional assumptions).

Finding Tiktaalik

Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish, describes how he and his team found Tiktaalik, a transitional fossil that bridges the gap between fish and tetrapods.

Part 1

Part 2

[Hat tip: Panda's Thumb]

Break the Science Barrier - Part 3 (2/2)

Break the Science Barrier - Part 3 (1/2)