Kids Can Press: "Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be"

available via amazon.com

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be is a straight-ahead introduction to the fact of evolution, to its mechanisms, and to the misunderstandings that surround it. The book aims to explain how evolution works ??? and how we know for a fact that it happens. It is suitable for readers aged 8 ??? 13.

There are many fine kids books about evolution, but this one is distinguished by its skeptical pedigree. While laying out the evidence for evolution, this book also takes a critical look at common objections to evolutionary theory. Those pseudoscientific notions (???Isn???t there a dinosaur still alive in Africa someplace? Doesn???t that mean evolution didn???t happen????) are major barriers to understanding for many people. Luckily, getting to the bottom of those sorts of questions is what skeptics do.

The writing is as clear as I can possibly make it ??? and then some. Nothing teaches you to strip out ambiguity and jargon like writing for kids.

via skepticblog.org

the new book just out by Junior Skeptic columnist Daniel Loxton, this one goes out to that teacher who told Kaelin he couldn't do his science fair project on Darwin because the topic was "too difficult"

The Kids Are Alright

In the UK, the dates are a little different but the recent drop is similar: crime rose up to the mid 1990s and then fell back down to where it started (source):

The picture is roughly the same in other industrialized countries. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of crime is committed by young people (specifically young men), this is evidence that something is not rotten in the state of today's yoof.

That's in terms of how they relate to others - what about how they feel about themselves? Have rates of mental illness increased? That's a difficult one because mental illness statistics are problematic, but in terms of the body count, suicide rates in young people have declined, albeit slightly, over the same period (source US, UK).

We don't know why crime rates fell. Everyone agrees that it happened, but everyone has their own ideas as to the cause, ranging from more abortions (the "Freakonomics theory"), to less lead pollution, to cellphones making it easier to report crimes, to... I'm sure you can make up your own. Ditto for suicide.

The point is, whatever reduced them, it's unlikely that something else was acting to increase them by any significant amount over the same period. It's possible - maybe something about 21st century life causes loads of crime and suicide, but luckily, some other mystery factor(s) reduced them even more at just the right time. But that's pretty implausible; if nothing else, Occam's razor tells us not to multiply explanatory factors unnecessarily. Which means it's implausible that the internet, video games, and the rest, are causing any significant degree of harm.

via neuroskeptic.blogspot.com

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testing the post.ly

Consecrated Laptops

Will Pavia of London's The Times reports on efforts by the English Church to incorporate the blessing of modern technology, including ubiquitous Apple products such as the smart phone, into its centuries-old liturgy. The Church's willingness to adapt is evident, as Pavia reports, since "none had been brave enough to adapt its ceremonies to address the modern mysteries of 3G network coverage, iPhone apps and variable battery life" before the new liturgy was held January 11th at St. Lawrence Jewry in the City of London Corporation. Part of St. Lawrence's success in this endeavor is due to Canon Parrott, who exhibits a charisma and dynamism absent in many of England's quickly-emptying churches. "In his former parish", Pavia reports, "he once dressed up as a Christmas tree to promote the message of Christmas".

At first, this novel practice may appear to many as bizarre, newfangled, and even irreverent, as though the timeless character of the liturgy has been diluted. But this rite may not seem so bizarre as one might first think. In the Middle Ages, Pavia notes, laborers would commemorate Plow Monday by bringing their plows to the church door and leaving them there to be blessed by the clergy. Thus, ecclesiastical adaptation to modern-day needs and interests is not a new phenomenon; the Church (at that time the Universal Church, since the English Church had not yet been established) has long been appealing to its laity with innovations which would have been highly personal for, and contemporary with, them.

Why do congregation members bring their plows and laptops to church to be blessed? The ritual may have deeper and more anthropologically significant roots than we imagine...

Image and Source: The Times

via Consecrated Laptops: Exploring Twenty-first Century Liturgy