Must-Read Files
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"For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the
first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has
the eyes to see them." |
| - Thomas Henry Huxley, A Liberal Education [1868] |
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- About talk.origins...
- Welcome to talk.origins newsgroup
- This welcome FAQ is posted to talk.origins each month. It presents hints and guidelines that talk.origins participants should follow if they want their stay in the newsgroup to be productive.
- The talk.origins Jargon File
- Do you feel lost when you read talk.origins? Are people
using strange terms you've never heard before? Do you
wonder what a CWACK or TAE is? Then read this article.
- On Evolution...
- What is
Evolution?
- All too often creationists spend their time arguing with a straw-man caricature of evolution. This brief essay presents a definition of evolution that is acceptable to evolutionists.
- Introduction to
Evolutionary Biology
- This essay is a must-read for anyone who wants to participate in talk.origins. It lays out the land for evolutionists and creationists alike, presenting the ideas behind and the evidence for biological evolution.
- Five Major
Misconceptions about Evolution
- One big reason creationist arguments against evolution are so effective is that major misconceptions about the topic abound. This article clears up five of the most important misconceptions.
- Evolution is a
Fact and a Theory
- Biologists consider evolution to be a fact in much the same way that physicists do so for gravity. However, the mechanisms of evolution are less well understood, and it is these mechanisms that are described by several theories of evolution.
- God and Evolution: Can
you accept both?
- Are Christianity and evolution compatible? This article makes the case for theistic evolution and shows that one does not have to choose between Christianity and evolution.
- Evolution and
Philosophy: An Introduction
- Critics of evolutionary theory very often misunderstand the philosophical issues of the speciality known as the philosophy of science. This essay seeks to summarise some of the more important recent developments, provide a reading list, and to show that evolution is no worse off philosophically than any other science would be, and that the usual arguments against evolution from a philosophical approach fail.
- 29 Evidences for
Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common
Descent
- This article directly addresses the scientific evidences in favor of macroevolutionary theory and common descent. It is specifically intended for those who are scientifically minded but, for one reason or another, have come to believe that macroevolutionary theory explains little, makes few or no testable predictions, or cannot be falsified.
- The 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability
- The creationist belief that evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics is based on a misunderstanding of both evolution and thermodynamics.
- Observed
Instances of Speciation
- Not only does this article examine in detail a number of observed speciation events, but it also discusses the meaning of the word "species."
- Plagiarized Errors and
Molecular Genetics
- New evidence from molecular genetics joins with the
immense body of clues from other disciplines, collectively
providing overwhelming evidence for evolution and against
special creation.
- On the Fossils...
- Fossil Hominids
- Much of human evolution is well documented by the
fossil record. This set of articles covers the fossil
evidence for such human ancestors as Australopithecus
afarensis, Homo habilis and Homo erectus.
Creationist arguments about these fossils are also
confronted.
- Transitional
Vertebrate Fossils
- It is impossible to to debate creationists without
hearing them claim that there are no transitional forms in
the fossil record. This essay puts the lie to that claim by
listing and briefly describing a large number of
transitional fossils among the vertebrates.
- Archaeopteryx
- This set of articles describes almost everything one
could ever want to know about the reptilian/avian
intermediary, Archaeopteryx. All known fossil
specimens are described, claims about Archae's possible
forgery are assessed, and creationist arguments against the
fossil's transitional status are dissected.
- On the Age of the Earth...
- The Age of the
Earth: How do we know it?
- The earth is accepted by scientists to be around 4.5
billion years old. But how do they know the earth is this
old? Some of the lines of evidence for an ancient earth are
presented.
- Radiometric Dating and the Geological Time Scale
- Radiometric dating and stratigraphic principles are
combined to establish the conventional geological time
scale. Scientists apply these principles to date rocks,
which can then be used to assign ages to fossils.
- On the Flood...
- Problems with a
Global Flood
- This article presents a list of questions that the
story of Noah's Ark and a global flood leave unanswered and
probably unanswerable, such as: How did all the fish
survive? and, When did granite batholiths form?
- Flood Stories from
around the World
- While flood myths are common to practically every
culture on the planet, most of them are significantly
different in detail. This article describes nearly a
hundred flood myths originating from cultures all over the
globe.
- On the Origin of Life...
- Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations
- Every so often someone comes up with the statement "the
formation of any enzyme by chance is nearly impossible,
therefore abiogenesis is impossible." Often they cite as
evidence an impressive-looking, but ultimately erroneous,
probability calculation.
- FAQs by Creationists...
- The Book of Genesis (King James Version)
- The ultimate source for creationist materials and
methods. To understand where the young earth creationist is
coming from, one must attempt to read this book as
literally as possible.
- Kent Hovind's FAQ (Creation) [offsite]
- Hovind is one of the most active young earth
creationists these days. He claims to speak over 700 times
a year to audiences averaging more than 1,000 people, and
to have produced over 700,000 videotapes on creation.
- The Answers in Genesis FAQ [offsite]
- Answers in Genesis is one of the most well known
creationist organizations. Their mission statement includes
"[providing] answers from Genesis to make Jesus Christ, our
Creator and Redeemer, relevant to the Church and world
today."
- Further Reading...
- Book Recommendations for the Creationism/Evolution Debate
- A number of books relevant to the creation/evolution
debate are briefly reviewed in this article.
- Creation/Evolution Organizations
- A list of organizations involved in the
creation/evolution debate.
- The Origin of Species
- Read the book that started it all. The full text of the book is online.
