darwins beagle's blog

The term, "Cambrian Explosion", refers to the period of time in the fossil record in which there is an apparent rapid diversification of living organisms. Anti-evolutionists, particularly Intelligent Design proponents, have often presented the Cambrian Explosion as a insurmountable problem for Modern Evolutionary Theory claiming that it more aptly supports creationist (including Intelligent Design) theory.

Up to this point in this series of posts I have been laying a foundation to show that this characterization is not true. I hope to show that Modern Evolutionary Theory is the ONLY theory that has a chance of explaining the Cambrian Explosion. No from of creationism has any satisfying answers to the questions that the phenomenon presents, while Modern Evolutionary Theory does.  Read More »

This is my final installment in the evaluation of the book of Daniel. I will leave links to the other parts at the end of this blog.

Was Daniel really written in the 6th Century BCE? Daniel is presented as the author. He is portrayed as a major official in the administration of Nebuchadrezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius the Mede. He is also portrayed as being important during the time of Cyrus. However, even though we have numerous Babylonian records, there is no mention of anyone that is comparable to Daniel as being a high ranking member.  Read More »

If one is a vocal atheist then very soon one is going to encounter the religious canard that without God life is meaningless. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard that if God exists then he made us for a purpose and if he doesn’t exist then we have no purpose.  Read More »

There are a couple of Christians, a husband and wife team that share an account (smarterthantheaveragebear [STAB]) who have been making quite a few ignorant statements about atheism and evolution - - two subjects that are of interest to me.  Read More »

I am an atheist living in a theistic world. I was an atheist before I entered high school. The reason was that I was very interested in science and had decided that the world operated solely by natural means. I saw no need to invoke a God. It was not until after I had completed my PhD in neuroscience that I began to question further whether or not God existed.  Read More »

This is the eleventh blog in my series critically examining the book of Daniel. This blog looks at the longest and final "prophecy", the King of the North/King of the South prophecy and encompasses the last 3 chapters of Daniel.

10 King of the North/King of the South Prophecy

10.1 Summary and analysis of Chapters 10 through 12  Read More »

Creationists, especially Intelligent Design Creationists, have claimed that the Cambrian Explosion presents insurmountable problems for modern evolutionary theory. The problem they claim is that during the Cambrian period complex organisms suddenly appear in the fossil record without obvious precursors.  Read More »

This is the tenth in my series looking at the book of Daniel. I'll leave links to the other nine at the bottom of this post.  Read More »