Latest news with #TheoryofEvolution
Chicago Tribune
21-07-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Scopes monkey trial ends
Today is Monday, July 21, the 202nd day of 2025. There are 163 days left in the year. Today in History: On July 21, 1925, the so-called 'Monkey Trial' ended in Dayton, Tennessee, with John T. Scopes found guilty of violating state law for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution. (The conviction was later overturned.) Scopes monkey trial, broadcast by WGN radio, held nation in thrall 100 years agoColumn: Returning again to the Scopes 'monkey trial,' and what I learnedAlso on this date: In 1861, during the Civil War, the first Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas, Virginia, resulting in a Confederate victory. In 1944, American forces landed on Guam during World War II, capturing it from the Japanese some three weeks later. In 1954, the Geneva Conference concluded with accords dividing Vietnam into northern and southern entities. In 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin blasted off from the moon aboard the ascent stage of the lunar module for docking with the command module. In 1970, construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed. In 1972, the Irish Republican Army carried out 22 bombings in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing nine people and injuring 130 in what became known as 'Bloody Friday.' In 2002, Ernie Els won the British Open in the first sudden-death finish in the 142-year history of the tournament. In 2008, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, one of the world's top war crimes fugitives, was arrested in a Belgrade suburb by Serbian security forces. (He was sentenced by a U.N. court in 2019 to life imprisonment after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.) In 2011, the 30-year-old space shuttle program ends as Atlantis landed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after the 135th shuttle flight. In 2012, Erden Eruc became the first person to complete a solo, human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. In 2023, the 'Barbenheimer' buzz reached its peak as the films 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' opened in theaters; the critical and public acclaim for both films led to the fourth-largest weekend box office of all time. Column: The lesson Hollywood should learn from 'Barbenheimer'? Let originality come Birthdays: Singer Yusuf Islam (also known as Cat Stevens) is 77. Cartoonist Garry Trudeau is 77. Author Michael Connelly is 69. Comedian Jon Lovitz is 68. Retired soccer player Brandi Chastain is 57. Rock-soul singer Michael Fitzpatrick (Fitz and the Tantrums) is 55. Actor/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg is 54. Actor Justin Bartha is 47. Actor Josh Hartnett is 47. Reggae singer Damian Marley is 47. Basketball Hall of Famer Tamika Catchings is 46. Former MLB All-Star pitcher CC Sabathia is 45. Singer Blake Lewis ('American Idol') is 44. Latin singer Romeo Santos is 44. Actor Betty Gilpin is 39. Actor Juno Temple is 36. Actor Rory Culkin is 36.
Chicago Tribune
10-07-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Jury selection begins in Scopes trial
Today is Thursday, July 10, the 191st day of 2024. There are 174 days left in the year. Today in History: On July 10, 1925, jury selection began in Dayton, Tennessee, in the trial of John T. Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution. (Scopes was convicted and fined, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality.) Also on this date: In 1509, theologian John Calvin, a key figure of the Protestant Reformation, was born in Noyon, Picardy, France. In 1890, Wyoming was admitted as the 44th US state. In 1929, American paper currency was reduced in size as the government began issuing bills that were approximately 25 percent smaller. In 1940, during World War II, the Battle of Britain began as the German Luftwaffe launched attacks on southern England. (The Royal Air Force was ultimately victorious.) In 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong. In 1962, the first active communications satellite, Telstar 1, was launched by NASA. In 1985, the Greenpeace protest ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk with explosives in Auckland, New Zealand, by French intelligence agents; one activist was killed. In 1991, Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush lifted U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa. In 2002, the U.S. House approved a measure to allow airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists (President George W. Bush later signed the measure into law). In 2015, South Carolina pulled the Confederate battle flag from its place of honor at the Statehouse after more than 50 years. Today's Birthdays: Singer Mavis Staples is 86. Actor Robert Pine is 84. International Tennis Hall of Famer Virginia Wade is 80. Folk singer Arlo Guthrie is 78. Baseball Hall of Famer Andre Dawson is 71. Rock singer Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys) is 71. Banjo player Bela Fleck is 67. Actor Fiona Shaw is 67. Singer/actor Jacky Cheung is 64. Actor Alec Mapa is 60. Country singer Gary LeVox (Rascal Flatts) is 55. Actor Sofia Vergara is 53. Actor Adrian Grenier is 49. Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor is 48. Actor Thomas Ian Nicholas is 45. Singer/actor Jessica Simpson is 45. Actor Emily Skeggs is 35. Pop singer Perrie Edwards (Little Mix) is 32. Actor Isabela Merced is 24.
USA Today
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Mic'd up Joe Burrow loves fossils as much as Bengals love neglecting defense
Deep down, Joe Burrow is like all of us. He enjoys a fine cigar (after completing an undefeated season and winning a national championship). He considers buying the Batmobile. And, most importantly of all, the dude loves natural history. Burrow delved into his love of paleontology this offseason as Cincinnati Bengals team activities. Fortunately for us, Netflix cameras were there filming for the second season of the streamer's Quarterback reality show. There, he recounted a VIP trip to what appears to be the Museum of Natural History & Science at Cincinnati Museum Center with a handful of teammates. The group got to peek behind the curtains at a number of fossils detailing life on earth that stretches back eras. Burrow came away wildly impressed by the experience. "Somehow there's this one fossil that proved [Charles] Darwin's Theory of Evolution," Burrow told a team staffer this spring. "It's called the Archaeopteryx. There's like 12 of them in the world, we got to see one of those. "It's like a library of fossils they don't show everyone else. It was like you go to the shoe store and they're like 'maybe we have it in the back.' And it was like, all the fossils back there. It was pretty sick." Why were fossils on Burrow's mind for a random shorts-and-helmets spring practice? He summed it up perfectly. "When aren't fossils on my mind?"
The Herald Scotland
23-04-2025
- Science
- The Herald Scotland
So we may not be alone. What does that do to religion?
While there was barely a news outlet globally that will not have reported the Pope's passing, there was another event last week that raised even more profound questions about the nature of human existence, that merited barely a flicker of attention. The discovery of gas particles on the edge of our galaxy provided the 'strongest evidence yet' of the existence of life on another planet. Read more by Carlos Alba Scientists at Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), have detected molecules surrounding a planet named K2-18b, which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms. Their research indicates the existence of a chemical signature matching dimethyl sulphide (DMS) or dimethyl disulphide (DMDS), both of which are known by-products of marine phytoplankton and bacteria on Earth, making their discovery a potentially significant development in the search for extraterrestrial life. Professor Nikku Madhusudhan, the lead researcher, said he was surprised at the amount of the gas apparently detected in a single observation window, which is thousands of times higher than that on Earth. "If the association with life is real, then this planet will be teeming with life," he added. "If we confirm that there is life on K2-18b, it should basically confirm that life is very common in the galaxy." Before we start brushing up on our Klingon, there are some important caveats. The scientists made clear they need to collect more data to bolster their case. And, even if they do find more conclusive evidence of life on K2-18b, the planet is 700 trillion miles from Earth meaning that, even if we could travel at the speed of light, it would take us 124 years to get there. Nevertheless, the discovery has the potential to be the most important development in natural science since Darwin's Theory of Evolution. If, as Prof Madhusudhan suggests, life could be 'very common in the galaxy', it would fatally undermine the fundamental premise of every world religion, that we and this planet exist at the notional centre of the Universe, both as the creation of a higher being. Rather, it would suggest that we are a local planet, located in an insignificant corner of a Universe which potentially hosts an infinite number of other life-bearing planets. The theistic argument rests on the notion that the starting point for life could only have come from a higher intelligence. It exploits the self-imposed limits applied by science which, unlike with religion, doesn't base its findings on absolutes. Even with a level of certainty of 99.7%, Prof Madhusudhan and his team are not at the standard required to claim a discovery. For that, he and his researchers need to be about 99.99999% sure that their results are correct and not a fluke reading. Theists require nowhere near such rigour to be able to claim, for example, that Christ rose from the dead or that the prophet Muhammed was the last messenger of God. In the same week that these potentially earth-shattering findings were announced, most media outlets focused instead on the 11 minutes in space spent by six female friends, relatives, and hangers-on of the billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. It says something about our priorities and the limits of our horizons that we prefer to focus on the musings of pop singer Katy Perry – 'I felt so connected to love' – and Bezos's fiancée Lauren Sánchez – 'the Earth looked so quiet' – than on the very nature and meaning of life. While this discreditable exercise in cash-burning futility merited media exposure on a scale similar to the Pope's death, with a couple of notable exceptions coverage of the Cambridge discovery was mostly limited to specialist platforms like Space, New Scientist and Nature. While Evolution News carried the story, it was conspicuously absent from any religious publications. Granted The Tablet and the Scottish Catholic Observer had other things on their mind, but you'd have thought the news would be of some interest to such outlets, if only to stand their corner. Given the centrality of religion to so many of the world's problems and to so much bloodshed and suffering, I'm never less than surprised at the lack of questioning in common discourse of its absurdity. Aside from the current war in the Middle East and the devastation wrought by Islamic terrorism, there is the long history of sectarian violence in India and the culpability of the Catholic Church, and its stance on contraception, in the spread of AIDS in Africa – the list goes on. Much of Donald Trump's regressive policy programme – including his opposition to abortion and his ban on transgender people serving in the military – is aimed at serving an evangelical Christian electoral base. The death of Pope Francis will have prompted moments of deep introspection for many (Image: PA) His administration's heavy reliance on white Christian nationalists and prosperity gospel preachers in key positions, has raised concerns about its impact on American democracy. Both Obama and Biden included leaders from diverse faiths, including Muslims and Sikhs, in their administrations and faith-based offices. Trump, on the other hand, has surrounded himself with individuals who promote a narrow and exclusionary vision of Christianity, often associated with anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigration, and anti-racial equality stances. Irrespective of whether K2-18b is the start of a new era of natural scientific discovery, we should, at least, be more sceptical of religion and the powerful place it occupies. In this country, we could start by insisting that religious education in schools focuses principally on fostering a neutral and objective understanding of religion as a cultural and historical phenomenon. While it's important for students to learn about different religions, this should be approached academically, similar to subjects like history or literature, rather than as an attempt to endorse or promote any specific faith. The Pope may be dead, long live enlightenment and progress. Carlos Alba is a journalist, author, and PR consultant at Carlos Alba Media. His latest novel, There's a Problem with Dad, explores the issue of undiagnosed autism among older people
