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Atheism
The Atheist's Guide To

Atheism

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Richard Dawkins[1]

Atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of gods. The word stems from the Greek a- meaning "without", and theos meaning "god". Theos includes the Abrahamic YHWH(s), Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and every other deity from A to Z[2] (and 0-9, !, ", #, $ or any other character, obviously). For the definition of atheism, the terms "God" and "a god" are used interchangeably as there is no difference between a monotheistic deity and a polytheistic pantheon of deities when it comes to ..→ read the entire article

Autism omnibus trial
It's not just
a good idea

Law

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On June 11, 2007 the US Court of Federal Claims opened hearings on what has been dubbed the autism omnibus trial. This omnibus trial stems from over 4,800 lawsuits that were filed by families, claiming that thiomersal contained in earlier vaccinations, and the measles in the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine, played a causal role in the development of autism in their children.[1] In order to better handle the overwhelming caseload three "special masters" were appointed to hear the evidence in the case. Most of the lawsuits were filed in 2001 - the reason for the delay of the trial being due to the claimants attempting to find some evidence, any evidence, to support the causal link they claim.[citation needed]

[edit] Build up to trial

On October 1, 1988, the National Childhood Vaccine ..→ read the entire article  

Birth control
Part of the series on

Sexuality

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Birth control, also known as family planning, is the practice of taking steps to prevent pregnancy or childbirth as a result of sexual activity. Birth control is often used synonymously with contraception, but birth control technically includes such things as abstinence and the "rhythm method" which do not prevent conception. Abortion is usually classed as birth control since it prevents a full term pregnancy.

Some forms of birth control, such as the condom, can help prevent transmission of STDs.

This article addresses both the social aspects of birth control as well as the medical aspects, including approximate effectiveness of each method.

[edit] Birth control and women's roles in society

Easy access to birth control, including its legalization has led to women being able to more directly and consistently participate in society, both intellectually and ..→ read the entire article

Chelation therapy
Against allopathy

Alternative medicine

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Alternative articles

Chelation therapy is a practice whereby certain substances (usually EDTA or deferoxamine) are administered to a patient to "clear them of toxins". The usual claim is that it can treat atherosclerosis. Chelation itself is a chemical term describing a compound or compounds strongly binding to a metal ion. The idea behind chelation therapy is that the "chelator" binds "bad stuff" in the body, and then it is harmlessly excreted. There is a very limited number of situations where "chelation" is used legitimately for heavy metal poisoning; for example, in iron overload states where "deferoxamine" is used as the chelating agent.

Medline, the primary electronic index of medical articles, shows a comparative lack of articles about chelation, suggesting it is not seen as a fruitful and legitimate line of research. Searches for "chelation therapy" show approximately 1500 articles, most of them about genetic iron or copper overload ..→ read the entire article

Conservapedian mathematics
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The folks who write Conservapedia don't just attack anything different from them in the realms of politics or religion. Science that conflicts with their religion obviously comes in for a drubbing, even as lip service is paid to the idea that science is good. But they also get weird about mathematics itself.

[edit] The general state of affairs

Students are expected to learn about mathematics, so Conservapedia had to support it. And, in a way, Conservapedia does have what might pass for student-oriented math and science articles. While blind anti-science hysteria often appears on their front page,[1] ..→ read the entire article

Conservapedian relativity
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Simply put, E=mc2 is liberal claptrap.

The sysops at Conservapedia believe there is a link between scientific relativity (special and general relativity) and moral relativism, even though the concepts are utterly unrelated and have nothing in common other than using a form of the word "relative".

Based on this comically misguided premise, which even Answers in Genesis disavows,[1] ..→ read the entire article

Evidence against a recent creation

Contents by minimum age

Evidence by minimum age:
>10,000 years
>100,000 years
>1,000,000 years
>1,000,000,000 years

Earth Apollo17Photo.jpg

The Earth:
Yes, it really is 4.5 billion years old.
Dendrochronology
Human Y-chromosomal ancestry
Oxidizable carbon ratio dating
Rock varnish
Thermoluminescence dating
Coral
Fission track dating
Ice layering
Lack of DNA in fossils
Permafrost
Weathering rinds
Amino acid racemization
Baptistina asteroid family
Continental drift
Cosmogenic nuclide dating
Erosion
Geomagnetic reversals
Impact craters
Iron-manganese nodules
Length of the prehistoric day
Milankovitch astronomical cycles
Naica megacrystals
Nitrogen in diamonds
Petrified wood
Relativistic jets
Sedimentary varves
Stalactites
Space weathering
Distant starlight
Helioseismology
Lunar retreat
Radioactive decay

Miscellaneous:

See also
External links
Footnotes

The evidence against a recent creation is overwhelming. There is perhaps no greater attack upon science and rational thought than the doctrine of a recent creation of the planet Earth and/or the universe. This article collects known evidence that places a minimum age of the Earth beyond the usual 6,000 years quoted by Young Earth creationists (YECs). Deep time is the idea, held to be credible by natural researchers since the early 19th century, that the Earth is millions or billions of years old, rather than the few thousand of young earth creationism. The accepted age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years,[1] while the entire universe ..→ read the entire article

Evolution
This page is about biological evolution. If you are interested in other uses of the word, please consult a dictionary.
A gradually improving article series on

Evolution

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People
Science
Pseudoscience
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

Evolution refers to change in a biological population's inherited traits from generation to generation. All species on Earth originated by the mechanism of evolution, through descent from common ancestors. Evolution occurs as changes accumulate over generations. Charles Darwin recognized evolution by natural selection, also called "descent with modification", as the fundamental ..→ read the entire article  

Herbal supplement
St. John's wort
Against allopathy

Alternative medicine

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Alternative articles
Herbal medicine: giving patients an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety.
—David Colquhon[1]

Herbal supplements are non-pharmaceutical, non-food substances marketed to improve health. Herbalism (herbal medicine, botanical medicine) is the use of plant-derived substances, and sometimes other environmental substances, to treat or cure medical conditions. The idea is that ..→ read the entire article

Intelligent design
Goddidit!

Creationism

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For a look at some of the "controversies" around ID, see Intelligent design and academic freedom
Try this experiment if you ever find yourself talking to a proponent of ID. Say, "OK, for the sake of argument let's say evolution is wrong and let's forget about it. Now tell me how intelligent design works." Having tried this a few times myself, I am confident that you will be met with nothing but an awkward silence.
—Amanda Gefter[1]
Intelligent Design is just Creationism dressed up in a lab coat.
—Matt Dillahunty (host, The Atheist Experience)

Intelligent design creationism (often referred to as intelligent design or "ID") is a pseudoscience that maintains that certain aspects of the physical world, and more ..→ read the entire article

Lenski affair
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Were you looking for the Lewinsky affair?

The Lenski affair was a poorly-conceived stunt by Andrew Schlafly of Conservapedia to denigrate the groundbreaking research of Michigan State University professor and National Academy of Science member Richard Lenski, in which Lenski and his student Zachary Blount actually observed evolution happening. Schlafly's stunt backfired completely and led to one of the best responses to creationism to date. It is now one of the most famous incidents in creation/evolution circles on the Internet.

The fame of the affair left the safe confines of the Internet in September 2009 when it received a brief mention in Richard Dawkins's book The Greatest Show on Earth following a longer discussion of the results themselves.[1]

..→ read the entire article
New Age
Dolphins and money

New Age

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Spiritual selections

New Age is a catch-all term for a wide range of spiritual and social movements that developed mostly from the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Characteristic of the New Age movement is the focus on spiritual matters, with emphasis on individuality. These beliefs are often attributed to real or alleged Asian mystics, particularly Indian and Tibetan, and many New Age type beliefs draw heavily from Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism.

The New Age movement lacks intellectual rigor and shuns scientific approaches to reality, ostensibly due to the perceived separation between science and spirituality, but also under the pretense of postmodern congruity. New Age believers typically take a pick and mix approach to spirituality, adapting beliefs and practices from a wide variety of sources such as Hinduism, Neopaganism, Ufology, Zen, and any other weird concept ..→ read the entire article

Non-materialist neuroscience
Style over substance

Pseudoscience

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Non-materialist neuroscience is one of the latest fronts in the war on science. The battle has been a long time coming and it is surprising it has taken so long to get going. Modern neuroscience is rapidly reducing much of human thought, emotion and behavior into component pieces of neuronal interactions. The combination of computational modeling and non-invasive imaging of living brains has allowed researchers to begin describing how complex thought emerges from the firing patterns of neurons. In a way, neuroscience is the death knell of dualism. When materialist causes become both necessary and sufficient to explain all of human thought then parsimony dictates that references to a soul or other supernatural entities can be tossed out.

Non-materialist neuroscience is a reaction to these discoveries, a rallying cry for dualism. Like creationism and ..→ read the entire article

Peer review
Simple stuff, in theory.

Peer review is the process of subjecting scholarly work to review by other experts in the field.

The term "peer review" is typically used for scientific and academic publications. When an article is submitted, it is sent to the authors' "peers" (i.e., other experts in the same field) to assess the quality of the work. A similar approach is also generally taken to evaluate research proposals submitted to agencies for funding, such as the National Science Foundation (U.S.) or Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), where the proposals are sent out to qualified scientists to assess whether the proposed projects merit funding.

[edit] Initial and ongoing peer review

The first, and most notable, step in peer review is when a piece of scientific work is looked at by reviewers (sometimes called "referees") for approval prior to publication. Typically each paper is evaluated ..→ read the entire article

Poe's Law
Someone is wrong on

The Internet

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Log in:

Poe's Law states:[1]

Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.

It is an observation that it's difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between parodies of fundamentalism or other extreme views and their genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to have been so over-the-top that they argue he was a "deep cover liberal" trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes.

[edit] History

Poe's Law was formulated by Nathan Poe in August 2005.[2] ..→ read the entire article

RationalWiki Atheism FAQ for the Newly Deconverted
The Atheist's Guide To

Atheism

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If you found this article, you very well might have recently lost faith in your god or particular religious teaching. Some people have been raised to think that life without religion is utterly unthinkable, so a loss of faith can be difficult and trying, especially when deeply ingrained in our thoughts. Indeed, someone suffering a "crisis of faith" may wonder if there's something wrong with him/her or even think that his/her life was wasted is now devoid of meaning.

First off, don't panic! It'll be okay.

This document's mission is to help you find your way out of this darkness and confusion and into a place where you can be happy making reality-based, open-minded decisions on your own. It is by no means comprehensive, as no single document ever can be, but instead hopes to answer your most pressing questions.

Whether you are ..→ read the entire article

Same-sex marriage
Part of the series on

Sexuality

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A baker's dozen on sex
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Same-sex marriage (also called gay marriage) is the union of two individuals of the same sex in a marital relationship, with the full legal rights and responsibilities allotted to this contract in a given jurisdiction. Legally defined marriage of homosexual couples is limited to a minority of jurisdictions at this time; more common is a "civil union," which includes many of the all-important legal trappings, without the title "marriage" and the religious overtones some think are implied by the word.

Supporters of same-sex marriage may refer to it as "marriage equality,"[1] while opponents may call it "redefining marriage,"[2] ..→ read the entire article

Andrew Schlafly
Andrew L. Schlafly

Andrew Layton Schlafly (born April 27, 1961) is a lawyer and homeschool teacher in his home state of New Jersey, where he has taught at least 250 homeschooled teenagers since 2002.[1][2]

He is the founder of a fundamentalist Christian wiki called Conservapedia, which promotes extremist versions of conservative Republican and American-exceptionalist values, and a strictly ..→ read the entire article

Young Earth creationism
Goddidit!

Creationism

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If we are going to teach creation science as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as an alternative to biological reproduction.
—Judith Hayes

Young Earth creationism (YEC) is the belief that our planet and universe were created, from nothing, in six days, approximately 6,000 years ago, by the God of the Abrahamic religions. Adherents of young Earth creationism are known as "young Earth creationists," or simply YECs.

Their belief is derived from a literal interpretation of the two creation myths in the Biblical book of Genesis.[1] This means young Earth creationists believe the six days described in Genesis were standard 24-hour days and use James Ussher's chronology (or a suitable alternative) to ..→ read the entire article


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