http://news.aol.com/story/_a/fossil-find-reveals-evolution-clues/20080625152309990003

WASHINGTON (June 25) – Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth’s history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land.The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. Even though Ventastega is likely an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.While an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish. The fierce-looking creature probably swam through shallow brackish waters, measured about three or four feet long and ate other fish. It likely had stubby limbs with an unknown number of digits, scientists said.

I am reminded of a Michael Shermer (I think) quote, which was something like “If you find a transitional fossil that fills a hole in the evolution tree, the creationists find a new hole on each side of the new find”

Pew Study Finds One in Five Atheists Believe in GodThe Secular Coalition for America Responds For Immediate Release: June 25, 2008Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679 Washington, DC ? The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a second report from its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey on Monday concluding that Americans are highly religious and tolerant of other religions and that religion is politically relevant. While none of this is news, the study?s findings about nonreligious Americans are. Pew reported that 21 percent of atheists in their survey said they believed in God or a universal spirit, that six percent of them considered it a personal god, and that 40 percent of agnostics feel certain that God exists. Conversely, among respondents who say they are affiliated with a religious tradition (Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, etc.), a surprising number said they actually do not believe in a god or universal spirit. ?When atheists are telling you they believe in God and Catholics are admitting they don?t, that?s evidence of the stigma our society puts on nontheists,? said Lori Lipman Brown, Director of the Secular Coalition for America. ?Americans repeatedly tell pollsters that an atheist is the last person they?d want their children to marry, the last person they?d vote for as President. This prejudice also appears in the widespread impression that atheists lack ethics and values.? A 2007 Newsweek study* indicates that surveys putting the number of Americans without a god belief at anywhere between 21 to 63 million are probably low: half of Newsweek?s respondents last year reported personally knowing an atheist. “Unless these small numbers of atheists have unusually vast social networks, those respondents tell us that nontheists make up a lot more than just eight or 12 percent of the U.S. population,” said Brown. ?It says a lot about the difficulty of coming out of the closet, whether it?s to family, pollsters or fellow parishioners.? The Pew Center’s press release also announced that religion in America is politically relevant; however, says Brown, so is its absence. “When you look at the results, you see the secular vote is much larger and more up for grabs than other groups who receive an awful lot of attention from politicians and pollsters. And yet with both major parties pandering to religion, our constituency is feeling more and more like outcasts in our own democracy.? According to the Pew survey, there are more than twice as many atheists and agnostics (a combined 4.0 percent of all respondents) as there are Jews (1.7 percent), and about four times as many as there are Muslims (0.6 percent). Atheists and agnostics also have higher ratios of independent voters than most other groups in the study. The overall percentage of voters with no religious affiliation, which includes atheists, agnostics, and secular and religious unaffiliateds, too, is nearly equal (16.1) to the percentage who are mainline Protestant (18.1). The Secular Coalition for America represents nine national coalition partners who share the view that a secular government offers the best guarantee for freedom of thought and belief for all Americans. In this election year, the Coalition will continue to amplify the voices of atheists, agnostics, humanists and other nontheists, and will advocate for all secular voters and help boost their visibility even as pollsters, politicians and pundits are silent about their place in American public life. The Coalition?s website is www.secular.org.

CNN) — A top U.S. evangelical leader is accusing Sen. Barack Obama of deliberately distorting the Bible and taking a “fruitcake interpretation” of the U.S. Constitution.James Dobson says Barack Obama is distorting bibical teachings to fit “his own confused theology.” In comments to be aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticizes the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.”Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?” Obama asked in the speech. “Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?”So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bible now,” Obama said, to cheers. “Folks haven’t been reading their Bible.” He also called Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application.”In the comments to be aired Tuesday, Dobson said Obama should not be referencing antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament.

YAY! The Christians are beating up on each other AGAIN about which passages they should cling to and which they should abandon AGAIN and now they’re fighting amongst themselves AGAIN because RELIGION CAUSES UNITY! Heil Jesus!OK Mr. Dobson, I guess we can just take that old passage that “is no longer relevant” and just black it out with a sharpie, right? OK, what else should we erase, and which is the perfect objective word of God?

One of the funniest Atheist comedians out there has died. He was top notch.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9oToo bad.

LOS ANGELES (June 23) – George Carlin, the frenzied performer whose routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television” led to a key Supreme Court ruling on obscenity, has died.Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He was 71.”He was a genius and I will miss him dearly,” Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.Carlin’s jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the “Seven Words” – all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day.When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

OK So this is elitist at best, but here’s the rub. Religion is a stupid thing. It doesn’t take brains to believe in stupid things. It DOES take brains to QUESTION stupid things, and then to identify them as stupid.

A study published in the journal “Intelligence” shows the smarter a person is, the less likely they are to believe in God.Ulster University Psychology Professor Richard Lynn found a large percentage of people with a high IQ considered themselves to be atheists.His survey of the Royal Society found that just over three percent believed in God. That compares to nearly 69 percent of Britain’s general population who are believers.During the 20th century, as intelligence levels rose, religious belief in 137 developed nations declined. Critics dismiss Lynn’s research as too simplistic.