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An offshoot of the Usenet newsgroup talk.origins, this is the essential first stop for anyone wishing to learn more about evolution and creationism. Dozens of excellent and comprehensive FAQs covering every related topic imaginable, from flood geology to transitional fossils to geologic dating methods. Very highly recommended.
Many of the most intelligent and prolific contributors to the talk.origins newsgroup and archive have come together to create this excellent weblog, which is named after the subject of a famous essay by evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould (and an equally famous bar at the eclectic University of Ediacara). Updated frequently with entries on a variety of subjects, mostly critiquing the "intelligent design" movement. Highly recommended.
An ad hoc national group working to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools and keep creationism out. Articles, Supreme Court decisions, statements from educational and scientific organizations, and the amusing but pointed "Project Steve" list.
Don Lindsay's creation-evolution page. Contains many pertinent articles on a wide variety of subjects; quite thorough. Highly recommended.
Another excellent and thorough site set up as a reply to the young-earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis. Articles cover a wide variety of questions, debunk many creationist organizations and provide a solid defense to common creationist arguments.
Lenny Flank's well-researched anti-creationism pages deal with a variety of issues germane to the evolution debate. Especially good are the articles which describe in exacting detail the transitional nature of fossils such as the therapsids and Archaeopteryx.
Todd S. Greene's website refutes creationism from a theistic evolutionist's point of view, with several impressively thorough articles detailing the undeniable scientific evidence for the antiquity of the earth.
This provocatively named site provides well-documented, cutting analysis of many specific creationist claims, showing how each one is, at best, a factual error that should embarrass any competent scientist, and outright dishonesty at worst. |
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"No man is convinced the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced it says what he means," the quote goes, and this site goes a long way toward pointing out the parts of the Bible that many Jews and Christians are either unaware of or would just like to forget about. An excellent resource for arguing with apologists. (Now there's a Skeptic's Annotated Qur'an and Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon also!)
Did a historical Jesus really exist? Historian and scholar Earl Doherty examines the question from a skeptic's point of view, drawing on numerous historical and biblical sources to build a powerful and convincing case that Christianity did not begin as a response to a historical man. Highly recommended.
Two former evangelical Christians, now agnostics, living in the heart of America's Bible Belt have taken it upon themselves to tell the other side of the story in a land awash in Christianity. Testimonials, many excellent original articles, and a hilarious dead fish logo.
The web site of James Matthew Wallace, a conservative, Republican, moral traditionalist, pro-life, U.S. Army veteran, secular humanist atheist. A unique perspective on social, political and religious issues that just goes to show there are nonbelievers from all walks of life.
The unofficial student newspaper of a fundamentalist Christian college in America's Bible Belt, the Student Voice provides a chilling glimpse into a world where absolute unquestioning obedience to authority is demanded and the slightest hint of dissent is harshly punished. There is no better illustration of why fundamentalist Christianity is a force for evil in the world.
The web site of James Haught, a skeptic and freethought writer who has published several books and numerous newspaper letters and columns, most of which are reproduced here, documenting the atrocities produced by religion. Infrequently updated, but contains a large amount of material already.
Paul Tobin's excellent and extensively researched site presents the fruits of a twelve-year journey from believing Christian to convinced atheist. Despite its name, the site deals with much more than just Pascal's Wager, presenting a wide variety of scholarly articles that debunk Christianity on all fronts.
This wonderful site contains thoughtful, well-written articles on a variety of subjects, including politics, philosophy, science, technology, religion, and humanism. Atheists and the Web in general need more places like this!
Although not written by an atheist, Brian Elroy McKinley's site is well worth a visit. Contains many reflective and moving essays on the author's journey away from fundamentalist Christianity, the personal tragedies that have shaped his life, and a series of carefully reasoned and well-placed arguments against the American religious right, in addition to original music and poetry. One of the best essays so far, in my opinion, is the powerful and poetic "Breaking Windows in the House of God".
A free e-book that offers an introductory guide to a positive atheist viewpoint.
Exalting a quality we don't have nearly enough of, Blest Be Dissent bills itself as "Not polite. Not subtle. Philosophy with a hard edge," and it certainly delivers that, providing a wide variety of entertainingly irreverent and uncompromising essays on religious and philosophical topics. |
General Science, Skepticism and Educational Resources
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The official website of Professor Stephen Hawking. Contains much useful information about this renowned scientist's personal life and professional work, including the full text of several of his public lectures on cosmology and theoretical physics.
A grand and ambitious project, the Tree of Life seeks nothing less than to build an Internet database comprising all known lifeforms, extant and extinct, classified into their proper places in the vast and intricate nested hierarchy - the branching "tree" - of four and a half billion years of biological evolution. Although not comprehensive yet, the tree is to a large degree complete in its major branches, and still growing.
Magician, skeptic and professional debunker James "The Amazing" Randi has offered a legitimate $1 million prize (unlike creationist Kent Hovind's entirely phony $250,000 offer) for anyone who can scientifically prove that they have supernatural abilities.
CSICOP is a scientific organization devoted to objective analysis of the merits of supernatural and paranormal claims in all fields, from UFOs to creationism to astrology. Publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer, an investigative magazine.
Robert Carroll's guide for the new millennium contains hundreds of skeptical definitions and essays on occult, paranormal, supernatural and pseudoscientific ideas, "from abracadabra to zombie". The first stop for anyone confronting, or wanting to learn more about, any of the countless manifestations of illogic and uncritical thinking.
Philip Plait's excellent site is devoted to pointing out and correcting depictions of faulty astronomical science in the media. Of special interest is the Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax section, which demolishes the ridiculous arguments of conspiracy theorists who claim, in defiance of all evidence, that the Apollo moon landings were faked. The parallels with creationism are instructive.
With credulity rampant in our society and many people understandably afraid of death, injury and disease, the result is medical quackery, a wide variety of "alternative medicine" treatments that are frequently completely ineffective, if not outright dangerous. Dr. Stephen Barrett provides an antidote (so to speak) to the confusion with Quackwatch, a non-profit site where qualified doctors and scientists debunk health-related frauds, myths, fads, scams, and fallacies.
A skeptical site with many impressively thorough articles investigating fads and fallacies of all kinds, with an emphasis on pseudoscience such as cold reading, self-proclaimed psychics' predictions and remote viewing.
Ever heard the story about the old woman who put the dog in the microwave? Or the major corporation that will donate a dollar to a dying child each time you forward this e-mail? Or the latest deadly new virus that's making the rounds on the Internet? It happened to a friend of a friend of a brother of an aunt of a roommate who swears it's really true. Well, wonder no more - the impressively thorough Urban Legends Reference Pages debunk a vast variety of misinformation and oft-repeated tall tales and filter the true stories from the false ones.
The name says it all. This offbeat column, written by the reclusive and irascible but nigh-omniscient Cecil Adams, has the answers to every question of importance ever asked in the history of humankind. Motto: "Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 (It's Taking Longer Than We Thought)".
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Advocacy Groups and Organizations
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A scientific research and environmental education group dedicated to the conservation and protection of the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin gathered much of the evidence that led to his groundbreaking insight of natural selection.
Dedicated to protecting the most beautiful and diverse ecosystems on the planet Earth, the Rainforest Site's corporate sponsors pay for conservation with each click-through the site receives. Visit every day. Its sibling sites, such as the Hunger Site, are set up for similar causes.
Founded in 1892 by visionary naturalists and explorers such as John Muir, the Sierra Club today has over 700,000 members nationwide, making it America's largest grassroots environmental organization. Its chosen mission is to explore, enjoy and protect the planet's wild places, as well as educating humanity in the responsible use of natural resources. As its website says, "There is no priority more urgent than saving the Earth."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil liberties organizations working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, the EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free speech and privacy online.
Dan Barker was an evangelical Christian preacher for nineteen years, devoted to spreading what he believed to be the word of God. Then he saw the light. Today, he's the president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to keep church and state separate in America and educate the public about the views of freethinkers, and this atheist is proud to be a member dedicated to helping him achieve that goal. Publisher of Freethought Today, an excellent atheist periodical.
Americans United is a nonprofit advocacy group working with lawmakers at all levels to maintain the "wall of separation between church and state" (as Thomas Jefferson wrote). AU and its executive director, Rev. Barry Lynn, defend the right to freedom of conscience against militant conservative Christian groups who would remake this nation into a theocracy. They also maintain an excellent weblog, aptly titled The Wall of Separation.
The ACLU is America's guardian of liberty, a public interest organization working in courts, legislatures and communities to protect the fundamental freedoms granted to all citizens by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Today, the ACLU's mission is more relevant and important than ever as the government continues its attempts to infringe constitutional rights in the name of fighting terrorism.
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Andreas Heldal-Lund maintains this site dedicated to exposing the truth about the dangerous cult known as the Church of Scientology. A stark lesson on the dangers of unchecked religious mania and the susceptibility of the human mind to brainwashing.
Orbiting above the distortion of the Earth's atmosphere, NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope sees the raw beauty of the cosmos in exquisite detail. This public site contains a full-color archive of many of Hubble's most striking images, including the famous "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula and pictures from HST's powerful new Advanced Camera for Surveys.
This NASA site contains the most detailed true-color images of the Earth from space in existence, taken by orbiting observation satellites. All the pictures, but especially the one of humanity's artificial lights glowing from a darkened Earth at nighttime, are simultaneously beautiful and humbling, serving to remind us of the fragility of our only home.
An invaluable resource for Internet security and computer tips in general. The articles pertaining to file download spyware, distributed denial of service attacks and firewall efficacy are likely to inspire some (probably long overdue) paranoia about your computer's health and safety.
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