Scientist Robin Dunbar to test new theory that religion is key to humans' social evolution

From The Washington Post (via Houston)-

In humans' mysterious journey to become intelligent, socializing creatures like no other in the animal world, one innovation played an essential role: religion.

That's the theory that a preeminent evolutionary scientist is setting out to prove.

"You need something quite literally to stop everybody from killing everybody else out of just crossness," Robin Dunbar said. "Somehow it's clear that religions, all these doctrinal religions, create the sense that we're all one family."

Dunbar, an evolutionary psychology professor at Oxford University, gained some measure of fame more than 20 years ago for his research on the size of animals' social networks. Each species of primate, he found, can manage to keep up a social bond with a certain number of other members of its own species. That number goes up as primates' brain size increases, from monkeys to apes.

Humans, Dunbar found, are capable of maintaining significantly more social ties than the size of our brains alone could explain. He proved that each human is surprisingly consistent in the number of social ties we can maintain: About five with intimate friends, 50 with good friends, 150 with friends and 1,500 with people we could recognize by name. That discovery came to be known as "Dunbar's
number."

More here-

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/houston-belief/article/Scientist-Robin-Dunbar-to-test-new-theory-that-10977335.php

Are humans special?

From The Pittsburgh Post Gazette (via the LA Times)-

Humans have had quite a ride in the 500 years since Copernicus. We’ve built and tested a rational vision of the universe in which our circumstances, and those of the Earth, are unexceptional and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. We are fleeting specks on a crumb of cosmic dust, among countless other crumbs in the briefest sliver of a far bigger story.

This perspective has guided us to the innermost sanctums of matter and to the origins and nature of space and time itself — an expanding fabric that has no spatial center, in which all places are shining examples of unimportance.

More here-

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2014/11/30/Caleb-Scharf-Are-humans-special/stories/201411300053

Pope Francis is late to the party

From The Globe and Mail-

Is the Pope Catholic? You might not think so if you’ve perused the headlines this week, as Pope Francis, who’s been making more news than Justin Bieber of late, set the media abuzz with his supposedly heretical bons mots on evolution and the Big Bang theory.

Cautioning against a literal interpretation of the Bible, the Pope told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that “evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.” Yet if we read Genesis literally, “we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.” And this image of God-as-Harry-Potter would be idiotic, wouldn’t it?

More here-

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/pope-francis-is-late-to-the-party/article21388197/

Northern Ireland minister calls on Ulster Museum to promote creationism

From The London Guardian-

Northern Ireland's born-again Christian culture minister has called on the Ulster Museum to put on exhibits reflecting the view that the world was made by God only several thousand years ago.

Nelson McCausland, who believes that Ulster Protestants are one of the lost tribes of Israel, has written to the museum's board of trustees urging them to reflect creationist and intelligent design theories of the universe's origins.

The Democratic Unionist minister said the inclusion of anti-Darwinian theories in the museum was "a human rights issue".

McCausland defended a letter he wrote to the trustees calling for anti-evolution exhibitions at the museum. He claimed that around one third of Northern Ireland's population believed either in intelligent design or the creationist view that the universe was created about 6,000 years ago.

"I have had more letters from the public on this issue than any other issue," he said.

The minister said he wrote a "very balanced letter" to the museum because he wanted to "reflect the views of all the people in Northern Ireland in all its richness and diversity".

More here-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/26/northern-ireland-ulster-museum-creationism

Vatican conference a sign church, evolution co-exist

From this morning's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

A conference on evolution to be held this week at the
Vatican is a sign that for many devout Christians, there is no conflict between the ideas of Charles Darwin and faith in God.

Devout Christians often are portrayed as if they view evolutionary biology as an attack on the Bible's account of creation, and scientists are portrayed as atheists. While there are high-profile examples of both, a truce was reached long ago in most major Christian traditions, including some streams of evangelicalism.

The Vatican conference, which marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," is one example of scientists and theologians working together to transcend the culture wars and forge a lasting peace.

At the conference, which runs Tuesday through Saturday, scientists and theologians will discuss how to collaborate without trespassing in each others' area of expertise. Locally, Duquesne University will mark the anniversary with an address by Francisco Ayala, a professor of biology and philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He will address similar issues at 7 p.m. March 18 in the Power Center ballroom. The Catholic Church has never had a rigid reading of Genesis. The third century theologian, Origen, pointed out that the Bible says God created light three days before creating the sun, moon and stars.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09060/952458-51.stm

The Darwins: Charles the scientist married Emma the Christian

An interesting piece from today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Charles Darwin and his wife's Christian faith.

On Jan. 29, 1839, in the little chapel in the English village of Maer, a religious 30-year-old woman named Emma Wedgwood put on a green silk dress and got married. She believed firmly in a heaven and a hell. And she believed you had to accept God to go to heaven. She married Charles Darwin.

As we head into a new era for a country that has struggled for too long with the marriage of science and religion, we should consider the marriage of Emma and Charles.

When Charles came home in 1836 from his five-year voyage around the world, which included the visit to the Galapagos Islands, he was already seeing life and creation in a new way. And as he courted Emma, he also was secretly scribbling notes about a new idea, his theory of evolution, in leather-bound notebooks marked "private."

He knew that his view of creation would rock the faith of Emma and almost everyone in England, and as he prepared to propose to her, he agonized. Charles' father advised him to keep his mouth shut. "Conceal your doubts," he warned.

Its all here-

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09039/947445-109.stm