JK Wedding Video Now Helping to Prevent Domestic Violence

I'm sure many of you have seen the "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" viral video that is on YouTube (and recently discussed on Chalicechick's blog).

The song used in the video is by Chris Brown who is awaiting sentencing for domestic violence.

Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz (the wedding couple) have created a web site with their wedding dance video that is asking for donations to support the Sheila Wellstone Institute, an organization dedicated to ending domestic violence in our communities.

This seems like a very generous and responsible way for this couple to use their "accidental fame."

Ministers and Professional Ethics

I'm writing this as a layperson in response to the recent blog criticisms from some Unitarian Universalist ministers who have been critical of the new UUA President Rev. Peter Morales and/or recent ceremonies at General Assembly.

I'm not providing links to these critical blogs.

But I will highlight the following guidelines from the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association's "Code of Professional Practice":

I will stand in a supportive relation to my colleagues and keep for them an open mind and heart.

***

I will not speak scornfully or in derogation of any colleague in public. In any private conversation critical of a colleague, I will speak responsibly and temperately.

So ... even if you think that Peter Morales was the worst possible choice for UUA President and you're still grieving over the the loss of Laurel Hallman, should you be expressing your concerns in a public blog setting for all of us to read?

Is expressing the very deep hurt that some of you are feeling the best way to embody the values in your ministerial code of ethics?

And if you think that a recent ritual at General Assembly was totally wrong for polity or other reasons, is a public blog the best setting for expressing these thoughts?

Again, does this embody the values in the ministerial ethics that all of you affirm?

I'm not telling anyone what to say, think, or feel. I'm simply asking if a public blog conversation about these issues is appropriate.

Apparently the answer to "WWJD" is writing "The God Delusion"

Here's a quote from British philosopher AC Grayling from an interview in the Guardian news web site:

I would imagine Jesus was a kind of Jewish reformer. If you were looking for an equivalent to the figure you dimly perceive through the gospels it would probably be a Richard Dawkins.

Why pareidolia doesn't mean a goddamned thing

Good Samaritan

One gets the feeling this is the response that Jesus would have received if he told the famous parable to a Unitarian Universalist crowd.

Richard Feynman on doubt, uncertainty, and religion

As a religious tradition, Unitarian Universalism has been very comfortable embracing doubt and uncertainty (and they share this with other liberal religious traditions).

And this may be one reason that we seem to have growth issues -- it's not easy to market uncertainty (at least that's what I've read on the UU-Leaders email list from UU church consultant Mike Durall).

Science as a form of "faith"??

About one month ago, a Unitarian Universalist theologian on a UUA-sponsored email list claimed that modern science is a form of "faith" and a form of theism -- here's the first part of this claim:

Modern science presupposes confidence (or faith) that the same physical laws always apply throughout the universe.

Actually, the "confidence" that scientists have regarding physical laws applying to places beyond our local surroundings isn't a "faith" issue.

It's a result of empirical observations coupled with parsimony (aka "Occam's Razor").

That leads us to a very reasonable working assumption of the same physical laws applying throughout the universe.

The same laws of physics developed by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc to explain the motion of objects on our Earth also appear to work very well in space for predicting the paths of artificial satellites and space probes, planets, and stars.

The same spectrographic pattern that indicate the presence of chemical elements observed on the Earth are also observed in planets and stars far away from us.

One simple explanation to explain the commonality in physical and chemical observations on the Earth and in the heavens is that the same physical laws apply in both places.

A more complex explanation would be that there are different physical laws on Earth and in the heavens that appear to produce the same results in terms of motion and spectroscopic analysis.

However, the more complex explanation runs into problems due to "Occam's Razor" - a very useful principle for evaluating competing scientific explanations for phenomena.

One short definition of "Occam's Razor" is the following:

" ... that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory."

So ... the simplest explanation for the accumulated facts and observations that we have comparing chemistry and physics on Earth and the heavens is that the same physical laws apply both here and elsewhere. And so far, this assumption has worked very well for us.

Of course, this isn't written in stone and future exploration may change or modify the assumption of physical laws applying in all places.

Here's the rest of this theological claim about the sciences:

If scientific experiments produce contradictory evidence, scientists do not accept it, no matter, how many empirical tests may replicate it. The scientists' faith can be rightly called philosophical monotheism (even if they call themselves atheists).

The idea that scientists routinely reject evidence just because it contradicts existing theories is an astounding claim that borders on the outrageous. I would like some well-documented examples to back up this claim.

I'm not working as a scientist in my job today, but my college education was in the natural sciences (microbiology with a sprinkling of physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, and applied mathematics). And my 1977-1981 education is a bit rusty.

Based on what I remember about the history and philosophy of the sciences, this is a very inaccurate depiction of how the sciences works.

It may be painfully slow to watch new results move from new and untested to established science but that's a safeguard to keep us from deceiving ourselves.

Remember that we are talking about a human-run enterprise and there are very human imperfections in how we do science.

A good example of the human imperfections affecting the work of science was difference in the acceptance of the results of the 1944 "Avery-MacLeod-McCarty" experiments and the 1952 "Hershey-Chase" experiments.

Both experiments were used to demonstrate that genetic information was contained in DNA and not proteins. The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiments were chemically much more "rigorous" than the Hershey-Chase experiments but the social climate among biologists in the 1940s was less accepting of the idea that DNA contained genetic information and was anything other than a dull and boring polymer.

Hershey and Chase built on Avery's work and their experiment was more "convincing" because the scientific audience was ready for the results. There was also the comfortable familiarity that the early molecular biologists had with the E. coli - T-2 bacteriophage virus experimental model that Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase used.

However, there are examples of rigorous experiments that changed how we view the world and how observations can change previously held ideas about creation:

• Luria-Delbrück experiment (established that variation -- the raw material in natural selection -- arises through a random undirected process)
• Michelson-Morley experiments ("the most famous failed experiment" -- this experiment helped disproved the theory that light required an invisible "luminiferous aether" to move across a vacuum and led to Einstein's theory of special relativity)
• Evelyn Hooker's research (she establishing that homosexuals were as mentally healthy as heterosexuals -- her work led to changes in social attitudes and the eventual decision that homosexuality is not a mental illness)

There are safeguards built-in to ensure that we don't deceive ourselves when science is done properly:

• Falsifiability -- Can a scientific claim tested and proven, in principle, false?
• Reproducibility -- Can the results be verified independently? For historical sciences like paleontology and astronomy, are other researchers allowed access to the observations (e.g. fossils, raw astronomical data, etc)?

And many of the methods of science (double-blind experiments, statistical analysis, etc) are some of tools we do to keep from deceiving ourselves into "discovering" what we want to believe to be "true" when what we want to believe may not be an accurate description of creation.

Keep in mind that many of the "new atheist" writers like Daniel Dennett who are approaching religion with the same methodology that has been proven successful in the sciences are not trying to be jerks who want to piss off religious people.

It's just that the tools of science have been very useful for learning more about creation (and religions certainly are a part of creation).

And who would be against exploring the idea that religions are at least partially natural phenomena?

So Religious Bigotry and Stereotyping is OK if Atheists are the Target? (Response to Charlotte Allen)

Here is my response to Charlotte Allen's recent column in the Los Angeles Times ("Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining," LA Times, 17 May 2009):

Dear Editors,

I was shocked to read Charlotte Allen's recent display of religious bigotry and stereotyping in your paper. Ms. Allen's essay is something that one would expect to find in the "Bible Belt" towns of Shreveport and Bossier City, Louisiana where I live.

But her bigotry wasn't something that I would expect in a major daily newspaper in California.

Instead of criticizing ideas connected to atheism, free-thinking, and naturalistic philosophy, Ms. Allen simply goes to the cheap stereotype ("crashing bores," "atheist victimology," etc).

Imagine if she had done this sort of stereotyping with any other group -- let's say Christians, Jews, Moslems, women, homosexuals, etc. Would the LA Times print unfounded smears about these groups like they did about atheists?

Atheists and other free-thinkers may sound angry but their anger is justified. Given the role that religion (as it is actually practiced and not as it's taught in seminary) has in promoting injustice, ignorance, hatred, war, and terrorism, we can't afford to be unquestioning about religious ideas anymore. Religion is too influential and has the power to hurt too many people to go unquestioned.

For example, Proposition 8 in your state was heavily supported by religious people -- the exit polling showed a strong correlation between church attendance and voting yes on 8. However, atheists and non-religious people didn't support treating some Californians as second-class citizens.

With Charlotte Allen's column in your paper and the recent Proposition 8 vote, it appears that California isn't really that different from a "Bible Belt" state like Louisiana, Texas, or Oklahoma.

You may have better museums, restaurant choices, and entertainment options than we do. But you also appear to have the same religious prejudices that we have in the "Bible Belt." Welcome to the club.

Sincerely,
Steve Caldwell
Bossier City, Louisiana

Children's religious education is tougher than it looks ...

... and I'm sure that this sort of probing questioning has happened at least once to every minister or DRE during the worship moment for all ages.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Astrology

And here's an explanation from an interview with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (American astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City) on the Scholastic News web site about the debunking described in the video:

People come in here [Hayden Planetarium] assuming that they'll get their horoscope. They don't know that astrology has been [disproven] for centuries, but it's a billion-dollar industry, so it's not going away soon.

I did this experiment in a college class. I found some widely read horoscope column, and I said, "Pick one at random, and put it on the wall. Is this your horoscope, or not? Type yes, no, or maybe." Eighty percent of the people thought it was their horoscope!

Some sleepless, creative person 5,000 years ago invented the constellations. If we were to make constellations today, there'd be no serpents. There'd be a cell phone and an SUV and a microwave oven and a baseball field. There would be things that are in our modern culture, expressed in the legends of the sky.

"Weathering the Storm" (A Response to the National Organization for Marriage)

This comes from "Love, not Laws" -- a grassroots group dedicated to marriage and other equal rights issues for gay and lesbian folks.

Hat tip to Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge for forwarding this video to me. Candace is a UCC minister and Associate Pastor at Garden of Grace UCC - Columbia SC, editor of whosoever.org (an online magazine for BGLT Christians), and author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians.

Ubuntu Linux gets a comic book ...

Some pop-culture recognition for Ubuntu Linux ...

Open-Mindedness Explained ...

The universe took 13.7 billion years to create this blog ...

The following jacket blurb is used for promoting Michael Dowd's book Thank God for Evolution:

"The universe took 13.7 billion years to produce this amazing book. I heartily recommend it. I am often asked how science and religion can co-exist. This is a wonderful answer." — John Mather (NASA Senior Astrophysicist - 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics)

The funny thing about this book blurb is that it took the universe 13.7 billion years to create everything that we see and experience around us today -- Facebook, reality TV, Adam Sandler's movies, gonzo porn, the Grand Theft Auto video games -- even my blog.

I suppose realizing this cuts down on the "wow" or "woo" factor behind the 13.7 billion year book blurb.

"Understanding Science: How Science Really Works" Web Site

A new web site explains the real non-linear, non-sequential, and cooperative process that we call science. You can find this web site here.

Shakers and Unitarian Universalists -- Can We Adapt to Change?

This post is based on a reply that I posted on Chalicechick's Chaliceblog about her explanation for her decision about who she would support in the 2009 UUA President Election.

In a reply to her original blog post, Chalicechick wrote the following in response to Rev. Peter Morales' use of the Shaker historical example as a cautionary tale for Unitarian Universalism.

"who actually thinks that 'no fucking' was a bigger problem for the shakers than lack of diversity. But again, my impression is that Morales isn't one for complexities."

And this is my expanded response based on my original comment.

The lack of biological reproduction wasn't a problem for the Shakers for many years.

Before state-run orphanages and adoption agencies were available, religious groups like Shaker communities were the "social safety net" for orphans and others who were destitute and needy.

As long as there were a ready supply of orphans and other needy persons, Shaker communities were able to survive.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett mentioned this during his TED ("Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk in 2002 -- the Shaker tradition was a religious meme that caused sterility in its human hosts but was able to survive for many years due to the ready supply of orphans, widows, and other new hosts for the Shaker meme in the environment:

Remember the Shakers? "Gift to Be Simple?" Simple furniture? And of course they're basically extinct now. And one of the reasons is that, among the creed of Shakerdom is that one should be celibate. Not just the priests -- everybody.

Well, it's not so surprising that they've gone extinct. But in fact that's not why they went extinct. They survived as long as they did at a time when the social safety nets weren't there and there were lots of widows and orphans, people like that, who needed a foster home. And so they had a ready supply of converts. And they could keep it going. And, in principle, it could've gone on forever. With perfect celibacy on the part of the hosts. The idea being passed on through proselytizing, instead of through the gene line.

So the ideas can live on in spite of the fact that they're not being passed on genetically. A meme can flourish in spite of having a negative impact on genetic fitness. After all, the meme for Shakerdom was essentially a sterilizing parasite.

There are other parasites which do this -- which render the host sterile. It's part of their plan. They don't have to have minds to have a plan.

Wikipedia has some information on why the Shaker movement died off:

Membership in the Shakers dwindled in the late 1800s for several reasons. People were attracted to cities and away from the farms. Shaker products could not compete with mass-produced products that became available at a much lower cost. Shakers could not have children, so adoption was a major source of new members. This continued until the states gained control of adoption homes.

I suspect the best parallel that one could draw from the Shakers is the need to be agile in response to changing demographic, economic, and cultural trends.

As Unitarian Universalists, our post-World War II trend has been one of using suburban congregations as a major focus of our growth strategy -- both Rev. Hallman's church (in the Park Cities suburbs of Dallas TX) and Rev. Morales' church (in the Denver suburb of Golden CO) fit the suburban church growth strategy. The failed "Pathways" experiment in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area also involved a suburban focus. Will this suburban growth strategy continue to work for us?

Unlike the Shakers, we do plenty of fucking but our reproductive fucking may not lead to growth. If our churches are good at attracting adult seekers but repel adult who were our former children, that could be one very big reason that we have growth concerns.

Finally, our current growth strategy has one similarity to the Shaker's "orphan" strategy. There is no guarantee that we will always have a ready supply of adult seekers looking for a religious community. Christianity as a demographic group is shrinking the US and most of our adult coverts come from a Christian background. The "atheist - agnostic - unchurched" demographic has doubled over the past decade so they are around 15% of the population. And this appears to be a demographic group that has very little interest for what Unitarian Universalism offers (in part because we're perceived as being "too religious" by some non-theists).

Our traditional recruiting pool for adult converts is shrinking.

We reproduce but drive off many of our offspring who were raised in our churches.

And we may be currently ineffective at attracting growing demographic groups.

Like the Shakers, we may be facing demographic, economic, and cultural changes.

Are we agile enough to adapt and change in response to these changes?

Biological Origins of the Soul Pushed Back to 30 Million Years Ago ...

The molecular biologist Francis Collins has suggested that the human soul with its capacity for ethical decision-making is evidence for the existence of God:

Ultimately, Collins offered his own way to reconcile faith and science: Theistic Evolution. In this vein, God created the universe 13.7 billion years ago with its “parameters tuned to allow the development of complexity over time,” meaning that God planned to include evolution, including the evolution of human beings. After evolution had “prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’” in the human being (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of free will, good and evil, and a soul. God used DNA as an information molecule; thus DNA is the language of God. (as quoted from The Stanford Review)

A recent paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science convention documents the appearance of ethical behavior in chimps and monkeys.

Chimps and humans last common ancestor was approximately 5 to 7 million years ago. The last common ancestor for chimps, monkeys, and humans was approximately 35 million years ago.

These non-human primates are demonstrating a wide range of ethical behaviors:

Here's an excerpt from the news coverage on this research in the Irish Times:

A session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting debated the evolutionary origins of morality yesterday, the closing day of the event. While many held that morality was invented by human society, it was far more likely that it emerged as a result of natural selection, Prof Frans de Waal, professor of primate behaviour at Emory University, Atlanta said.

Altruism had long been assumed to exist only amongst humans, but many apes, monkeys and even birds displayed what could be taken to be altruism. This suggested that there was a natural selection pressure towards the behaviour that today we view as moral.

Prof de Waal has done extensive work with primates. “We have evidence for empathy, we have evidence for reciprocity, we have evidence for pro-social tendencies and we have evidence for fairness principals,” he said.

He described a range of studies involving chimps and monkeys that demonstrated these tendencies. One of two monkeys was offered the option of receiving a treat for itself or a treat that could be shared with the second, with sharing almost always the option chosen.

“They actually have a preference for choosing the pro-social option that rewards both,” he said, although there was no immediate benefit to the monkey that chooses to be generous.

In a trial that demonstrates a sense of fairness, two chimps are taught a task and rewarded with pieces of cucumber which they readily accept. The task is repeated, but the reward for one chimp is upgraded to grapes. This chimp continues to perform the task, but the second, receiving only cucumber will throw away its reward and stop performing the task, Prof de Waal said.

“I can equate it to the bonuses being given on Wall Street,” and the strong negative public response to them, he quipped.

If the human soul (the source of free will and knowing the difference between good and evil) has biological roots extending back up to 35 million years ago among our primate cousins, perhaps we should entertain the possibility that what we call ethics, morality, and free will all have their roots in natural selection.

As reported in The Times:

Some researchers believe we could owe our consciences to climate change and, in particular, to a period of intense global warming between 50,000 and 800,000 years ago. The proto-humans living in the forests had to adapt to living on hostile open plains, where they would have been easy prey for formidable predators such as big cats.

This would have forced them to devise rules for hunting in groups and sharing food.

Christopher Boehm, director of the Jane Goodall Research Center, part of the University of Southern California’s anthropology department, believes such humans devised codes to stop bigger, stronger males hogging all the food.

“To ensure fair meat distribution, hunting bands had to gang up physically against alpha males,” he said. This theory has been borne out by studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes.

In research released at the AAAS he argued that under such a system those who broke the rules would have been killed, their “amoral” genes lost to posterity. By contrast, those who abided by the rules would have had many more children.

And the biologist PZ Myers makes the following observation about these findings:

It's a little glib and speculative, but it's enough to shut down the claim that morality couldn't have evolved.

And now we can say that being ethical is an all-natural additive-free organic behavior that we share with some animals.

Rejection of Evolutionary Biology in a Unitarian Universalist Congregation?

During the brief post-DVD discussion today, one of our congregation's leaders said that she had wished that people from both ends of the evolutionary biology debate spectrum had been at today's Thank God for Evolution DVD screening.

I asked if the folks who were rejecting evolution were members of our congregation or members of the wider community (we had a brief announcement about the DVD screening in the local paper).

I learned that we have some members of our congregation who reject evolution.

I was surprised. I would not be surprised that some members of our community outside All Souls would reject evolution - conservative religion is prevalent in our town.

But I was surprised that members of my congregation would reject evolution.

I know that we are a non-creedal faith tradition - but seriously?

A free and responsible search for truth doesn't mean one can believe anything one wants to believe. Responsibility would suggest that one should not reject settled scientific matters like the theory of evolution, the germ theory of disease, or the heliocentric theory of the solar system.

It's possible that some ideas may be nonsensical.

In a 1973 essay that criticized creationism and espousing theistic evolution, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote:

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.

The entire essay can be read here.

Perhaps we can need an adult religious education class using the book Your Inner Fish? There's a catchy and fun music video associated with this book.

Thoughts After Viewing "Thank God for Evolution" DVD at Church

On Sunday afternoon after our morning worship and religious education class time, our church screened a portion of the companion DVD for Rev. Michael Dowd's book Thank God for Evolution. A description of the DVD can be found here.

You can download a free excerpt of Dowd's book using this web page.

After seeing part of the DVD today, it still seems like a very cleaver way to reframe religion so it's compatible with modern-day evolutionary biology - an example of memetic religious adaptation happening right before our eyes.

However, I was puzzled by something that Michael said in on the DVD.

Here's a quote in his book that is identical or nearly identical to an idea that he presented in his DVD:

Religious believers can hardly be expected to embrace evolution if the only version they've been exposed to portrays the processes at work as merely competitive and pointless, even cruel, and thus godless. Is it any wonder that many on the conservative side of the theological spectrum find such a view repulsive, and that many on the liberal side accept evolution begrudgingly?
[Source - Thank God for Evolution, page 7]

The troubling thing about this idea is that it justifies a rejection of a scientific theory if it appears to contradict one's religious beliefs.

First, some very basic evolutionary biology before we explore the theological issues with Dowd's suggestion.

One of Darwin's contributions to evolutionary biology was natural selection.

Natural selection operates through a simple algorithmic mechanism that follows from the following facts:

1. Heritable variation exists within populations of organisms.
2. Organisms produce more offspring than can survive.
3. These offspring vary in their ability to survive and reproduce.

Given enough time and this simple process, one ends up with both great beauty and great cruelty in the natural world. The three steps are mindless but they have produced both mindfulness and awareness in our world - perhaps the ultimate demonstration of evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel's "Second Rule" that he coined in response to anti-evolutionary appeals to irreducible complexity:

"Evolution is cleverer than you are."

Natural selection was not advanced as a theory because biologists wanted to promote a "competitive, pointless, cruel, and godless" theory like natural selection.

As a theory, it was proposed because it:

1. Fit known facts
2. Provided opportunities for making future predictions (testing and falsifiability) along with further refinement through discovery of new facts (which has done extensively since 1859)
   
3. Was an excellent example of parsimony (parsimony in science is the "preference for the least complex explanation for an observation")

I find it puzzling that one would entertain the suggestion to reject a theory that simply because it appears to be "pointless" or "godless" from a human perspective.

Although we have removed ourselves from the center of universe in 1543, many of us still need to accept or reject scientific theories not on the basis of evidence but rather on the basis of how well they serve human aesthetic or psychological needs.

Perhaps we need to face the possibility that creation may be indifferent to our aesthetic or psychological needs?

On the DVD, Dowd talks extensively about the evolutionary trend towards greater cooperation and he suggests that evolution is a directional process.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the simple evolutionary algorithmic process that requires cooperation in all instances.

Cooperation is an adaptive response in some circumstances and that is why we see examples of it in nature.

However, there are instances where competition is very successful biologically.

However, that doesn't make ruthless self-interested competition the most ethical choice for us today. Given the cultural tools that we have, we can predict the future negative outcomes that come from individual self-interest.

As humans with culture and communication, we can explore cooperative options through the cultural adaptation options available to us.

Shreveport Area Darwin Day Events

Update - Rev. Michael Dowd (author of Thank God for Evolution) will be at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Shreveport on 26 February 2009. See the updated information below for details.

Here's information on four upcoming events for this year's celebration of "Darwin Day" in the Shreveport-Bossier City area:

Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM -- Re-broadcast of Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial on KLTS (local PBS affiliate) -- This documentary is about the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial that ruled against the teaching of intelligent design in public schools due to church-state separation issues. This documentary features excellent interviews including Dr. Barbara Forrest who spoke at Darwin Day in Shreveport in 2008.

Saturday, 14 February 2009 from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM -- Darwin Day Bicentennial at LSU-Shreveport Science Lecture Auditorium -- Thanks to Dr. Cran Lucas and the LSU-Shreveport Biology Department, the following program is being offered in our community:

1:00-1:10 PM -- Introduction by Dr. Stephen Banks, Professor of Biological Sciences, LSU-Shreveport.

1:10-2:00 PM -- "Why Intelligent Design Is a Protestant Theory of Creation" By Dr. Holly Wilson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Louisiana - Monroe.

2:00-2:50 PM -- “The Influence of Charles Darwin on British and American Literature” by Dr. Helen Taylor and Dr. Stephen Brennan, Professors of English, LSU-Shreveport.

2:50-3:40 PM -- “The Evolution of Charles Darwin: A Brief Biography” by Dr. Cran Lucas, Professor of Biological Sciences, LSU-Shreveport.

3:40-4:00 PM -- Birthday cake and refreshments.

Sunday, 15 February 2009, 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM - At All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, Chaplain Barbara Jarrell is in the pulpit for our celebration of Evolution Sunday.

Sunday, 15 February 2009, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM - At All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, we will be showing the DVD Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World. This book is by Rev. Reverend Michael Dowd, a United Church of Christ minister. After watching the DVD, we will have a brief discussion about the movie and the ideas presented in it.

Thursday, 26 February 2009, 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM - Rev. Michael Dowd (Author of Thank God for Evolution) -- All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church is proud to present the Rev. Michael Dowd, who will be here with us to share his live presentation based on his book.

Known as "America's Evolutionary Evangelists," Michael Dowd and his wife Connie Barlow live on the road sharing the "Good News" of the 14-billion -year epic of cosmic, biological and human experience. Michael's' book has been endorsed by Nobel Prize winning scientists and religious leaders across the spectrum as a work that builds bridges, provides guidance and offers realistic hope for people of any religion or belief system. This event is free and open to the public. Please bring your friends and help us spread the word. An offering will be collected, and books and DVD's will be available for sale.