In this post, we will go from the formation of the Earth to the origin of life and its earliest fossil record. This is an excerpt from a lecture I gave at the University of Cyprus a couple of years ago. Diagram: Becerra, A., Delaye, L., Islas, S. & Lazcano, A. 2007. The Very Early [...]
READ MORE »On Monday 30 July, Cyprus FreeThinkers is organising a talk on extinction rates through time, given by Marc Srour at the University of Cyprus. It is free to attend and aimed at the general public, so feel free to come and invite anyone (you can also print out the poster above for advertising). Below are [...]
READ MORE »Note: You can read this post on my own blog. This talk is aimed at the basic, general public level, and is about how science is done through the scientific method, and how to differentiate ideas that belong in the yellow circle downwards from the ideas that are in the nebulous circles outside. To save [...]
READ MORE »As the only way to find out facts about the world, the scientific method is one of the cornerstones of modern civilisation. Its application is not limited to the sciences though. Knowledge and application of the scientific method, even if only intuitively, is critical for having a well-balanced worldview. In this talk, the tenets [...]
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A school serves many purposes, but the two primary ones are to teach a sense of critical thinking, and to teach about our current knowledge of the world. This is especially true for the science classes. This is why we view the addition of a section on Noah’s Ark in school biology textbooks, pictured above, [...]
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1. The Incredible Human Journey is a five-episode science documentary and accompanying book, written and presented by Alice Roberts. It was first broadcast on BBC television in May and June 2009 in the UK. It explains the evidence for the theory of early human migrations out of Africa and subsequently around the world, supporting the Out of Africa Theory.
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Note: Cross-posted at my own blog. PDF version available here [3.2 MB]. This is the text of a talk on natural selection I gave at the University of Nicosia on February 14th 2012, on behalf of Cyprus Freethinkers and the University of Nicosia’s Human Biology Society. All pictures with a © are CC-licensed, and I [...]
READ MORE »Natural selection is one of the most important theories of biology, and is the only one that explains the evolution of adaptations. This lecture, aimed at both students and non-biologists, will go through the science behind the theory, illustrating its principles with examples from nature and with classic experiments, as well as providing an overview [...]
READ MORE »Abstract The discussion on emotions in relation to cognition has been thoroughly investigated in the last years in the field of neuroscience and has sparked a lot of controversy in the scientific community. A wide range of theories have been proposed starting from the beginning of the last century, in the writings of William James, [...]
READ MORE »The school I went to didn’t teach evolution, not even in science class, but my parents taught me about it at home, and I remember an incident, not sure what grade I was in… Anyway, so the teacher was saying how Adam was made by God, from clay, and that he blew into him (to [...]
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