Fire Breathing Dinosaurs The Hilarious History Of Creationist Pseudoscience At Its Silliest

A dinosaur book like no other, this irreverent chronicle of science and pseudoscience takes the reader on a journey through numerous bizarre ideas about ancient reptiles. Were dragon legends inspired by human encounters with fire-breathing dinosaurs? Do the Bible and other ancient works of literature and art depict dinosaurs? Astoundingly, those and other strange notions have infiltrated grade-school science textbooks. This exposé unmasks the errors that underlie such notions and reveals the science that flattens them, while treating readers to explanations of rocket fuel, nuclear power plants, the electric eel’s shocking capabilities, and how the young-Earth creationist position contradicts the very scripture that it strives to uphold. Finding humor in absurdity, the book shows fans of science, religious studies, folklore, and fire that young-Earth creationist dinosaur pseudoscience is deeply comic once one gets to know it properly.

Are there dinosaurs in the Bible? Are dragon legends based on human encounters with fire-breathing dinosaurs? A vast and ever-growing body of literature proclaims that the answer to both these questions is yes. Dinosaurs & Dragons takes readers on a madcap journey through science, folklore, and anti-evolution propaganda to explore the origin and evolution of these ideas and how we know they're wrong. The journey begins with the origin of the dragon in ancient myth and continues through the astounding fossil discoveries of more recent times. Dr. Senter examines a plethora of bizarre claims about dinosaurs and uses knowledge from modern scholarship to set the record straight. He also explores proposed mechanisms for fire-breathing in dinosaurs and tries them in a court of science. Along the way, readers are treated to explanations of rocket fuel, nuclear power plants, carnival fire-eating, the electric eel's shocking capabilities, and what's up a crocodile's nose. Written in a playful spirit of discovery, Dinosaurs & Dragons entertains as it promotes evidence-based reasoning and illustrates the differences between science and anti-evolution hype.

In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

Charles Darwin has been extensively analysed and written about as a scientist, Victorian, father and husband. However, this is the first book to present a carefully thought out pedagogical approach to learning that is centered on Darwin’s life and scientific practice. The ways in which Darwin developed his scientific ideas, and their far reaching effects, continue to challenge and provoke contemporary teachers and learners, inspiring them to consider both how scientists work and how individual humans ‘read nature’. Darwin-inspired learning, as proposed in this international collection of essays, is an enquiry-based pedagogy, that takes the professional practice of Charles Darwin as its source. Without seeking to idealise the man, Darwin-inspired learning places importance on: • active learning • hands-on enquiry • critical thinking • creativity • argumentation • interdisciplinarity. In an increasingly urbanised world, first-hand observations of living plants and animals are becoming rarer. Indeed, some commentators suggest that such encounters are under threat and children are living in a time of ‘nature-deficit’. Darwin-inspired learning, with its focus on close observation and hands-on enquiry, seeks to re-engage children and young people with the living world through critical and creative thinking modeled on Darwin’s life and science.

Through the use of humour, fun exercises, and a plethora of innovative and interesting selections from writers such as Dave Barry, Al Franken, J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as from the film 'The Matrix', this text hones students' critical thinking skills.

How far back does history go? What did the inventers of writing say about where people come from? How could anyone believe in the pagan gods? Why do so many cultures have a seven-day week? Does history repeat itself? What could we read to find this stuff out? And what about those gods of Greece? Who thought of them, and what made their beliefs strong enough to spend vast sums to honor them, even across language barriers? What about Noah and his flood? What about Babel? How do they all fit together? In From Noah to Hercules, Brian Forbes answers these questions by investigating various accounts of the origins of mankind. Forbes draws on Scripture, history, and science to argue that many gods and mythical figures from civilizations past were actually historic figures. Forbes goes on to conclude that many mythological stories are historically accurate if you remove some of the more fantastic elements. Forbes offers a fascinating account of early man based on ancient history and mythology. He will change the way you think about our history and our ancestors.

The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant pedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very “souls”.

This concise introduction to science and religion focuses on Christianity and modern Western science (the epicenter of issues in science and religion in the West) with a concluding chapter on Muslim and Jewish Science and Religion. This book also invites the reader into the relevant literature with ample quotations from original texts.