An popular-press article talking about evolution that actually gets some things right

Anyone else get frustrated with writing on evolution that implies that species evolve toward a planned goal?   Even when used as a figure of speech, it annoys the heck out of me.  Here's a fun article, with some delightful images, and it actually mentions that evolution can be pretty wacky at times.  How refreshing!

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/10/wtf_evolution_book_and_blog_why_weird_awkward_hacked_together_species_are.html

Finally someone notices that Ark Encounter project has a little religion/state problem

For some reason, the lawmakers in Kentucky failed to notice until recently that state support of Ken Ham's enterprises violates the law.  I'm not sure who to thank (one of the few down-sides of being a non-believer) but perhaps someone in the state has finally come to their senses.


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/10/ken_ham_ark_encounter_theme_park_religious_discrimination_may_block_kentucky.html

Where the Nones are

From The  Guardian, this set of maps showing where the godless and the non-godless live in various cities in England and Wales.  We've frequently noticed that the Brits are much more inclined to self-identify as non-religious than Americans and this data visualization bears out the observation.

Be sure to click on the link "It's not about atheism" above the maps to get another viewpoint on what these maps mean.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/datablog/gallery/2014/jul/03/where-atheists-live-maps-uk-godless-cities-religion-census-data-viz