My favorite areas of science are evolutionary biology, cosmology, and neuroscience. V.S. Ramachandran has pointed out that those particular fields provide the most compelling evidence of our species insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Evolutionary biology shows us that our species, Homo sapiens, shares common ancestry with aardvarks and earthworms, and all other creatures on Earth. Cosmology shows us that the Earth is not only NOT the center of the universe, but that the universe was already more than nine billion years old before the Earth formed. And neuroscience shows us that the so-called religious experience can be generated through purely biological means, with no need to resort to explanations involving supernatural agency.

Many religious folk today will readily acknowledge that people throughout history have invented entire pantheons full of gods, one or more for every occasion: warrior gods, fertility gods, wrathful, jealous, drunken, trickster gods (reminds me of the 80s!). It would be fair to estimate the number of gods that people have invented at no less than a thousand. The actual number is probably much higher. And these same believers will agree that those gods were false gods, merely creations of the human imagination. Yet they deny the possibility that their God is just one more in a long line of human inventions.

I need to clarify one point: science has NOT made any determination as to the existence or non-existence of God. Science only says that so far no independently verifiable evidence establishing the existence of a deity has come to light.

However, there are certain facts of nature that are well understood and for which there is ample evidence, whose scientific explanations contradict literal interpretations of Scripture. Among these well understood facts are the age of the Earth, the planet's geological history, and the evolutionary origin of biological species. On these subjects the scientific conclusions are beyond dispute. The evidence supporting them is simply is overwhelming.

Yet many lay people do dispute established science. And they reveal a serious lack of science literacy in doing so. By that I mean they do not understand the most basic facts about the nature of science. Among the most commonly misunderstood concepts is the scientific theory.

People often confuse theory with hypothesis or mere conjecture. Unlike a hypothesis, which may be shown through a simple experiment to be incorrect, a theory is actually stronger than a fact. The reason for the strength of scientific theories lies in their very nature: they are explanations that unify and make sense of many diverse but well-established FACTS.

Take, for example, the Theory of Plate Tectonics. This Grand Unifying Theory of geology explains and unifies many facts about the Earth. For instance, it explains earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and the Earth's magnetic field. The Theory also explains why the continents look like they may have once fit together (they did); why there are mid-ocean ridges that circle the globe like the stitching on a baseball; why the oldest continental rocks are 4.5 billion years old while the oldest seabed rocks are only 200 million years old; why the magnetism of the sea bed reverses polarity in a striped pattern which is mirrored on both sides of the mid-ocean ridges; why there are coal beds in Antarctica; why there are glacial striations on rocks now located in the tropics; and much more. All of these well documented facts are explained by the Theory, which says that the Earth's continents are riding around on convection currents driven by the planet's internal heat.

The facts are woven together by the theory like the strands in a braided rope. And just as the braided rope is stronger than the sum of the separate strands that comprise it, a theory is stronger than the sum of the separate facts that it explains.

The field of biology has its own Grand Unifying Theory. It is called Darwinian evolution, and it explains why whales have vestigial hind leg and pelvis bones; why mitochondria are so like bacteria and even have their own DNA; why the fossil record shows that vertebrate species appeared NOT all at once but in a definite sequence stretched out over hundreds of millions of years (first fish, then amphibians, then reptiles, and finally birds and mammals); why marsupials are found in the Americas and in Australia but not on other continents; why cat legs, bat wings, dolfin flippers, and human arms all have the same bones in the same relative positions; why organisms that appear to be more similar also have more similar DNA; and the list goes on. All these facts are explained by Darwin's theory.

Here are the five basic points of the Theory of Evolution:

1. In every generation, DNA mutations give rise to organisms with different adaptations within a population. Darwin called this diversity of abilities "natural variation."

2. In every population there is always over-reproduction, so individual organisms have to compete for resources. (Thomas Malthus famously wrote about this "struggle for existence," and Darwin was well acquainted with Malthus's work.)

3. The environment constantly eliminates those individuals that are less fit. Those that are better suited to the environment tend to survive and pass on their good genes. Darwin called this sorting process "natural selection."

4. Over generations the process of natural selection acting upon the population's natural variation leads to changes. The beneficial mutations accumulate in the gene pool. With time descendants look less and less like their ancestors. Darwin called this process of change through the generations "descent with modification."

If a small group of individuals leaves the main population to set up a colony in a different environment, that group may evolve separately from the mother population, thus forming another branch on the tree if life.

5. The Earth is very, very old, and descent with modification has been going on since the first cells self-assembled from organic molecules present on early Earth. (In considering the Earth's great antiquity, Darwin had the advantage of familiarity with the work of two early geologists: James Hutton, and his student, Charles Lyell.) The ancestry of all present species can be traced back to a single, ancient, common ancestor.

That's it. Five points.

Darwin's theory does have one great flaw: it is not as simple as saying "God willed it, and so it came to be."

Science does not deal in easy answers. In order to make scientific determinations it takes painstaking, exacting, and exhaustive investigation. And therefore it also takes an investment of time, training, and study, to fully appreciate what the scientists are telling us. It also takes some imagination and an open mind.

Religion, on the other hand, is all about easy answers. What could be more simple than to invoke the same supernatural power to explain every difficult question? It hardly requires any intellectual capacity at all to say "God did it."

Religious dogmas are specifically designed to be graspable by children. And it is children who are always the primary focus of religious indoctrination efforts.

Science not only refutes the Biblical story of Creation, and with it our supposed central place in the universe; it also provides a neurological explanation for the so-called religious experience.

The word "religion" comes from the Italian word "religio" , meaning re-linking, and in the spiritual context carries the sense of re-establishing a connection with one's origin.

It is not uncommon for people with temporal lobe epilepsy to report having religious epiphanies while experiencing seizures. Everything, even the most mundane objects, become imbued with deep significance. The patient suddenly perceives the interconnectedness of everything. These sensations are experienced strongly during the seizure and remembered long after. Some say they have seen the face of God.

This type of experience is not limited to people with epilepsy. People under the influence of strong psychoactive drugs like mescaline, peyote, and LSD are known to report similar perceptions.

Neuroscience appears to be making some inroads to understanding these phenomena. The sensation of heightened importance and interconnectedness of everything is a manifestation of a change in the inputs to the brain's emotional center, the limbic system. There is an almond-shaped structure called the amygdala located near the hippocampus. It's function is to act as a gatekeeper, allowing only certain content into limbic system. Most everyday stimuli are filtered out. What does get in becomes emotionally-charged. The drugs, like the seizure, throw open the gates, allowing all content to become freighted with emotional import.

It seems likely that other stimuli beyond drugs or seizures could have the same effect. It is very probable that the heartfelt desire and associated stress to know one's purpose, origin, or destiny could be enough to trigger the religious experience.

Evolutionary biology shows that all living things are related through common ancestry. Charles Darwin arrived at this conclusion in 1839 by looking at evidence from the fossil record, from the geographic distribution of species, and from anatomical studies. Since it's publication in 1859, Darwin's Theory of Evolution has only gained strength, in spite of rigorous testing by scientists and constant attack from the religious sector. Now that we can read and compare the genetic codes of all organisms we can see that the the evolutionary sequence recorded in the fossil record is also written in our DNA.

Knowing that I share common ancestry with all living things on Earth gives me a profound a sense of connection with all the other species on the planet. I marvel at nature's awesome beauty, power, and scale. I have to laugh at the sheer improbability of being in possession of a consciousness capable of contemplating it's own existence and that of the cosmos. All this without the help of seizures or psychoactive drugs, by the way.

I guess you could say I got religion. Amen brothers and sisters! Hallelujah!

All of this notwithstanding, about half the US population professes belief in the literal interpretation of the Bible. This is cause for concern. Insistence on rating belief in a literal interpretation of ancient religious documents over evidence-based science is not only misguided, it's also kinda dangerous.

The person who denies the science of biological evolution in favor of a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis is primed to also deny climate science. Unfortunately, global warming is real and happening now and caused by human activities (burning fossil fuels). The science behind this is settled, yet debate outside the scientific community rages on. And we do not have time on our side. It may be too late already to forestall climate catastrophe, but we still owe it to future generations to do our best to leave them a habitable planet.

In case there is any doubt about the seriousness of the situation, let me lay out a few well-supported scientific facts.

We have already pumped more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the world has seen in millions of years. The global temperature has already risen sufficiently to trigger feedback loops that will make the atmosphere and oceans much, much hotter. We do not yet fully feel the effects of what we have already done because there is a lag in the climate system. But big changes are coming. Consider this: in a stable climate the numbers of temperature records for heat or cold that are broken over time are equal. But for the last decade the number of heat records that are broken every year outnumbers the broken cold records by a factor of ten!

Climate scientists at Scripps Institute now say that there is a 5% chance that global warming will cause catastrophic changes by the year 2050. Catastrophic in this context means that most people will have trouble adapting to the new conditions. And there is a smaller but real possibility of existential threat, meaning that no one can adapt and the species goes extinct. They make this prediction based on the work of other scientists whose climate forecasts have turned out to be incorrect only in that they underestimated the changes that were predicted only a few years ago.

5% is the same as 1/20. It may not sound like much, but would you get on a plane if you knew there was a one-in-twenty chance it would crash?

We are critically close to causing the collapse of ecosystems on a massive scale. There is a very real possibility that our current obsession with burning fossil fuels, if not ended soon, will not only bring an end to civilization, but will also render the planet uninhabitable for human beings and countless other species. We could very well be headed for oblivion. And we just elected a man who denies climate science to be President. He says global warming is a hoax.

People had a variety of reasons for voting for Trump. Ultimately, however, his election was only possible because so many people are in the habit of denying established science.

So yes, denying established science is a pretty slippery slope...with a very hard landing at the bottom!

Religious texts are open to interpretation. Those who choose to interpret scriptures literally have every right to do so. But do they also have the right to impose their interpretation on others? Of course not! But this exactly what is happening all around the world. And the moderate believer bears some responsibility for the atrocities that are being committed in the name of God. The moderate believer may not ever wage jihad, but he/she is, in a way, an enabler of the extremist. Their belief systems are, at their core, the same. The faith in the existence of a personal God is the same faith that underpins the suicide bomber's belief that 70 virgins await him on the other side of a fiery and needlessly destructive blast.

Unfortunately, there is too much disagreement about how to interpret Scripture, and too much adamant certainty on the part of many interpreters that theirs is the only sect that truly understands the meaning of the text. Each sect zealously hews to its own doctrine, and none have any way (aside from circular arguments based on Scripture) of verifying their side's interpretation. Inevitably, some group gains the upper hand economically, and they use their power and influence to set up a government that sponsors one sect above all others. Those in power neglect the needs of a poorer but usually more numerous competing sect. Corruption runs rampant, power struggles play out along sectarian lines. This is not only exactly what is happening right now in the Middle East, it has happened repeatedly throughout history. The history of religion...