Excuse me, sir, but there’s arsenic in my DNA!

Mono Lake, where the arsenic bacteria was discovered

Yes, the big NASA press conference was not about aliens, but instead about a very peculiar type of bacteria.

The discovery is being published in this week’s issue of Science, entitled ‘A Bacterium That Can Grow Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus’ and has already been written about by pretty much every science blogger out there.

So rather than bore you with my own re-hash of all the other posts I’ve read on this subject, I will direct you to the best one I’ve read so far. It is by Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Enjoy!

Mono Lake bacteria build their DNA using arsenic (and no, this isn’t about aliens) by Ed Yong.

“There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.”

That’s what was postered on the side of buses in Toronto, Calgary and Montreal last year. And they are planning to do it again.

The Centre for Inquiry (CFI) is launching a campaign which would see similar ads on the sides of buses in Toronto starting in January, pending final approval from the Toronto Transit Commission. This  year’s campaign is “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence”, and compares the belief in God and Allah to the belief in Bigfoot and Tarot reading.

Photo From Centre for Inquiry

The campaign’s website says:

Why is belief in Big Foot dismissed as delusional while belief in Allah and Christ is respected and revered? All of these claims are equally extraordinary and demand critical examination

Assuming they get approval to run the ads in Toronto, the CFI hopes to move the campaign into other major Canadian cities. 

Justin Trottier, national executive director of the Centre for Inquiry said about the campaign

 

I’d love it if everyone saw the ads and know the point of the campaign is to emphasize not the kind of knee-jerk debunking to anything suspicious but that we’re interested in a genuine debate, a conversation about so-called extraordinary claims. We’re not here to mock people who believe in these claims

 

But of course, there is mixed reaction from both the religious and atheist communities. Many religious leaders felt that the ads were designed to ridicule people’s faith. Others felt that their beliefs can stand atop the belief in Bigfoot, so a discussion on the topic would be welcome.

 

Some in the scientific and atheist communities felt that the ads were too confrontational, and that this was not the proper way to elicit a discussion on these topics.

 

My opinion is that extraordinary claims certainly do require extraordinary evidence. Bigfoot, psychics and the like all need proof before we can accept them as facts. But religion is built on faith; the belief without proof. I maintain my right to believe in a God or not, just as the rest of the world should. Challenging those beliefs on a bus is not a proper forum for this discussion.

 

Furthermore, if people want to worship a God I do not believe in, it is not my place to challenge them about it. They have as much right to believe as I have not to believe. However, if religion starts to influence government policy, then it definitely becomes fair game to argue the proper place of religion in politics. Thankfully, this is not as big a problem in Canada as it is in the USA.

 

I’d love to hear what  you guys think about this issue, so please take a second and answer this poll below, or leave a comment.