"On This Day" Sir Julian Huxley..

     On this day in history, Sir Julian Sorell Huxley was born in 1887. He was a prominent evolutionary biologist and the premier President of the British Humanist Association. His works in biology included being a proponent for natural selection as the driving force behind evolution. Sir Huxley was among the few biologists of that time showing that evolution worked through small changes. The common belief was that evolution happened in large jumps.

He wrote many books on humanism, ethics, and evolutionary biology. Including,The Humanist Frame where he writes,

“The immediate task for a Humanist ethic is to rid the world of the now palpable irrationality of war. Once freed from the fear of war, the peoples of the world will be free to develop each in its own way, but in relation to the whole human community, and to deal with the problems that knowledge can deal with, the conquest of disease and poverty and the removal of the barriers that divide men.”

     During a time of great wars and turmoil, he was an advocate of peace and human dignity. He also played a major role in the development of a statement released by the United Nations Educational,Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) , The Race Question.

     The statement aimed at dispelling the myth of race,particularly concerning human racial divisions. In The Race Question UNESCO spoke about race as follows,

“A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens"… "National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cult groups do not necessary coincide with racial groups: the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic [connection] with racial traits.”

     Huxley was among several scientist's enlisted by UNESCO to prepare their statement with all of the scientific facts regarding racial divisions. Their findings were that racial division in humans was no more than a “...social myth...”, with no biologically relevant basis. The myth of race is responsible for great wrongdoing on the behalf human societal development, and humanity must rid itself of these divisive ideologies. 

Tennessee - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics

     The Pew Research Centers data on religion in Tennessee shows a disjoint between the number of religious non-affiliated (none's) and those willing to come out as atheist. The data found at, Tennessee - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics , shows that with 14% identifying as none, only 1% were comfortable calling themselves atheist. Tennessee is a difficult place to be openly secular. I realize that there are other places around the world where being an atheist would be more dangerous. Yet, in Tennessee being an atheist or openly secular can have some serious repercussions. Although it failed to pass, Tennessee legislators have been pushing to have the bible the official state book.( NPR  RT)  The Tennessee constitution even gives a biblical definition of marriage( Tennessee Marriage Protection Amendment) The interesting thing about this vote is that it was 81.25% for the amendment and 18.75% against. The Pew research data shows that Tennessee is also 81% Christian.
   
     The Roane county Tennessee county commission put up "in God we Trust" in the courthouse with only a single person in opposition.( Patheos) Tennessee has another bill introduced to allow counselors to discriminate based on their "sincerely" held religious beliefs.(Tennessee Equality Project) Tennessee isn't the only state with this types of laws. Yet, Tennessee appears to have only evangelical protestants controlling the government.  Tennessee also allows creationism in public schools under the guise of "teach the controversy". Included in Tennessee's "teach the controversy" law, is a legal blanket to teach climate change denial. Tennessee law makers need to "evolve" and teach factual science and leave the pseudoscience up to the churches.