Yawn. This is standard bogus stuff, and really is a nice laundry list of logical fallacies. Evolution makes no claims about the origin of life, so the fact that you even bring it up is a non sequitur. Then you say there's no evidence for life beginning on the surfaces of crystals, implying that your alternative of "God did it" is the logical consequence. That's a false dilemma. "Wouldn't the most logical state be nothingness?" Perhaps, but that's an argument from ignorance or personal incredulity. The morality crap is a red herring. You seem to want to say that evolution cannot be true, because morality doesn't fit into it. That's blatantly false, but your argument itself is an appeal to consequences of a belief. Your wish for morality to have meaning is wholly irrelevant to the truth of anything. Your "if I kill you today, how could you say it's wrong" argument is a straw man. Few people outside of creationist circles spew that stuff. Though there were movements to associate evolutionary theory to things like eugenics and other atrocities, the mainstream vocally denounces these as pseudoscientific, and they surely do not logically follow from evolution by natural selection. There's no evidence to suggest that non-Christians or atheists commit more crimes or are otherwise "worse" than Christians. Finally, your last paragraph is almost too absurd to even consider. Where's the "faith" in Rob's life? He's apparently trying to live an evidence-based life. That's pretty much the opposite of faith in every respect.

Yeah, I don't get it! When I re-read your stuff, it seems much less inciting than it did before. Sorry for the misrepresentation! But I'm still interested in seeing whether this research has really been done. It seems like a physician who regularly sees such patients would be familiar with it and would have mentioned it if it actually did exist. Until then, null hypothesis ftw.

I don't think this blog post's use of "design" necessarily implied a designer. Both creationists and non-theistic folks can comfortably use "design" as a euphemism for "the way something seems to function." I can comfortably say that the flagellum was designed to propel a bacterium without meaning that God did it.

I take exception to the claim that "modern science is build on the shoulders of Christian men seeking to better understand their God." The emergence of the scientific method correlates strongly with the Enlightenment, a time when many of the great thinkers of the time were pretty strict deists and skeptical of contemporary Christian dogma. This was also at a time when the Catholic church still held considerable power as a version of the thought police, and it's likely that at least some of the key players in Europe were Christian by default in the name of their own safety (Galileo and Descartes for example). Also, much of the key mathematics used in modern science was developed by folks in the Islamic world. Of course some Christians made great contributions to science (and still do), but it's silly to assert that Christianity is a main reason for science's advancement.

And, really, *where* did Richard Dawkins say that he believed alien life forms seeded earth to create life here?

I'm not intending to hijack this blog post to argue god and the bible, since the claims within the post are enough to complain about on their own!

Ok, I agree with you on that. No more name calling or rampant hostility. I am sympathetic to the claimed goals of this site, despite the fact that I strongly disagree with this blog post and with the Christian worldview in general. And isn't everyone a Ph.D. scientist? It's what people do when they don't want a lab tech job out of school! But are you really familiar with this particular scientific literature? I'm not, but it's a fascinating topic, mostly because it's so susceptible to bias on either side. Can you identify an actual study whose aim was to confirm a causal link between oral contraceptives and depression, presumably in young adults? I'd be interested in seeing a reference, because I looked for a while and didn't find one. There is a lot of peripheral research out there, though, so I certainly could have missed something.

Anyway, it's not relevant even if Edwin Leap has seen 1000 girls with the same profile. It's a pattern that he sees, but that's still an anecdote, especially since he's so clearly in favor of the existence of such a pattern. If it's not a double-blinded experiment, he doesn't have a leg to stand on if asserting that oral contraceptives cause depression. There are just too many ways that his bias can leak into his diagnosis, despite his best attempts at remaining objective. It might be true, but there's no way to know. Yet. In Edwin's defense, though, he stopped short of insisting that such a link definitively exists, before he waxes poetic about the roles of young men and women in modern culture in what was surely intended to be an entertaining philosophical stream rather than actual medical advice.

I'm not arguing that there might not be a link between the two. And I'm certainly not arguing that it's absolutely healthy for young women to be sexually active at an early age. It's entirely plausible that oral contraceptives can lead to depression in some women, and it's also likely that lots of sexual activity at a young age can lead to various psychological issues. I'm just saying that I don't believe sufficient research exists to truly establish the causal link between contraceptives and depression, and, if so, it's irresponsible of dewde to selectively quote an article that is *already* biased in sympathetic favor of that link. Dewde's article was clearly intended to affirm this link, and in the process he's really doing a disservice to the people he claims to want to help. If the research doesn't exist (and if it does, please link to it) then Dewde's implication is a lie, no matter how much his worldview believes it to be true. "If these things are true, and I think they are..." This is little different from the anti-vaccination crowd for whom the lack of actual evidence is no obstacle to promoting their claims. If a single young woman reads this blog post and acts on this innuendo without seeking advice from her doctor, this site has undeniably harmed her.

On a different note, since he's handing out virtual medical advice, it's also not clear what dewde's preferred alternative to oral contraceptives would be. I'd argue that oral contraception significantly lowers the rate of unwanted pregnancy when compared to condom use or nothing at all. This benefit alone might outweigh the possible side effect of depression. It should, of course, be up to the woman and her doctor to decide whether this is true.

Agenda? *I'm* not the one cherrypicking from an already cherrypicked data set. It's reprehensible to pass this kind of thing off as good advice with the implication that it's advocated by a medical doctor to back up its legitmacy. Maybe I don't see the same studies you do, because I don't often troll Christian fanboy sites looking for the same old sources. There are indeed some indications that depression is an occasional side effect, but there are also plenty of studies that show otherwise. There are also entire classes of psychiatric disorders for which hormone-based contraceptives are a standard treatment. If you can be bothered to use PubMed, you'll see that it's not cut and dried as you'd like to believe. My only "agenda" is to assert that anectodal claims aren't evidence, and to further claim that I think this post is doing a great disservice to the community it claims to serve. If a young woman is suffering from depression, the implication here is that her sexuality is a strong contributor to the problem. The reality is that life is complicated, perhaps particularly so for adolescents and young adults who are facing these troubling issues. To broad-brush paint young adults' sexuality as dangerous and ungodly is absurd and counterproductive. She needs family, friends, and physicians who will help her recognize the true contributors to her problem (which may or may not include sexuality) and not some cherrypicking punks who think she should be used as an example of what to avoid.

I think the key comment in Edwin's article is the "maybe it's nothing" part. From his post, it's clear that he is not the primary physician for this girl, and he knows little about her emotional history other than her current medication regimen. It's absurd for him to draw such conclusions about her life based on this encounter, and it's equally ridiculous for you and your ilk to eat it up like some revelatory nugget of wisdom when it's *nothing* but an anecdote. At least Edwin mitigates his comments with the implication that it's conjecture based on his (admittedly valid and extensive) experience, but you guys suck up the edgy bits, plaster his name and title at the top, and call it news. Yawn.

I think you might be mistaken about your traffic levels. you know it's 90% me, right? :)

I'm a little disturbed here, because I'm not used to people agreeing with me in Dewde's comments.

I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with this claim, but the Positive Discipline idea suggests that you should never express to your kid an opinion of them. Instead, you should praise their actions. So, instead of "you're smart," you might say "you work really hard in school." I often think it's a load of bunk and that there are many nuances to language that can enhance or detract from the words you use, so simply changing the way you phrase things isn't really a silver bullet. But I do think that it's worthwhile thinking about parenting this way. Quite a bit of research shows that students who are praised for their work ethic tend to outperform those who are praised merely for being smart. They do better when things get hard, as they of course inevitably do.

After mulling this over for a couple days, I think you're right. Mostly. ;) I still think religion is bunk, but it's dumb for me to complain about people who are, in general, doing pretty good things for the world. I should save my complaining for the minority of evil people who are hiding behind a religious front. Though I'd choose to live his life differently, Dewde seems to be doing a great job, and it's brave of him to be so transparent (the good version of "transparent" here) in posting tidbits of his life for people (apparently only me) to bitch about. Two thumbs up.