Thank god for evolution

As a proponent of the "new" atheism, Richard Dawkins is, like Christopher Hitchens and others, sometimes annoying. But when it comes to explaining the nuts and bolts of evolution, few do it better.

Next year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection. To mark those dates, the BBC has started an evolution series on Channel 4 with Dawkins, also available from Dawkins' Web site.

For another look at the exciting and controversial world of biblical archeology, television viewers will be able to take in the two-hour Nova special on PBS this coming November (trailer here). From the previews, it seems the content should be taken with a grain of salt: it's unlikely the Bible was written by hundreds of authors, and archeological remains and linguistics tell us that the ancient Israelites were definitely not Canaanites. But this is journalism, after all -- it's not supposed to be accurate, just ... umm ... "provocative" :)

(Hat tip to Adam.)