welcome back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour republicans in tennessee want to reopen the scopes monkey trial so what's with the conservative war on science and how might the big oil be also traditional thinking has always been that of bilingual child will have a harder time learning in school what is new research say about being bilingual and good speaking two or more languages really health fight one of the most horrible diseases in america and in science daily take well george zimmerman pulled the trigger that killed trayvon martin there are others who have just as much blood on their hands i'll tell you who they are.

in the best of the rest of the news nearly ninety years ago in one hundred twenty five jurors in tennessee convicted john scopes i school science teacher of violating the butler act which at the time made it illegal to teach evolution in public schools it was called the scopes monkey trial ultimately scope scopes was fined fifty dollars and afterward a flurry of other states passed their own butler acts to outlaw the teaching of evolution since then though a lot of changed today evolution is an accepted theory by virtually all credible scientists and it's taught in all public schools in america but now in tennessee was to bring back the good old days this week the tennessee state legislature passed a bill requiring public schools to teach that there is a controversy over evolution in fact not only evolution the law requires public schools in that state to also teach that there's a controversy over global warming as the laws states and teaching of biological.

aleutian the chemical origins of life global warming and human cloning can cause controversy the state board of education show endeavor to assist teachers to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as addresses scientific controversies critics are bashing the legislation calling it a monkey bill that will lead to creationism once again being taught in classrooms so what's with the conservative war on science that calls into question evolution and global warming two things a ninety nine percent of all credible scientists agree or realities here to offer his take on this is the national susan as in the king's college a new york city columnist and author of numerous books including his latest god for saken and ash welcome a good to be on the show great to have you with us kids all over the world developing nations are learning the actual science of evolution and the reality of global climate change why shouldn't american kids why is why is the teaching of fundamentalist christianity so important. well first of all

those are two different issues on evolution i agree with you this is an argument that was made by darwin in eight hundred fifty nine and there's a lot of evidence to support evolution there are some christians who have objections to it usually on biblical grounds i don't agree with those people i think that evolution is quite compatible with christianity and in no way prohibited by the first book of genesis basically in the bible god says i mean the bible says that god made the world and god made man but the bible doesn't say how so there's nothing in the bible that is anti evolution in my opinion climate change is a much more recent phenomenon and i agree that there has been some global warming but the global warming appears to be about one degree over a period of about one hundred years so i think any sane person would recognise that when clo in climates do change up and down there is some room for disagreement so i

haven't seen the tennessee law but i'm not global warming i think there's more recent the science is not established any scientists will tell you that there is room for debate no there are simply not a fact no room for debate. there is no room for debate global warming is happening on his anthropogenic it is it is caused by human beings and one degree increase has been pretty split over the last thirty years and you know these things. i just said that there has been a one degree of global warming but the question is not whether the globe is warmed by a degree but whether or not that that it whether or not that effect is catastrophic i think most of us would recognize that the average temperature let's say in america went from sixty five degrees to sixty six we could still live well first of all what's on the one degree celsius and fahrenheit secondly what that has done is lead to a five percent increase in the amount of moisture in the atmosphere which is which is driving really really violent storms but you know i really i want to discuss

religion with you not global climate change you're not a climate scientist and you've written a book about religion so neither of you are absolutely you're absolutely right it's neither one of those what's your read in the paper is yet another one of us a climate science is so so you will agree to disagree on this why are you asserting in god for so you can bad things happen is there a god who cares yes there's proof why are you asserting that the christian god is you know so much better than the hindu or polytheistic gods. i'm not asserting that at all that what i am asserting is that the problem of evil which is to say the question of why god allows evil and suffering is only a problem in judaism and christianity and islam means i'm rooting for your. book you say christianity by contrast at least offer some consolation if only the consolation of three you know throughout the book here. you know. to be accurate in on your in that part of the book i'm in that part of the book i'm

discussing whether christianity or atheism offers a better remedy for suffering i'm saying that from the atheist point of view the world is just the way it is there's nothing to be said about it and in some way we just have to deal and i notice that roy going to be ok but you keep you keep making this this false. why norell ism or binary argument that there's it's got to be all or nothing it's got to be christian or atheism what's wrong with the church of the flying spaghetti monster what's wrong with reincarnation what's wrong with pantheism. actually i discuss i don't discuss the flying spaghetti monster because that's just sort of a phantom of your imagination but the point of us a lot of thought of has your furriness other let me answer let me answer in reincarnation there's no problem of evil because let's say for example your leper or your crippled that's because of bad stuff you did in your previous life so in hinduism there is no problem of evil everybody is getting exactly what they deserve well no but that is the problem of evil and who you know in christianity if you're

evil you go to hell and god tortures you for eternity in hinduism if you're bad you get another chance to make it up you're going to pay a price but you get another chance to make it up seems to me like hinduism is a whole lot more compassionate than a god who wants to torture me for the rest of my life or for all of eternity well for us to actually look first of all god doesn't want to want to torture you i do you know choice of whether or not all you got is offering you in christiania let's just be fair free gift of salvation you are free to as i say the magic words that if i don't say the magic words and do the magic ceremony then i get tortured for all of eternity how can this be irrational you're legit. if i had a gift which if i had a gift and i gave it to you and you refuse to accept it there's no magic word and i'm offering you something for free if you don't take it who's to blame me or you. that is not the point in ash the point is that you are saying they think it in you is them was an inferior religion of christianity because they are

a make over christianity it's all or nothing you screw up your burn forever how can . you talk about the importance of consolation you know it's a very it's a very large part of your book that christianity offers people an explanation you know you lost your son or your house got blown away in a tornado you know you you're your dog died your mother died whatever she's in heaven now that's nice but what about the idea that god also caused that tornado and caused that death well part of the my book argues is that the the earth and the world have been designed in the way that they have for a very particular reason i mean for example if we lived on an earth that didn't have hurricanes or tsunamis or earthquakes we could not live and we would not be living in that world in other words our planet has plate tectonics giant plates under the earth that happened to move and that's the reason that the that the land

on the earth is separated from the water so if nothing were to separate the land from the water we live on a planet that's two thirds water our entire planet would be submerged in water to about the four hundred degrees not bad actually does happen to be science so that be good for the fish but it wouldn't be good for you or me so the fact of the matter is the same natural processes that caused plate tectonics and earthquakes are the same so and so have you things happen as natural processes or do you and mean when bad things happen as natural processes when good things happen it's god. no i would say it's natural processes in both cases. ok all right well we'll leave it on that to national says a new book god for saken thanks for being with us tonight tonight it's a pleasure it's always great talking to what religion aside for a moment something tells me the big oil lobby is behind the anti-science legislation i was talking about tennessee hoping the young americans global warming will keep their fossil fuel profits flowing for at least another generation.

it's thursday so let's get augie can fight in a world that becomes more and more globalized and diverse each day being able to speak more than one language certainly has advantages but the ability to speak multiple languages maybe more than just a desirable skill set being bilingual makes you smarter according to scientists being bilingual has a positive effect on your brain by helping to improve various cognitive skills and it even helps to slow the onset of dementia and alzheimer's disease in old age a two thousand and four study showed the bilingual preschoolers were better at solving certain types of mental puzzles in their single language speaking classmates the evidence from this and similar study shows that being bilingual helps to improve the grains executive function that's the system of our brain that directs our attention processes that are used for planning solving problems and

performing other mentally challenging tasks so why do bilinguals ability to solve complex problems defer so greatly from their monolingual counterparts according to albert costner a researcher at the university of pump in spain the answer is that bilinguals have a heightened ability to monitor their environment close to says that bilinguals have to switch languages quite often for example having a mother and father speak to different languages which requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving well bilingualism has been shown to have positive effects on the brain throughout a lifetime perhaps one of the most beneficial effects of being bilingual comes in the later years in a study of elderly spanish english bilinguals university scientists at the university of california at san diego found that individuals with higher degrees of bilingualism are more resistant. others to the onset of dementia and alzheimer's

disease basically the stronger the individuals were at speaking two languages later the age of onset of dementia alzheimer's affects millions of americans every year it's a horrible disease so discovering that something as simple as learning a second language could help prevent it it's a remarkable discovery who could have imagined the words we hear the conversations we have every day could have such a profound effect on our brains and our lives. coming up inside the daily take when it comes to the trayvon martin tragedy george zimmerman isn't the only want a lot on his hands i'll tell you who else help pull that trigger after the birth. we just put a picture of the need when i was like nine years old like that you know lived through.

i think i am going to get of friends that i would rather get a few seconds and. it was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world with its place. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear see some of the part of it and realize that everything you saw. i'm sorry is a big issue. for

. your take my take is your chance to send your questions comments rants and

observations about anything we talk about here on the big picture or during my radio show but it's comments come to us via the tom hartman facebook page the first comment of the night comes from robert who posted this about our peaceful societies segment earlier this week it's hard to disagree with tom i realize too much of the budgets of britain and america are spent on pointless wars and arms contracts which improperly benefit certain arms companies i don't believe it appropriate that any nation has no standing army the only real example of a nation doing that of note is poland in the mid eighteenth century seven hundred ninety five poland no longer exist. as a sovereign nation i do believe that a standing force sufficient to maintain the nation's security for long enough so the nation may mobilize of attacked should be maintained well first of all you've missed if you if you look at a country without a standing army you missed coast to record right now ever since coast to record recovered from the military coup in the one nine hundred fifty s. costa rica's had no standing army none you also are disagreeing with one of the

founders of this country thomas jefferson here's a few of the things that he had to say when he was arguing back and seven hundred eighty seven that the second amendment to the constitution should say there shall be no standing army during times of peace but rather a militia in order to maintain a regulated militia etc the language that we have right now he said the greeks by their laws and the romans by the spirit of their people took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army in a letter to james madison seven hundred eighty seven he said i do not like in the new federal constitution the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of soft isms for protection against standing armies and in a letter to david humphries and seventeen a night he wrote there are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation such an instrument is a standing army so jefferson was saying was that history shows that standing army

armies during times of peace and he wanted to have a navy to protect our borders but a standing army during a time of peace was an instrument of what he called mischief that he looked at other countries and had been had they had military coups or that overthrown by their own armies and said we don't want one of those things during times and from one of our international viewers hildegarde in cologne germany she had this brief but poignant reaction to her daily take last night about why republicans really want to go to war with iran. she said what a madness actually she said it out there which and yeah it's true consider the possibility that republicans want to go to go to war with iran simply because as christine legarde pointed out yesterday front page of the financial times if we want to war with iran and oppose what all eighteen of our intelligence agencies oppose what the former head of mossad says you know if we went to war with iran it would cause according to christine legarde a worldwide depression and of course that's

a great way to get president obama out of office. just. it's the good the bad of the very very sanguine never asli ugly good montana judge james reynolds on tuesday reynolds rejected a republican backed ballot initiative that aimed to help conservatives in montana supreme court elections the initiative would have established regional districts and each one of those regions would elect one justice for the supreme court and since much of the state is conservative more conservatives would end up on the supreme court reynolds said in his ruling that the initiative would change the montana constitution i add a new candidate requirements for supreme court justices was therefore unconstitutional so it's not enough the conservatives are controlling our legislatures now they're coming after our courts good on you judge reynolds for

standing up to this latest conservative boy the bad bill the los angeles city council well it's handle city council's become the first city in the country to approve a resolution to censor radio and t.v. resolution urges the management of radio and television stations in los angeles to do everything in their power to ensure that their on air hosts do not use and promote racist and sexist slurs over the public airwaves in the city of los angeles now i'm usually on the same side as liberals and i'm just as offended as anybody for a racist and sexist comments like those made recently by limbaugh and other right wingers but when we give the government the power to determine what's considered offensive political speech it's a slippery slope for example how long would it be before they come after me for calling george w. bush a war criminal. and the very very ugly senator john thune in the wake of the trayvon martin tragedy senator thune and his republican colleagues are trying to turn america into the wild wild west along with twenty eight other republican

senators thune introduced a bill yesterday that would allow people authorized to carry a concealed weapon in their home state to carry it all other concealed carry states it would basically eliminate the state's control over who carry a firearm in that state and think that the martin tragedy would be a reason to prevent further gun violence in america instead senator thune is trying to fill our streets with more guns and that it's very very. the city of sanford florida is on edge tonight as george zimmerman is still free after shooting seventeen year old trayvon martin to death last month while mark was walking home from a seven eleven armed with skittles and iced tea the justice department's civil

rights division is sending a community relations envoy to sanford to prevent riots and social unrest and the sanford city commissioners passed a no confidence vote against the city's police chief bill lee jr who stood by his department's decision to not bother investigating the death not even seriously questioning or drug and alcohol testing the gunman despite the despite public outrage is now sweeping the nation today under pressure chiefly resign temporarily saying that he's become a distraction but to get to the heart of what's really going on in this tragic case it could get a lot worse of anger boils over you have to understand the george zimmerman is not the only one with a lot on his hands. the american legislative exchange council better known as alec and its billionaire donors the koch brothers who brought us this law also have blood on their hands it's apparently in part because of alec the trayvon martin is dead and it's apparently in part because of alec that george zimmerman walks free

let's rewind back to two thousand and five that's when florida governor jeb bush signed the new stand your ground law that explicitly gives a floridian the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another it's better known as the shoot first since it gives people the right to shoot first and ask questions later the moment they feel threatened by someone else not just in their own home but it has a public place or an empty street in the city of sanford where trayvon martin was gunned down george zimmerman who weighs one hundred pounds more than martin and was carrying a nine millimeter pistol said he felt threatened by the teenager as he was following martin in his truck thus he had the right under the stand your ground law to shoot and kill martin that's why despite eyewitness testimony saying that martin was not a threat and despite nine eleven tapes revealing the zimmerman was the actual

aggressor zimmerman shooting martin in the chest was considered a justifiable homicide and no criminal charges were filed against him the sanford police even issued a letter to the public to explain why his imerman wasn't arrested saying zimmerman provided a statement claiming he acted in self-defense the florida statute law enforcement was prohibited from making an arrest based on the facts and circumstances they had at the time. similar justifiable homicides allowed under this law have skyrocketed in florida since the law was signed by jeb bush in two thousand and five there were forty three justifiable homicides that year but by two thousand and nine that number had ballooned to one hundred five when the law was first being debated back in two thousand and five florida state representative dan gelber said about it for a house that talks about the culture of life it's ironic that we would be devaluing life in this bill but that's exactly what we're doing and in two thousand and five reuters article in the new law read critics say the measure could lead to racially

motivated killings and promote deadly escalations of arguments trayvon martin the victim was an african-american and george zimmerman the killer was not and it's alleged though the audio is difficult to hear as a moment a racial epithet is nine eleven call just before killing martin department of justice and the f.b.i. are looking into whether this may have been a racially motivated hate crime but george zimmerman is still free because he's protected by this stand your ground law so where did this law come from that's where alec comes in alec brings together mostly republican state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists giving each side an equal vote a model legislation that is approved semiannual alec conferences and then sent off to state legislatures to be passed in other words corporations and lobbying groups meet with elected lawmakers to write and pass laws the more money a corporation lobbyist gives alec the more power they have to write in two thousand and five alec passed what was called the castle doctrine act and as one alec member

michael ho said in a radio interview back in two thousand and eight a castle doctrine was passed by alec with the help of the national rifle association the lobbying arm of the american gun manufacturing industry. we are a very pro second amendment organization in fact the last session some of the again off topic here real quick but some of the things that we were pushing in states with the castle doctrine we worked with the n.r.a. on that that's one of our model bills that we have states a introduce. so what exactly is the castle doctrine well it's a virtual cabin copy of florida's stand your ground law which was passed just a few months after alec approved the castle doctrine here of the two bills. side by side nearly identical other than this one minor difference that basically actually makes the believe in more expansive coordination reporter john nichols alec wrote

this law for lobbyists from the n.r.a. and wal-mart a nation's largest retailer of guns and republicans in the florida state legislature introduced it and republican governor jeb bush signed it into law and now hundreds of justifiable homicides later homicides were nichols says wal-mart can no longer be sued for sellers liability because they're justifiable the african-american community is outraged in the city is sanford florida is about to explode but the n.r.a. and wal-mart both long time funders of alec according to nichols got what they wanted free rein for gun owners to shoot first since alec approve the law in two thousand and five sixteen states and passed it creating a breeding ground for more senseless racially motivated violence so how many more kids have to die in the name of justifiable homicides so walmart can avoid liability losses how many more teenagers have to be murdered and how many more communities have to be up ended by the violence so the national rifle association

and the koch brothers funded american legislative exchange council to make sure the gun manufacturers and retailers like wal-mart can sell more of their products alec represents the corporatocracy in the us is not interested in the public good but rather corporate profit whatever maximizes profits and any nice's them from lawsuits and matter how many trayvon martin's are murdered in the process so what they want from the founders wrote we the people is the first three words of our constitution they did not mean we the corporations that matter what john roberts clarence thomas and antonin scalia say this is no way to run a country and one of the many reasons why the right wing take over this country that started with reagan needs to be reversed and we need to come back to our senses. that's it for the big picture of the night turning to morrow night for a talk with david rothkopf c.e.o. and editor at large of foreign policy magazine and our conversations with great minds and don't forget democracy begins with you it all starts when you get out there and get active get out there and occupy something your it civil.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you live something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you

thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. more news today violence is once again flared up the film these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada the fine to hope for asians to rule today the big. wealthy british style. sometimes violent political. news.