So you still don’t believe that starch is responsible for human brain evolution? Well, there is always sugar. No, wait… also popcorn. To evolve smartness, try popcorn, candy floss, and marshmallows. People had to be smart to invent popcorn, candy floss, and marshmallows. Let’s get in while we can.
Humanist philosopher James Croft goes after Steve Meyer’s Return of God Hypothesis
But in an interesting, traditional way (no Cancel Culture, no weirdness, no hysterics).
Surprise, surprise, the aging process is irreversible
It’s nice to know that entropy is good for something.
Epigenetics: Biologists discover 71 new “imprinted” genes in the mouse genome
Researchers: Scientists have yet to work out how one parental version of a given gene can be switched (or faded) on or off and maintained that way while the other is in the opposite state. It is known that much of the on/off switching occurs during the formation of gametes (sperm and egg), but the precise mechanisms remain unclear. This new study points to the intriguing possibility that some imprinted genes may not be marked in gametes, but become active later in development, or even in adulthood.
Celebrity physicists are in a row over, literally, nothing
Epperson: Quantum mechanics is a physical theory, operative only in a physical universe. To contort it into service as a cosmological engine that generates the physical universe from “nothing” requires that the abstract concept of “nothing” be concretized as physical so that the mechanics of quantum mechanics can function. What’s more, if quantum mechanics is functional enough to generate the universe from nothing, then it’s not really nothing; it’s nothing plus quantum mechanics.
Human cells write RNA sequences into DNA
Challenging, they say, a central principle in biology.
Why is science reporting so bad?
Novella’s points are well taken. But, if anything, media tend to be too deferential to science sources and are most likely to just follow their lead, in time for the 6:00 am deadline. If you are in media, you must publish something, and soon.
Can only math solve the mystery at the heart of the universe?
Hartnett, quoting: ““This is [a] very embarrassing thing that we don’t have a single quantum field theory we can describe in four dimensions, nonperturbatively,” said Rejzner. “It’s a hard problem, and apparently it needs more than one or two generations of mathematicians and physicists to solve it.””
Misleading claims about a long running evolution experiment
Hey. The Darwinians are marketing magic and it is really difficult to refute magic.
An astonishing underwater world
We tend to think that life only got complex when it moved to land but look at this…
Nature attempts to paper over a genuine and reasonable lack of trust in China over COVID-19
This matters to us because it bears on the fate of science in general, as China becomes a global superpower. Nature Editorial: “Such trends are likely to continue if geopolitical tensions with the United States worsen. That would be regrettable.” No, it wouldn’t be “regrettable.” Not so long as China cannot be trusted.
Why science is losing prestige…
When it behaves like Hollywood, it deserves to.
Child burial from 80,000 years ago shows the existence of abstract ideas
Perhaps the snail shell with the excisions gave an identity to “Mtoto” — a message to another world, perhaps, about who the child was. As more burials are found, we will start to get more answers. For example, if a number of such graves feature shells or similar objects with excisions, we can infer a symbolic intention.
Off topic: The Cancel Culture ragtag volunteer army of censors
Malicious envy was always out there but before social media it could rarely assemble so large a mob. But that’s a challenge, not a prophecy. We ID types can help fend them off. We are used to fighting Cancel Culture.
Michael Behe on the “purposeful arrangement of parts”
Although Michael Behe, is associated with the concept of irreducible complexity, he now says he prefers to explain ID as “purposeful arrangement of parts.”