Sure, these are micro or distributed systems. But micro and distributed don’t mean unimportant. If we are still making new discoveries in human anatomy, many questions that we are told are settled are probably not settled. Many lecterns are splintered in vain. Much science education policy is Bad.
Epigenetics: Researchers say separation stress may alter small children’s genes
Raised cortisol levels have been found in children separated from family for thirty or more hours a week, especially those in substandard care.
Michael Egnor: How can we study consciousness scientifically?
Egnor tells us that Tam Hunt offers some good ideas at Scientific American but his dismissal of objectivity is cause for concern.
First known animal that doesn’t breathe
That’s called devolution, when life forms simply junk complex equipment they never use. One wonders if there is any characteristic of live that some life form or other has not devolved to get rid of. But they will, of course, likely be parasites like salminicola.
Michael Egnor: The mind’s reality is consistent with neuroscience
Egnor: I think the best explanation of the relationship of the mind to the brain is Aristotelian hylomorphism which is the viewpoint that the soul is the form of the body and that certain powers of the soul, particularly the intellect and will, are not generated by matter but are immaterial things.
Green plants discovered in China dated at a billion years ago
It’s not “land” vs. “sea” that’s really significant here. It’s how much time was available for the development of photosynthesis. If the claim is that photosynthesis developed via natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism), then it must have somehow randomly happened in that billion years. Was there enough time? becomes an unavoidable question.
China
JStanley’s comment here put me in mind of this photograph I took in a Xian market some years ago.
Science writer dons sandwich board: Ask me anything about evolution!
But why on earth did she think that such a strategy would ever be an aid to effective communication? Wasn’t she, at bottom, just trying to put the supposedly stupid mid-Western rubes on display for the supposedly sophisticated Brits? That stuff is wearing thinner all the time though the targeted Brit demographic might be the last to know.
Forbes’ physics columnist Ethan Siegel can’t wait to get beyond the Big Bang
But doesn’t seem to have a ticket. So a mechanism that caused the Universe to come into existence with these properties already in place? But then what caused that mechanism? If a mechanism caused that mechanism, what in turn caused the previous mechanism? Siegel obviously wants to get past the idea of an actual beginning but orthodox science does not seem to allow that. Some religious propositions might suffice, of course, but he does not want to go there. Advice from readers?
Betelgeuse begins to re-brighten
. . . and that, at about the suggested time for an up-turn. Astronomy telegram clip: >>The Fall and Rise in Brightness of Betelgeuse ATel #13512; Edward Guinan, Richard Wasatonic (Villanova University),Thomas Calderwood (AAVSO) and Donald Carona (Texas A& M University) on 22 Feb 2020; 12:59 UTCredential Certification: Edward Guinan (edward.guinan@villanova.edu) As previously reported (see Read More…
At Texas & M last week: Theistic evolutionist Joshua Swamidass vs. ID proponent Michael Behe
Here’s vid from the Ratio Christi Facebook page of Joshua Swamidass vs. Michael Behe. at the LIVE Veritas Forum 2020: God and/or Evolution.
The spreading of corona virus
UK’s Daily Mail reports: They also provide a map: A concern is that mild cases are masked under the common cold, and that the incubation period may be up to four weeks or thereabouts, not the fortnight that has been used hitherto. They are not finding a “patient zero” for some of these outbreaks, which Read More…
Spoof alert!: Jerry Coyne is interviewed at Dissociated News
Coyne has been a frequent topic on our page in recent months and a reader dug this out from 2013 and sent it in. Michael Egnor imagines an interview with Jerry Coyne on deplatforming opponents: They’re still talking about it. After I told them not to.
Straw in the wind? Get a load of the insightful review of a string theorist’s Big Book at Nature
In sharp contrast with the classic slobbering review at Time of string theorist Brian Greene’s new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Penguin 2020), , which resurrects mid-twentieth century attempts to undermine traditional religions via schlock science religion, the Nature reviewer is not impressed. (Kiddos, that was back when Time Magazine mattered, as did newsprint in general.) By contrast, Philip Ball at nature appears appropriately skeptical.
String theorist’s philosophy of life – Time’s reviewer laps it up
Some reviewers almost make us forget that string theory was supposed to be science, not religion. Get a load of this review of string theorist Brian Greene’s new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Penguin 2020)