Today marks the 79th anniversary by date and day, of “the thirteen hours that saved Britain” (and the world): Again, food for thought to awaken us to sobering lessons of history. END
The growth of the Internet, 1990 – 2019
Of general interest — and especially observe the rise of China, India and Nigeria: Food for thought. END
What about claims that robots can become spiritual?
Merritt promptly converts the hypothetical question about salvatin for aliens—which depends, of course, on the assumption that Martians are beings much like ourselves—into: Are you there, God? It’s I, robot.
Ed Feser on the delusion that computers are intelligent
”As Smith observes, a computer can be programmed to detect instances of the word “betrayal” in scanned texts, but it lacks the concept of betrayal.”
Ancient human group as a “cold case” nearly half a million years ago?
This would be a great murder mystery film, so long as someone other than Hollywood made it.
New evidence found for the asteroid that deep-sixed the dinosaurs
It’s certainly valuable new information. The outstanding puzzle has always been, why were all dinosaurs killed off but not all mammals or reptiles?
Is the universe two billion years younger than we think?
If that’s true, then the idea that Darwinism (purely random mutations that survive or not explain the awesomely complex life forms we are engulfed in) is even less plausible.
Did the neural pattern that showed that there is no free will turn out to be noise?
If it was just noise, you may not hear that any time soon from the textbook mill.
Natural philosopher insists, science is deeply imaginative
Okay but the multiverse crowd does not lack imagination. Nor do those who have convinced themselves of panpsychism. The thing about imagination in science is that it must be disciplined. If it isn’t, it ends up competing with fiction, without the style.
Sean Carroll: Where quantum probability comes from
His universe is deterministic, presumably, because everything happens. End of story. Actually, end of all stories.
Remembering a 9-1-1 hero: Rick Rescorla
Sometimes, we need heroes to awaken our souls. Here, is a genuine hero — the man who literally predicted what happened on a fateful day in September 2001 and set out to save lives. He saved 2700 that day and was last seen heading back up, looking for stragglers. Wikipedia’s summary is a start: Cyril […]
At The Conversation: Why DO astronomers believe dark matter exists?
Is dark matter the Higgs boson, hard to find but eventually found, or the ether, once believed to pervade the universe? If twenty years pass with no dark matter, unfortunately, the needle will tilt a bit more toward the ether.
Half-billion-year-old predator is the mother of all spiders?
Researcher: “Evidence is converging towards picturing the Cambrian explosion as even swifter than what we thought,” says Aria. “Finding a fossil site like the Burgess Shale at the very beginning of the Cambrian would be like looking into the eye of the cyclone.”
Researchers: Exoplanet, 2x the size of Earth, has not only water but possible rain clouds
Most exoplanets, we are told, fall into this size range and it is not yet known if it has a rocky surface, considered important for life. Here’s a roundup of some things we know.
The Scientist: Exploding stars probably did not cause bipedalism
No? Does such a perfect pop culture anthropology theory even have a right not to be true? Let alone be called by a rival anthropologist “bizarre” and “weird,” as in the article at The Scientist?