Rob Sheldon: What Blekman didn’t say, but Sabine Hossenfelder does, is that there are not “tens of thousands” but rather an infinite supply of wrong theories. That should keep particle physicists employed until at least the 23rd century or until the oceans rise 30 feet, whichever comes first.
At Scientific American: Could we force the universe to crash?
Does anyone remember when science was distinct from science fiction? But in those days, great discoveries were made. Who needs great discoveries when an active imagination will do just as well?
Popular Darwinism as a Gnostic religion
Burfeind: Social Gospel preachers gained traction because they rallied earlier communitarian revivalism in opposition to voguish Social Darwinism… Their argument wasn’t against the Theory of Evolution per se… They in essence were saying, “Evolution is on our side.”
At Inspiring Philosophy: There is no evidence that the brain creates consciousness
In this Part 3, physicalist arguments are debunked.
Jonathan McLatchie interviews Christian rocker Jon Steingard, who “no longer believes in God”
McLatchie: We had a two hour conversation about the evidences for God and for Christianity. It includes discussion of intelligent design which may be of interest.
On the trajectory of Covid-19 (and similar diseases)
As a FYI, we need to understand the pattern of such diseases, so courtesy Yandex Image search (Google did an obvious results suppression): This leads to the simplified U/L trajectory description. If a vulnerable patient catches, things tend to get worse over several days, potentially leading to a crisis from immunity system over-reaction and/or secondary Read More…
What signifies a real expert is uncertainty
When the real expert doesn’t really know. Here’s an interesting approach to the question from a political scientist and a business prof.
Origin of life specialist suggested that ID folk should focus on the ribosome
Harvard’s George Church: And if I were to be an intelligent design defender, that’s what I would focus on; how did the ribosome come to be?
Dave Coppedge comments on New Scientist’s “Big Bang” origin of life theory
Coppedge: Marshall and the evolutionists he marshals together know full well that any of the basic requirements for life – metabolism, a container and a code – are unlikely to spontaneously form separately, much less together at the same time and place.
That “smallest dino” paper has been retracted
Apparently another team found a similar fossil which it thinks is a lizard.
At New Scientist: Origin of life happened all at once in a chemical Big Bang
It’s basically a rehash of many wishful theories, united by a single drive: To somehow get an origin of life out of a mindless cosmos. The best thing about such theories is their inventiveness.
Eric Holloway: Why engineering can’t be reduced to the laws of physics
He argues that the problem how to account for innovation cannot be solved by anything built upon the laws of physics.
One of Boghossian’s hoaxers started the Woke on the 2 plus 2 equals five drive?
Meanwhile, Lindsay has a blog keeping track of Woke folk and other unfunny crazies, where he says he himself might have started off the 2 + 2 = 5 crazy, intending only to explain to someone how the Woke think.
Bacteria are smarter than we think
At Wired: As they cleared paths of food, the E.coli tended to move toward unexplored, broth-rich areas, which ultimately helped them evacuate the maze. It took about 10 hours for about 1 percent of the multiple generations of bacteria to collectively solve the puzzle. That may not sound fast, but it’s five times faster than if the organisms had just been swimming around randomly, says Phan.
Tuatara genome sequenced; some surprising findings
At Nature: The genome produced by Gemmell and co-workers is one of the largest vertebrate genomes published so far. At more than 5 gigabases, it is about 50% larger than the human genome… Tuatara have a close resemblance to their forebears from the early Mesozoic era, between 240 million and 230 million years ago…