September 2011

In “How we die matters” Danny Eisen, (The Ottawa Citizen, September 10, 2011) recounts, “My cousin fought his killers as his plane headed for the World Trade Center.” Like virtually everyone else who knew Danny [Lewin], I wondered if more had happened in the last minutes of that flight. The question would be answered later by American authorities. They informed our family that Danny had been stabbed and critically wounded while physically confronting Mohamed Atta and his colleagues. Seated in their midst in business class, Danny fought, alone and unarmed, to prevent the hijacking. Alone? While Danny did not succeed in preventing the tragedy on Flight 11, his impact on 9/11 would be profound. As the co-founder of Akamai Technologies, Read More ›

When you repair a broken pipe, shattered window or cracked sidewalk, you first remove the broken pieces and establish a starting point. Likewise when a break occurs in DNA, the automatic repair machines must first remove the broken, dangling molecules and establish a starting point. It is another fantastic capability of the cell’s DNA repair kit.  Read more

In “Charles Manson, Please Save Marriage & Family Therapy”, family therapist David Schnarch pleads for a reconsideration of “mind-mapping”, Applied neuroscience is a hot topic among mental health professionals, and there are two different views of mind-mapping in ascendance: One is based on attachment theory, which proposes that mind-mapping develops by parents giving children accurate feedback about who their child is, and parents having a coherent mind and allowing their children to map them. According to this view, people don’t develop mind-mapping ability if this is not valued in their families growing up, or if parents’ minds are not coherent, or if parents’ give children a distorted picture of their own minds. As a result, such children do not develop Read More ›

In “Dutch Scientist Fired for Faking Data” (The Scientist , September 8, 2011), Tia Ghose reports “A psychologist whose splashy findings on human nature routinely made the news has been dismissed for falsifying data.” Diederik Stapel, who headed the Institute for Behavioral Economics Research at Tilburg University, routinely published controversial findings that seemed to get at fundamental aspects of human nature. In April, he published a Science study showing that messy or chaotic environments make people more prone to relying on stereotypes. But late last month (August 27), researchers in his lab contacted the Rector of the university, Philip Eijlander, and alleged that some of the data was fabricated, ScienceInsider reports. Makes sense. Applying common sense, we assume that messy Read More ›

In “Ancient Jelly Simplifies Animal Tree?” (The Scientist , September 9, 2011 Sabrina Richards reports “A newly discovered fossil of a nearly 600-million-year-old comb jelly ancestor may call for scientists to rethink early animal evolution.” Just think: 600 million years old. Well, Like vertebrates, cnidarians exhibit bilateral or biradial symmetry—meaning they can be bisected into two mirror images. The ancestors of comb jellies, however, were not. The current version of the animal tree, which has the comb jelly lineage arising after bilateral cnidarians but before bilateral flatworms suggests that bilateral symmetry must have evolved twice—once in the cnidarian lineage, and again in animals that evolved after the comb jellies branched away. The new fossil, however, may shake up that view. Read More ›

In a recent Fox News poll, 45 percent of voters accept the Biblical account of creation as the explanation for the origin of human life on Earth, while 21 percent say the theory of evolution as outlined by Darwin and other scientists is correct. Another 27 percent say both explanations are true. Belief in creationism, however, fails to explain Republican presidential primary preferences. Frontrunner Rick Perry is the top choice for GOP primary voters who believe in creationism as well as those who believe in evolution. That’s probably because the upcoming US election will likely turn on beliefs about the economy rather than origins. There’s been an increase in the number of people who believe Darwin, from 1999 through 2011: Read More ›

From Wichita State University: The Department of History mourns the loss of Niall Shanks, the Curtis D. Gridley Distinguished Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science, a joint appointment he held with the departments of History and Philosophy. He died July 13, 2011, after a long illness. Shanks was the first Gridley Distinguished professor at WSU, and taught courses on science and technology for the History Department. Born in England, Professor Shanks received a B.A. (Hons.) in Philosophy from the University of Leeds in 1979, an M. Phil. in Philosophy from the University of Liverpool in 1981, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Alberta in 1987. Shanks authored several books and numerous articles on the history Read More ›

You know, the “sinner in the hands of an angry god?” (Darwinism) Here: Most of Reiss’ analysis is very helpful and good common sense. Adopting his approach will enhance the educational experience of all pupils. However, there is one major area where I would like to see a further development of the analysis: this is to provide a more thorough analysis of science using a worldview perspective. What should we make of Reiss when he writes: “The scientific worldview is materialistic in the sense that it is neither idealistic nor admits of non-physical explanations” (p.403)? Some of us do not find this summary one that we would use in our scientific work. In fact, the prohibition of non-physical explanations should Read More ›