For those of you who live in the Seattle area (which now includes me), the “Seattle Analytic Philosophy Club” are hosting an event on the 28th of November from 7pm till 9pm in Lake Hills Library (15590 Lake Hills Blvd, Bellevue, WA). Here’s the event description from the website: Is there a demarcation between science […]
Month: October 2012
New Study in Science Reveals Molecular Machine “Rock-Climbing” DNA
A new paper just published in the journal Science reveals how an SMC (structural maintenance of chromosome) complex called MukBEF “climbs” DNA in a manner similar to a rock-climber grabbing onto a handhold. The paper reports, Although ATP hydrolysis is essential for the activity of SMC complexes, its mechanistic importance has been unclear. Our data indicate […]
A reply to Dr Dawkins’ September Playboy interview
In an interview with Playboy, September just past, Dr Dawkins made some dismissive remarks on the historicity of Jesus, in the context of having made similarly dismissive talking points about Intelligent Design. As UD News noted: PLAYBOY: What is your view of Jesus? DAWKINS: The evidence he existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books […]
Alleged on Netflix Streaming
For those of you wanting to see the new movie about the Scopes trial, I just noticed it is available on Netflix streaming! I just watched it, and it is indeed excellent.
Eric Anderson Responds to Kantian Naturalist Re the “Quartium Quid”
Kantian Naturalist writes a thought-provoking response to my Thomas Nagel and the “Quartum Quid” post and Eric Anderson responds. Kantian: The problem here is whether ‘naturalistic teleology’ collapses into reductive naturalism or design realism. Rather than treat naturalistic teleology as a quartium quid, it is a tertium quid. The first two, “chance” and “necessity” are […]
La Evolucion es un Proceso Natural que Corre al Reves
My video “Evolution is a Natural Process Running Backward” has been translated into Spanish by Sebastian Escuain, and produced with the help of Jorge Viramontes and my brother Kirk Sewell. The Spanish version is linked below (high def. version is here). For more background, see How the Scientific Consensus is Maintained . embedded by Embedded […]
‘Penis Worm’ Shakes Evolutionary Tree
Scientific American features an article based on a new paper in Current Biology. Scientific American reports, A study on the development of priapulids or ‘penis’ worms throws doubt on a feature that has been thought for more than 100 years to define the largest branch of the animal tree of life. Members of this branch — the […]
Stasis in Pleistocene mammals and birds
New information has emerged to show that a prediction of neo-Darwinism has been falsified. Everyone knows that animals adapt to their environments. The surge of interest in climate change has stimulated research into morphological change in Galapagos finches, “Siberian warblers, English sparrows, cuckoos, cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, and many others.” The message coming through is that […]
The promise and (under)performance of green technologies — and the lesson for us
First off, let me say that I would be delighted if green technologies could be made to work and could account for much of our energy (leaving aside the politics and powertrip that seem to lure many who push green technologies). That said, these technologies have consistently underperformed in relation to the hype used to […]
From Protein Science, “The Levinthal Paradox of the Interactome”
Paul Nelson highlights an interesting paper that appeared relatively recently in the journal Protein Science entitled “The Levinthal Paradox of the Interactome.” The paper’s abstract reads, The central biological question of the 21st century is: how does a viable cell emerge from the bewildering combinatorial complexity of its molecular components? Here, we estimate the combinatorics […]
Paper Elucidates New Function for Long Non-Coding RNA
Over at ENV, Casey Luskin draws our attention to a new paper in Nature which elucidates new function for long-non-coding RNA. The paper, which can be downloaded here, reports, Most of the mammalian genome is transcribed. This generates a vast repertoire of transcripts that includes protein-coding messenger RNAs, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and repetitive sequences, […]
Thomas Nagel and the “Quartium Quid”
Since Aristotle it has been common to refer to intelligent agency as a third cause in addition to law and chance. The Philosopher obviously spoke Greek, but his concept has come to be known by the Latin “tertium quid” the “third thing.” Over at Witherspoon William Carroll reviews atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos: Why […]
Updating DesignInference.com
I just want to let people on this forum know that I’m finally updating my personal website at DesignInference.com. Specifically, the page with my writings, which had not been updated for three years, is now largely up to date (though it omits articles and books in the pipeline): http://www.designinference.com/dembski-on-intelligent-design/dembski-writings. My own work and research, though […]
New Paper in Nature Reports, “Filamentous bacteria transport electrons over centimetre distances”
Check out the paper in Nature here. From the abstract, Oxygen consumption in marine sediments is often coupled to the oxidation of sulphide generated by degradation of organic matter in deeper, oxygen-free layers. Geochemical observations have shown that this coupling can be mediated by electric currents carried by unidentified electron transporters across centimetre-wide zones. Here […]