Monthly Archives: November 2013
Sat nite fun: Orchids with monkey faces
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by News under Evolution, News |
No, this time we are not going to say it, you say it.
Humans originated as a pig-chimp hybrid? Story making the rounds once more.
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by News under Human evolution, News |
The Daily Mail writer finds the evidence “compelling.” And Dr. McCarthy professes to esteem pigs. Guess the dream never dies.
What defines “good” design in the composition of music and the tuning of musical instruments?
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Philosophy |
“Bad design” is one of the most formidable arguments against intelligent design. I’ve responded to this by saying that what constitutes “good design” depends on the goals of the designer. If fuel efficiency is the criteria of good design, then a motorcycle is a better design than an SUV. But some will argue the SUV […]
Further from the “clades diverge early” paper…
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, News, speciation |
In short, a life system gets started with a certain early potential, runs its course, becoming more inflexible over time, and then fades out – like most human institutions.
New PNAS paper: Large, related groups of animals diverge from each other quite early in their evolution
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by News under News, speciation |
Not the long, slow process advocated by Darwin’s followers.* This has long been known, if course, it just gets conveniently buried in the “We’re working on it” pile, lest anyone ask more basic questions. One burial method is obfuscated prose.
Possible game-changer in search for extra-terrestrial life: India sends craft to Mars
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by News under Extraterrestrial life, News |
As noted earlier, sheer expense may be causing NASA to postpone Mars visits. But the technology now exists; what if new players enter the game? No sooner asked than India is sending a probe to Mars, Mangalvaar.
Understanding self-evidence (with a bit of help from Aquinas . . . )
| November 30, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Atheism, Darwinist rhetorical tactics, Ethics, Science, worldview issues/foundations and society, Selective Hyperskepticism |
It seems that one of the pivotal issues in reasoned thinking about design-related questions — and in general — is the question of self-evident first, certain truths that can serve as a plumb-line for testing other truth claims, and indeed for rationality. (Where, the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle are foremost among such […]
Fri nite frite: Revenge of the Thanksgiving turkey
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by News under Just For Fun, News |
No, not indigestion. Wild North American turkeys have been proliferating in recent years, and it turns out, they are, um, assertive, when not aggressive:
Does fox use magnetic north to detect prey under three feet of snow?
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by News under Animal minds, News |
At one time, it was doubtless simple just to say, “It can’t really do that; that’s just an old-timers’ legend” or “Its hearing is really good; that’s all.” But catching it on film suggests another possibility…
Darwinists say “there is no point in studying designs and its designer once we decide something is designed”
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Culture, Intelligent Design, News, Philosophy |
When Darwinists say that ID hinders science because once we decide something is designed, we stop inquiry. That is like saying, “there is no point in studying designs and its designer once we decide something is designed.” This is like saying once something passes our own personal Explanatory Filter, and we recognize design in an […]
God: Lawgiver or Hypocrite? Loftus attacks divine command theories of ethics
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by vjtorley under Intelligent Design |
In my last post, I critiqued Dr. Sean Carroll’s claim that the existence of evil in the world renders the existence of God unlikely. In this post, I’ll be responding to skeptic John Loftus’s claim that God is a hypocrite, in his recent post, Two Unanswerable Dilemmas Concerning God and Morality. Why Loftus believes we […]
A moth’s wings feature two flies picking at a pile of bird dropping.
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by News under Informatics, News |
Information transmitted by nobody at all to somebody (a moth predator). Information that happens to be false,which probably increases the complexity.
A (more) natural history of evolution controversies in 19th century America
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by News under Evolution, News |
Agassiz, who doubted Darwin, also rejected organized religion and Gray, who promoted his work, was a devout Presbyterian.
Further to the question of what constitutes “woo” (Rupert Sheldrake edition)
| November 29, 2013 | Posted by News under Animal minds, News |
We have much to learn about animal cognition, but advances may require challenging current beliefs about how animals know things, learn, or navigate.
Researcher: Many fewer minerals existed at time of origin of life than today
| November 28, 2013 | Posted by News under News, Origin Of Life |
If correct, this won’t affect the origin of life theories that depend on clay or sulfide minerals, common back then, but it does disfavour theories that rely on borate and molybdate minerals.
The Enigma of Consciousness — challenges for Evolutionists and Materialists
| November 28, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Mind, News |
I had accepted the evolutionary story since elementary school. I think I accepted it after seeing diagrams like and visiting the Air and Space Museum and learning of our supposed origins. I didn’t find the story revolting. I found it kind of cool we were evolving and getting better and better. But as a freshman […]
Tree of Life: Tremendous benefits to follow from understanding it?
| November 28, 2013 | Posted by News under News, Tree of life |
You’d never know from this but there are currently competing trees of life so there isn’t an “it,” exactly, to understand right now. And what there is to understand means getting involved in a controversy.
Antarctic acorn worms break a “crucial evolutionary link”
| November 28, 2013 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
Earlier this year, in March, Nature reported that soft-bodied worms from the Burgess Shale fossil beds in Canada, given the name Spartobranchus tenuis, have been identified as ancient examples of acorn worms. They were hailed as a “missing link” in the vertebrate family tree: “a crucial evolutionary link between two distinct living groups of animals: […]
Rethinking the consensus on coral reef talus
| November 28, 2013 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
Whether you are a diver, a geologist, or simply someone with an interest in natural history, you are likely to have a misconception about the structure of coral reefs. The error is ubiquitous in textbooks and is reinforced by media treatments of the topic. Everyone ‘knows’ that coral reefs have a central zone of organically […]
Next question: Why is the same sort of talk “woo” if Deepack Chopra or Rupert Sheldrake say it but not if …
| November 28, 2013 | Posted by News under Mind, News, Physics |
… not if Max Planck or James Jeans (the universe is “nearer to a great thought than a great machine”) say it? How did so much come to depend on personality? Not personality? Okay then, on WHAT, exactly?
