Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

What if Shakespeare Were an Alien?

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the world’s greatest playwright, towering head and shoulders over all who came before and all who came after.  Maybe Shakespeare was so good because he wasn’t a human at all but a member of a hyper-intelligent alien race who happened to be visiting earth in the late 1500’s.  If you subscribe to Cromwell’s rule, you cannot dismiss this hypothesis out of hand.  It is not logically impossible.  Therefore, Cromwell’s rule suggests that we should assign some probability to the possibility even if it is one in a hundred billion.  Otherwise, like the “green cheese” example in the Wikipedia article, we would not be convinced even if we were to find the schematics to Shakespeare’s Read More ›

Moderation at UD

Recently a commenter suggested that by not taking moderation action on an inappropriate comment, UD’s moderators had tacitly endorsed it.  I would like to set the record straight on this once and for all.  UD is no one’s day job.  We have no staff.  This is a 100% volunteer effort.  I have a job and my duties at that job ebb and flow.  When I have time, I am more active, both in posting and moderating.  And the converse is also true.  For example, on Monday I am leaving for China on a business trip.  I will be gone for a week and doubt I will have much time for UD during that time. Therefore, if you see an inappropriate Read More ›

Another Day; Another Bad Day for Darwinism: Pt. 43

This is from a new study published in Nature Communications, and talked about at Phys.Org. Oh, how difficult it is these days to be an “intellectually fulfilled” neo-Darwinian: Humans don’t like being alone, and their genes are no different. Together we are stronger, and the two versions of a gene – one from each parent – need each other. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin have analysed the genetic makeup of several hundred people and decoded the genetic information on the two sets of chromosomes separately. In this relatively small group alone they found millions of different gene forms. The results also show that genetic mutations do not occur randomly in the two parental chromosome Read More ›