2014

Quantum phenomena in biology are receiving the attention of more and more researchers, with photosynthesis being the process getting the most attention. Back in 2007, it was apparent that quantum effects were effective for “explaining the extreme efficiency of photosynthesis”. Then, in 2010, the photosynthetic apparatus of cryptophyte algae was the focus of research, because its pigments are farther apart than was expected for efficient functioning. In a News & Views article in Nature, van Grondelle & Novoderezhkin discussed evidence suggesting that a process known as quantum coherence is part of the explanation. They added: “This is the first time that this phenomenon has been observed in photosynthetic proteins at room temperature, rather than at much lower temperatures, bolstering the Read More ›

In his New Republic piecefrom this week Paul Bloom makes the point that evolution explains morality. Evolution co-founder Alfred Wallace was wrong about morality and wrong about God. And similar sentiment today, such as from Francis Collins, is equally flawed. The research is in and human morality is not a divine gift but rather is best explained by secular accounts. “It would be big news indeed,” writes the Yale Psychology Professor, “if it turned out that the enactment of the Moral Law didn’t involve the brain, but exists in a special spiritual realm. But, of course, this isn’t the case.” It is true that humans have an enhanced morality but it is the product of evolution’s natural selection and of culture. And Read More ›

If paleontology lives by radiometric dating, it also dies by radiometric dating. Either DNA trapped in 200 million-year-old Jurassic insect amber is young or it has some unexplained source. I argue it is young. Radiometric C-14 dates of fossils say the fossils are young. As I’ve said many times, the radiometric date of 65 million-year-old rocks is irrelevant to the radiometric date of the actual physical tissue of a fossil. I could bury a living dog in 65 million-year-old rocks, and the age of rocks will have nothing to say of the age of the dog. The best inferences for time of death of a fossil: half-life of C-14, half life of DNA, half-life of amino acids, etc., NOT the Read More ›