July 2015

Though Gary Marcus tells us it is, in “Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer”at the New York Times: … Finally, there is a popular argument that human brains are capable of generating emotions, whereas computers are not. But while computers as we know them clearly lack emotions, that fact itself doesn’t mean that emotions aren’t the product of computation. On the contrary, neural systems like the amygdala that modulate emotions appear to work in roughly the same way as the rest of the brain does, which is to say that they transmit signals and integrate information, and transform inputs into outputs. As any computer scientist will tell you, that’s pretty much what computers do. Of course, whether the brain is Read More ›

From 400 kya? Here: Researchers found four teeth in the Qesem Cave near Rosh Ha’ayin (not far from Tel Aviv), and they were astonished at test results that conclude the fossils to be some 400,000-years-old. The significance of this is that it’s possible that the origin of prehistoric man is in Israel, and not in East Africa. And an additional surprise is that prehistoric man was mainly vegetarian and not carnivorous. Before we revise all the textbooks, let’s hang on and see if the teeth are really that old. Do they fit into any known pattern? Their examination revealed that they belong to a type of prehistoric man that lived in Israel, and that until now no one knew existed. Read More ›

Friends write to say that Darwinian evolutionary biologist (retired) William B. Provine has written a book , The “Random Genetic Drift” Fallacy (2014): Much of my life has been devoted to the history of population genetics. My early book was my Ph.D. thesis still in print: The Origins of Theoretical Populations Genetics (1971, 2nd edition, 1991). I stated in the 2nd edition in the Afterword that “random genetic drift” was giving me pause, as does the evolutionary synthesis. My later book was Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology (1986) and is also still in print. Now I am writing this book against “random genetic drift,” invented by R. A. Fisher and followed by Sewall Wright and J. B. S. Haldane. “Random Read More ›

We can’t hear you, and we need to. In 2008, Suzan Mazur published The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry That is, “Will the real theory of evolution please stand up?” The book revealed what we all sensed, that many evolutionary biologists and colleagues in allied disciplines doubted that Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutation) is the chief source of variation in life forms. In so doubting, they demonstrated a commitment to reason and evidence. But they  didn’t thrill the many plods and timeservers who shove Darwinism at the public as “”evolution.” Science journalism today usually means waving pom poms at “scienceyness.” So we naturally wondered who is actually providing a venue for a serious look at the Read More ›

It is instructive to see this inadvertently revealing comment on a blog post by Jason Rosenhouse. But first, let’s remind ourselves of a very important visually made point: And now: >>eric April 15, 2015 Of course, you can challenge my definition. You can say that it’s just a product of my own subjective judgment that it’s bad to harm sentient beings. But so what? I have not read Arrington’s posts, but I would bet that he is exactly going after the subjective vs. objective distinction. There’s been a recent spate of philosophers and/or reasonably prominent atheists trying to propose an objective morality (without the need for a god). I would bet he is going after these ideas. It may be Read More ›

O’Leary for News’s new series here at Evolution News & Views: A while back, I started a series here called “Science Fictions” that I began by asking a simple question: Why is the space alien understood as science but Bigfoot as mythology? The reason I asked is that, still lacking specimens of either entity, decade after decade, answers are likely to be revealing. Those answers help us see how “science” is understood, allowing us to interpret claims about the origin of the universe, life, human life, and the human mind. In general, naturalism (the idea that inanimate nature somehow created minds) seems to be the guiding principle of enterprises classed as science today, even though the evidence actually goes in Read More ›

I think BA77’s reply deserves to be headlined, as a part of the issue on self-falsification of evolutionary materialism. First, a picture: Now, the clip: Sam Harris’s Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It – Martin Cothran – November 9, 2012Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state — including their position on this issue — is the effect of a physical, not logical Read More ›

Remember that worm, C elegans, that survived the space shuttle blowup? At Evolution News & Views, Casey Luskin tells us, My master’s degree research focused on paleomagnetism and I’ve always been fascinated by the earth’s magnetic field. So naturally I was interested in new research by biologists at the University of Texas, Austin, published in the journal eLife, “Magnetosensitive neurons mediate geomagnetic orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans.” They explored how the nematode worm C. elegans (a favorite model organism for research) orients itself to the earth’s magnetic field. Many organisms have such an internal compass, which serves them as an aid in purposes like feeding and migration. But this is the first time that the molecular mechanism that’s involved has been Read More ›

A friend writes, “The following paper [in Frontiers in Physics] makes ID the basis of a case study in the diffusion of knowledge. Behe and Meyer are prominently featured:” Slow-down or speed-up of inter- and intra-cluster diffusion of controversial knowledge in stubborn communities based on a small world network Here’s the abstract: Diffusion of knowledge is expected to be huge when agents are open minded. The report concerns a more difficult diffusion case when communities are made of stubborn agents. Communities having markedly different opinions are for example the Neocreationist and Intelligent Design Proponents (IDP), on one hand, and the Darwinian Evolution Defenders (DED), on the other hand. The case of knowledge diffusion within such communities is studied here on Read More ›

A friend writes that British novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is very close to an ID understanding of intelligence and information: A choice, let us remember, is almost more of a negative than a positive. You embrace one thing; but you refuse a thousand. The most liberal profession imprisons many energies and starves many affections. If you are in a bank, you cannot be much upon the sea. You cannot be both a first-rate violinist and a first-rate painter: you must lose in the one art if you persist in following both. – Robert Louis Stevenson, On the Choice of a Profession (1916) Chatto & Windus, pp. Read More ›