Debating Darwin’s Doubt Hope some are reading it. I can’t help remembering when, just by way of illustration, Templeton grantees were meeping about whether they were even going to review Darwin’s Doubt, and of course pronounce themselves displeased by it, as they must. And as if anyone cares now (6:00 am EST): — Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Books > Science & Math > Evolution > Organic #1 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Theology > Creationism #2 in Books > Science & Math > Biological Sciences > Paleontology — Sorry guys. The ship has sailed, and Christians for Darwin are not on it. The rest of us, Read More ›

Would it be best to get Darwinism out of the discussion? Mathematician Peter Saunders on Darwinism and epigenetics, Part II, Following on Part I (see especially Mae Wan-Ho): Here: Peter Saunders: The idea is that if you have an organism, say maize, and you want it to be resistant to a certain herbicide — then what you do, consistent with the Modern Synthesis, is you find the “gene” that the herbicide resists in something else and you transfer it to maize. There you are. The only thing is that too depends on the 1960s thinking about the “gene.” What is that piece of DNA actually doing? Remember what they transfer isn’t the “gene.” It’s a piece of DNA, which is Read More ›

From The Verge, re Neil Tyson, heir apparent to Carl Sagan (Cosmos II) on the Pluto flyby. After calling Pluto a malted milk ball left in the rain (ice cream is a theme in the video), Colbert introduces Tyson as one of the biggest Pluto demoters and proceeds to berate the astrophysicist for his lack of love for the dwarf planet. “It’s even got a heart, unlike you,” Colbert says. Tyson defends himself saying that he was only an “accessory” to Pluto’s demotion — an oft repeated claim of his. Yet he’s not backing down on the status change. Hmmm. Was Tyson’s opinion overrated, the way Carl Sagan’s always was? Would make sense. Would make sense. Hot vs. what? Wow! vs how? Cheat sheet Read More ›

SB is one of UD’s treasures, who often puts up gems as comments. Accordingly, I headline his current response to Mung on laws of (human) nature: _______________ >>Mung SB, Can you explain why the natural moral law requires a lawgiver? ETA: I don’t believe in natural laws, I believe in natures/essences. So keep that in mind. [SB, reply:] Very interesting comment. Let me try to say something that might bring us together. I assume that we agree that a physical “law,” is really just a human paradigm that describes a “law-like” regularity that is observed in nature. So, ontologically, we are referring to an event that happens over and over again, trying to make sense of it and giving it Read More ›

I (O’Leary for News ) must have first met Bill Dembski (who started this blog in 2005) at some  Christian meet in the Toronto area, Canada, roughly 2002. You know, the usual Templeton-funded stuff, aimed at sedating and anaesthetizing Christians in science while their hands are conveniently chopped off. They are more useful that way. Bill struck a chord with me because his main point was, information theory cannot be incorporated into this so-easy-victory-for-materialism agenda. I’d never before heard anyone offer evidence as to why the unbelievable just isn’t true. As opposed to the usual rubbish: We should quiet our concerns by  developing two lives, one in which we assent that the unbelievable is true (and get good jobs). Otherwise, Read More ›

Today, Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking announced a $100M initiative to seek extraterrestrial life, injecting renewed energy (and funds) into the hunt for life (specifically, intelligent life) beyond our fair planet. Although this has been a decades-long area of research and interest, with the SETI institute playing perhaps the most important role in recent years, this new initiative promises to engage many more researchers and to create “the most ambitious and robust SETI program yet performed.” Observations should begin as early as 2016. The introductory video is available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/national/health-science/breakthrough-initiatives-introduces-new-search-for-extraterrestrial-life/2015/07/20/d0d7a1b2-2eed-11e5-818f-a242f28e7022_video.html Additional information is available in several locations, including here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stephen-hawking-and-yuri-milner-announce-100m-initiative-to-seek-extraterrestrial-intelligence/ http://www.ucolick.org/news/initiative-apf.html

From ScienceDaily: Carrying around a spare tire is a good thing — you never know when you’ll get a flat. Turns out we’re all carrying around “spare tires” in our genomes, too. Today, in ACS Central Science, researchers report that an extra set of guanines (or “G”s) in our DNA may function just like a “spare” to help prevent many cancers from developing. More. The researchers scanned the sequences of known human oncogenes associated with cancer, and found that many contain the four G-stretches necessary for quadruplex formation and a fifth G-stretch one or more bases downstream. The team showed that these extra Gs could act like a “spare tire,” getting swapped in as needed to allow damage removal by Read More ›

But Darwinism, the ultimate in scienceyness, gets a pass? Legal enforcement? From The Guardian: Lots of real scientific terms – such as “neuro” or “nano” – get borrowed for a spot of buzzword scienceyness. Epigenetics is a real and important part of biology, but due to predictable quackery, it is threatening to become the new quantum. All of your cells contain all of your 22,000 genes, but not all of them need to be active all the time. They need to be turned on or off, in the right tissue, at the right moment, and so we have incredible networks of control systems in our genomes – circuits, programmes, hierarchies. Epigenetics literally means “in addition to genetics” and is one Read More ›

Lee Smolin, a cosmologist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, informs us via PBS, I believe in time. I haven’t always believed in it. Like many physicists and philosophers, I had once concluded from general relativity and quantum gravity that time is not a fundamental aspect of nature, but instead emerges from another, deeper description. Then, starting in the 1990s and accelerated by an eight year collaboration with the Brazilian philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger, I came to believe instead that time is fundamental. (How I came to this is another story.) Now, I believe that by taking time to be fundamental, we might be able to understand how general relativity and the standard model emerge from a deeper theory, Read More ›

Truth? That’s only if you assume that your brain is shaped for truth, not mere fitness. A friend kindly writes to say that Nancy Pearcey … has done two excellent podcasts with ID the Future about her new book Finding Truth:Five Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes: Is Human Reason Reliable? Interview with Nancy Pearcey Is Human Reason Reliable?, pt. 2 Interview with Nancy Pearcey, pt. 2 We are advised to await more podcasts. Meanwhile, there may not be a huge amount of religion news. The new atheists have apparently persisted with their relationship counsellors. We are not hearing so much cease and desist stuff against fellow atheists or (or non-theists or theists). You know, it’s so Read More ›

Physicist Sheldon kindly writes to discuss the latest attempt to make a dollar out of fifteen cents: That is, to address design in nature according to purely physical principles that leave out information. It’s a poorly written article, but the concepts are coming from “Category Theory”, which was highlighted in Jonathan Wells recent article on the sugar code. Richard Sternberg is also keen on it. Recapping what I said earlier on the topic, set theory was developed in the late 1800’s, and combined with Georg Cantor’s work, enabled the explosion of mathematical creativity of the early 20th. One book that deeply impressed me was “Naming Infinity–A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity.” The story relates how Cantor went crazy Read More ›

From Eurekalert: The reason people act altruistically is well contested among academics. Some argue that people are innately selfish and the only way to override our greedy tendencies is to exercise self-control. Others are more positive, believing that humans naturally find generosity rewarding and that we only act selfishly when we pause to think about it. The Caltech model suggests that neither side fits all; both generosity and selfishness can be fast and effortless. But it depends on the person and the context. “We take a very simple model of choice that’s been developed for predicting perceptual decisions–like whether a dot is moving left or right–and adapt it to capture generosity,” says lead author Cendri Hutcherson, who did the work Read More ›

The constructor theory (Life without design), here. Okay, it’s Saturday in much of the world and you were out doing chores; not to worry: Given that life isn’t the output of an intentional design process, but evolved, how could living things have evolved given these design-free laws of physics? Darwin’s theory addresses this problem, explaining that variation and natural selection bring about the appearance of design. But this in itself doesn’t close the explanatory gap, as we can see especially clearly in the modern version of Darwin’s theory – neo-Darwinism. At its heart are the replicators, or genes – bits of DNA that are transmitted, by replication, to the next generation. Moreover, for replication to be as accurate as it Read More ›

John Paul Pagano, geek on Twitter, asks, Can someone finally take conservatorship of Richard Dawkin’s Internet access? Please? in relation to Dawkins’ tweet: A pleasure to be invited to @JulianAssange_’s birthday party in the Ecuadorian Embassy where he is confined. Julian Assange? WikiLeaks founder. I (O’Leary for News) would like to know what is so wrong with WikiLeaks? Why shouldn’t there be more transparency in government? I await the day someone starts shovelling through the steaming pile here in Ontario (province, Canada). Maybe our modest investment here in getting Dawkins set up with a Twitter account is paying off.  Like, for actual results, it beats the elevator shoo! story. 😉 Thoughts? Follow UD News at Twitter!

Commentator Mark Davis says we should: This week is a perfect time to stoke the dormant embers of the wonder we once felt. A vehicle crafted by human hands has just left the solar system after visiting Pluto, sending us crisp photographs of a world 3 billion miles away. Just 50 short years ago, we had never sent anything out of Earth orbit. But on a sunny morning in Florida 46 years ago this week, three Americans left our world to set foot on another. I was 11 for the launch of Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong’s July 20, 1969 footprint on the moon’s Sea of Tranquillity was in the middle of my summer between sixth and seventh grade. More. I Read More ›