September 2015

Steve Laufmann is a consultant in the growing field of Enterprise Architecture, dealing with the design of very large, very complex, composite information systems that are orchestrated to perform specified tasks in demanding environments. In an extremely interesting ENV article that we commend to our readers, he wites: Molecular biology is characterized by growing questions and shrinking answers. It’s like the guy who, after untying his boat, finds himself with one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. As the gap grows, it becomes increasingly hard to ignore. And uncomfortable. And temporary. And this is evolution’s grand challenge: The complex programs and amazing molecular machines at the heart of life simply cannot be explained by any current Read More ›

If a man tells you he cannot know the truth, you can be sure he will probably act as if he has no obligation to tell the truth. At this point our readers may be asking, why is Barry so focused on the issue of the materialist tactic of insane denial? It is a fair question. And the answer is I have a (possibly perverse) curiosity about whether there is any limit to how many times they will deny a truth in bad faith all the while knowing that everyone knows exactly what they are doing. Is there any limit to the earth they are willing to scorch? Will they go on saying the red pen is a flower pot Read More ›

In the Why thread, commenter KH has challenged: KH, 157:>>What you see as “self evident first principles”, others may not see it that way. And, with respect, the tone in which you berate them I’d not going to do anything to convince them that you are right.>> Now, the issue is of course both more complex than that and more simple than that. On tone, it is easy to pose as on one side of an issue as a moderate then spend one’s rhetorical effort undermining that side. Given the history of abuse, targetting and trollery that regularly invades UD, that unfortunately has to be reckoned with; and in a wider context of addressing very serious and destructive agendas haunting Read More ›

Notice how quickly some humans move in. And why, exactly? Hey, this is on a level with New Scientist’s claim that Earth is not especially life friendly compared to planets about which various theorists claim there could somehow be life (if their theories happen to be correct). From Ars Technica, , Recent discoveries point to shared traits and blurred borders with our closest relatives. As one intriguing fossil discovery after another has made headlines over the past year, our understanding of our species’ history has started to shift, and a new story is emerging: one where our extinct relatives share many of the traits we had thought were uniquely human, and our own species is not that special after all. Read More ›

From World Magazine:: “With every bone in the body represented multiple times, it is already practically the best-known fossil member of our lineage,” said paleoanthropologist Lee Berger in a conference call with reporters. Berger, a University of Witwatersrand professor and National Geographic explorer-in-residence, led the effort to excavate and study the fossils. But the discovery has already stirred up controversy among researchers, some of whom are unconvinced the fossils represent a new species of hominin—an evolutionary label that includes modern humans and their ancestors. The definition of “species” is itself somewhat arbitrary. Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, doesn’t believe the new fossils have enough “new and unique” features to justify calling them a new species. “The Read More ›

Admitted to be wrong. Here. (We thought there were only ten wrong theories, but never mind.) Science was once about right theories. What’s changed? We pay for it, right or wrong. See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (human evolution) Follow UD News at Twitter!

Here. Can’t quote because dunno what the boss wd think re some language. But back soon. File under: Myers, recycling Follow UD News at Twitter!

In the thread to a prior post  I wrote: The documents constituting the New Testament are vouchsafed with the blood of the martyrs. Nothing else comes remotely close. Orloog scoffs and mocks: The willingness of an Islamic terrorist to become a martyr of his course isn’t a testament for the existence of 72 virgins waiting for him in the afterlife, it is just shows how severe his belief in their existence is! Many religions have their martyrs. Doesn’t make them all true. And again, tell me about the dozens of eye-witnesses of the resurrection who were put to death! And in a response that deserves its own OP — if not a full page ad in the New York Times, KF Read More ›

Well, what is the number 29? What is the rat’s rear end? (Understood from a human perspective.) One keeps wanting to ask: 1. What is the question you really want the answer to? 2. Would you accept an answer that challenges your basic beliefs? If not, why bother? Well the Economist: has decided to blunder in: Subsequent mirror studies have looked at bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans, gibbons, many other monkeys, elephants, dogs, dolphins and various birds. Bonobos, orang-utans, elephants, dolphins and magpies react in ways that might be interpreted as self-recognition. Gorillas, gibbons, monkeys, dogs and pigeons do not. Although some psychologists question the value of the mirror test (dogs, for example, rely heavily on smell rather than vision for individual Read More ›

And not even bipedalism (that’s feet, right?) From ScienceDaily: What the last common ancestor between humans and African apes looked like has remained unclear. A new study now shows that important clues lie in the shoulder. “Humans are unique in many ways. We have features that clearly link us with African apes, but we also have features that appear more primitive, leading to uncertainty about what our common ancestor looked like,” said Nathan Young, PhD, assistant professor at UC San Francisco School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “Our study suggests that the simplest explanation, that the ancestor looked a lot like a chimp or gorilla, is the right one, at least in the shoulder.” Which should be an Read More ›

From the Guardian: Ideas of social evolution pass over the exercise of power – if it is mentioned at all, it’s only as an inconsequential detail in a vast process of evolutionary change. But what is it that supposedly drives evolution in society? The observation that “things do not stay the same” is scarcely a theory. Darwinian natural selection identified a mechanism and – once genes had been discovered, unknown to Darwin, by a Moravian monk called Gregor Mendel – a unit of selection. Theorists of social evolution in the past have never succeeded in specifying either of these. Despite a great deal of waffle about mutational and combinatorial processes and the like, neither does Ridley. There is no general Read More ›

Every publication should be special right? From New Scientist: Earth’s composition might be unusual for a planet with life Is Earth the odd planet out? Many of our galaxy’s habitable planets probably have a chemical composition that is quite different from Earth’s. More. So let’s get this straight: The only planet that we know has life (because we are awash in it) has a different chemical composition from planets that some people believe might have life (but maybe not, or we’ll never find out)? So it comes down to fact vs. speculation. In which business would you invest your pension? How did pop science get to be just SOOO nuts? See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who Read More ›

From National Geographic: Humans and our closest ancestors, however, are not the only species to recognize and respond to death in specific ways. “Apes have an understanding that death is irreversible,” says primatologist Frans de Waal of Emory University. When they see a dead group member, “they’re affected by it and they watch over it and sometimes try to revive it, touch it, and groom it.” Cats often do the same thing. They don’t know that death is irreversible and it is unlikely that chimps do. “Irreversible” is an abstract concept, like the number 23. Mourning behaviors are common in chimpanzees. Animals will stop eating, observe a corpse in silence, and even carry dead infants for days or weeks. Moving Read More ›

We wondered too, And now: – “In science there is always a gap between the data you have and the interpretations you draw. And in the case of proclaiming a new species the gap is really large,” said Christoph Zollikofer of the University of Zurich. Others say the fossils belong to an already-named species. The University of California’s Tim White said from what he had seen, the fossils belonged to Homo erectus, a species discovered in the late 19th century. “New species should not be created willy-nilly. In order to claim a new species one has to demonstrate that it’s different from anything that’s ever been known,” he said. White noted the published findings included a table comparing 83 anatomical Read More ›

Here: President Obama signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to incorporate behavioral and social science into their policies, giving federal employees and citizens a “nudge” to make better decisions by simplifying forms, sending reminders, or re-framing their choices. It’s the latest iteration of a philosophy that’s guided policy making since the early days of the Obama administration. Last year, the White House built a Social and Behavioral Sciences Team to come up with ways to improve services by presenting choices more clearly. Among their experiments: More. Of course, presenting choices “more clearly” often depends on whether one agrees with the way the choices are framed. Some of us discovered that decades ago on used car lots. Sunstein’s argument Read More ›