Friends at Pos-Darwinista (Brazil) offer all current Homo naledi papers here: – Human evolution: The many mysteries of Homo naledi Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa Legacy medium New York Times: The new hominin species was announced on Thursday by an international team of more than 60 scientists led by Lee R. Berger, an American paleoanthropologist who is a professor of human evolution studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The species name, H. naledi, refers to the cave where the bones lay undisturbed for so long; “naledi” means “star” in the Read More ›

Surprised? (Maybe you need the public guardian for your affairs if you are.) Here’s the abstract of the article you must pay for: Almost 300 years ago, Linnaeus defined our genus Homo (and its species Homo sapiens) with the noncommittal words nosce te ipsum (know thyself) (1). Since then, fossil and molecular biology studies have provided insights into its evolution, yet the boundaries of both the species and the genus remain as fuzzy as ever, new fossils having been rather haphazardly assigned to species of Homo, with minimal attention to details of morphology. Here’s the lowdown for free: The limits of our genus Homo have long been controversial. One problem is that evolutionary biologists sometimes try to shoehorn un-human-like fossils Read More ›

  Further to: Life continues to ignore what evolution experts say, where we discovered that big (plausible) changes can be produced through hybridization, we also learn, from ScienceDaily: Ancient hybridization key to domestic dog’s origin, wolf conservation efforts There are four to five wild species of Canis in North America, according to the overview. In addition to the well-known grey wolf and coyote, there is a secondary wild population of the domestic dog known as the Carolina dog, plus a few populations of hybrid origin with different proportions of wolf and coyote genes. Two of these hybrid populations, the red wolf of the eastern U.S. and the Algonquin wolf–also known as the Eastern or timber wolf–of southeastern Canada, have already Read More ›

Over at The Skeptical Zone Learned Hand (who goes by “Colin” there) has been psychoanalyzing me.  I’m a wall builder don’t you know: I think one major motivator of the “you’re a liar!” style of debate they’ve adopted is community identification. I’ve been thinking of this as building a wall. The point of the conversation is largely, not entirely, to show that “we think like this:” and “they think like that:”, or more pointedly, “look how stupid and ugly they are.” It makes it very easy to avoid questioning beliefs, because we cling particularly to those notions that separate us from them. It identifies and strengthens the community of us by redefining it in opposition to the ugliness and stupidity of them. And once that wall Read More ›

Atheist blogger Heather Hastie, who blogs over at Heather’s Homilies, has written a post titled, The Value of Prayer, in which she pokes fun at religion by using clear and simple flowcharts, whose pithy sarcasm impressed New Atheist Jerry Coyne. But a flowchart can easily be invalidated by faulty assumptions and loaded questions, and Ms. Hastie’s flowcharts are no exception. Take Heather Hastie’s flowchart on belief in God. Ms. Hastie begins by asking: “If God is all loving and all forgiving, would he forgive someone for not believing in him, without being asked?” If the answer is “No,” then God is not all loving and all forgiving; but if it is “Yes,” then no-one needs to believe in or worship Read More ›

He’s at it again. Physicist Lawrence Krauss has written an article for the New Yorker titled, All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists (September 8, 2015), in which he asserts that for scientists, “no idea is sacred,” while at the same time declaring: “Scientists have an obligation not to lie about the natural world.” Sorry, Professor Krauss, but if no idea is sacred, then neither is the idea of an obligation. Krauss also argues that scientists should “openly question beliefs,” even if that means offending others, and that they should not be ashamed of being called militant atheists. I am astonished that Krauss cannot perceive the contradiction between his universal skepticism and his absolutist endorsement of Enlightenment values, when he gushes, Read More ›

I have had some harsh words for several of the materialists who deny infallible knowledge of self-evident truths such as A=A.   Turns out I am in pretty good company. An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man’s mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man  

Further to: Life continues to ignore what evolution experts say (Hmm. Maybe the experts should just fire all the current life forms and get themselves different ones?): The other week, I was buying a sack of dry cat food at the feed mill. At the checkout, I noticed a really, really big cat sitting on the counter. He was about three times as big as a typical Ottawa kitty. Could stand up to a police dog. A helpful individual explained to me that he is the only registered Savannah cat in the area. The Savannah is a hybrid of the African serval and the European shorthair— our local rescue kitties). I was also told not to worry about him: He Read More ›

Evidence here: — Hybridization We’ve already seen that cross-breeding blind cavefish from different caves can restore devolved sight in at least some offspring (because the mutations that result in loss of sight differ from group to group, and some hybrids end up with all the necessary equipment). But natural hybridization can produce such changes too. Characteristics that are not evidenced in a given generation may remain as potentials. Ferns separated 60 million years have interbred. The wolf and dog populations of North America are so heavily hybridized that it is a challenge to make sense of them at all in the face of “all the contradictory claims.” Researchers have also identified at least three potential hybridization events (interspecific mating) in Read More ›

And why does he think he can break the mold of Christian notables puffing Darwin? The exploded but still tax-funded theories* of naturalist atheists? Dunno but get this: One of the biggest problems for neo-Darwinists is the origin of complex structures that appear suddenly in nature or the fossil record. My friend Dr. Stephen Meyer talks about this in his wonderful book, “Darwin’s Doubt.” He points out how, in the so-called “Cambrian Explosion,” the majority of animal phyla on earth appeared suddenly, and without obvious ancestry—almost as if they “exploded” onto the scene out of nowhere. Oh, so we’re allowed to know that now? As opposed to: Christians for Darwin will actually review Darwin’s Doubt, if anyone cares. Of course, Read More ›

What? From The Conversation: The universes predicted by string theory and inflation live in the same physical space (unlike the many universes of quantum mechanics which live in a mathematical space), they can overlap or collide. Indeed, they inevitably must collide, leaving possible signatures in the cosmic sky which we can try to search for. The exact details of the signatures depends intimately on the models – ranging from cold or hot spots in the cosmic microwave background to anomalous voids in the distribution of galaxies. Nevertheless, since collisions with other universes must occur in a particular direction, a general expectation is that any signatures will break the uniformity of our observable universe. These signatures are actively being pursued by Read More ›

Sean Samis is one of our most inveterate opponents here at UD.  It is gratifying, therefore, to lean that he has no use for all of those ID opponents who say that ID theory is invalid because it does not identify the designer.  Sean’s exact words: There’s no problem here. If scientists investigating phenomena X theorize that and as-yet unverified cause Y explains X, then all scientists need to do is to verify (or falsify) Y. The question of Y’s cause or origin will eventually need to be investigated, but if Y can be empirically confirmed then that is enough. To be fair, Sean was speaking in the OOL context, but I’m sure he will agree that the principle is Read More ›

Along with anyone who buys into it. Someone brown-bagged me the Canadian Christians in Science publication, Perspectives’s review of William Dembski’s Being as Communion. That took me back a ways. To the days when I used to listen to those clever people, and their immense betrayal of basic principles: Like it matters whether human beings can think or not. This is what it seems like: They wanted jobs in a system run by materialist atheists. And meeting the system most of the way was the only way to get them. That was their right. Christians for Darwin are mostly decent people, but have no idea that they do not need to grovel anymore. Raise your heads. To say nothing of Read More ›

As has come up as pivotal in recent discussions here at UD, we must recognise that logic and first principles underlie any serious discussion, including origins science, and in sciences  — especially those addressing origins — the issue of chains of cause will be pivotal. The two are connected, as can be seen by first examining chains of warrant: Now, Peter D. Klein, in the Oxford Handbook of Skepticism, highlights: The epistemic regress problem is considered the most crucial in the entire theory of knowledge and it is a major concern for many contemporary epistemologists. However, only two of the three alternative solutions have been developed in any detail, foundationalism and coherentism. Infinitism was not seriously considered as a solution Read More ›

Discussion here. Kicked off here: Well, this has been an interesting discussion! Much thanks to BA77 for useful background info. Recommended. Some respondents also attempted to interject the claim that ID does not have a valid research program (RDFish?) First, whether any intellectual enterprise has a “valid” research program isn’t a reasonable question unless the public is being asked to buy in (public funding, legislation, curricula, etc.). Private parties should be free to spend their money on any not-obviously criminal enterprise they wish. Is it valid to spend (waste?) money on the search for ET? Origin of life? In the absence of useful answers, that must remain an open question. My own view (O’Leary for News) favors spending a certain Read More ›