From New York Mag: At its core, Galileo’s Middle Finger is about what happens when science and dogma collide — specifically, what happens when science makes a claim that doesn’t fit into an activist community’s accepted worldview. And many of Dreger’s most interesting, explosive examples of this phenomenon involve liberals, not conservatives, fighting tooth and […]
Month: December 2015
Paradigm Shifters growing legs?
From PR Newswire: Major scientists from a dozen countries present evidence that a paradigm shift is underway or has already taken place, replacing neo-Darwinism (the standard model of evolution based on natural selection following the accumulation of random genetic mutations) with a vastly richer evolutionary synthesis than previously thought possible. The Royal Society seems to […]
The “97% of Scientists” Claim is a Lie
So says study: It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus. Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a […]
Peer-Reviewed Journal Publishes Hoax Article on “Boo Boo Kisses”
Reports the Federalist here: Kisses from mommy are not an effective way of remedying children’s boo-boos, according to a new study which was published online by the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. The study, which was allegedly conducted on 943 pairs of toddlers and their mothers, examined whether a kiss from a child’s mother […]
Evo-Psych: Stupid Built Upon Trivial
In today’s Wall Street Journal (behind paywall) Stephen Budiansky reviews John Allen’s Home, in which Allen purports to give an evolutionary account of why humans, who like other primates are “not natural builders,” started building shelters. As one might expect, everything Allen writes is highly speculative and totally untestable and therefore unfalsifiable. In other […]
Mars gullies made by dry ice, not water?
Dashing hopes of potential habitable environments? From ScienceDaily: Mars’s gullies may be formed by dry ice processes rather than flowing liquid water, as previously thought. This is the conclusion of a study conducted by two French scientists published online on December 21st in Nature Geoscience. They show that, during late winter and spring, underneath the […]
Extraterrestrial mineral provided essential spark for life?
Lights. Camera. Action. Well, admit it, it does sound like a great sci-fi premise. From ScienceDaily: On the early Earth, light came not only from the sun but also from the incessant bombardment of fireball meteorites continually striking the planet. Now, the recent work of University of South Florida (USF) associate professor of geology Matthew […]
Life exploded after slow O2 rise?
Not because of a change in animal behaviour? From ScienceDaily: Before now it was not known how quickly Earth’s oceans and atmosphere became oxygenated and if animal life expanded before or after oxygen levels rose. The new study, published in Nature Communications, shows the increase began significantly earlier than previously thought and occurred in fits […]
Was Methodological Naturalism a Product of the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries?
In Part Two of my series on methodological naturalism, I critiqued the claim that it was espoused by philosophers as far back as the Middle Ages. In Part Three, I rebut a different claim, that methodological naturalism was a product of the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries. According to this claim, methodological […]
Exposing the Hoary History of Methodological Naturalism: Does it really go back to the Middle Ages?
In Part One of my series on methodological naturalism, I addressed the question: Is methodological naturalism a defining feature of science?. In Part Two, I rebut the oft-heard claim that even as far back as the Middle Ages, natural philosophers espoused a form of methodological naturalism. Proponents of this claim commonly cite passages in the […]
Richard Dawkins champions a new word. Will it catch on?
He invented “meme.” It caught on. Unfortunately for clarity, but never mind. Here’s his latest effort is to gain currency for a term,: to greenwald someone: The neologism springs from his spat with fellow new atheist Glenn Greenwald (the flying horse controversy – the sort of mess new atheists would get themselves into, and then be […]
These days, hype rises in science journals, like yeast in dough
But there doesn’t seem to be anyone to punch it down*. From Vox: “Unprecedented!” “Amazing!” “Novel!” Punch. Punch. Punch. A team of researchers from the Netherlands tried to quantify the rise in hype by studying the titles and abstracts of scientific papers published in the PubMed database between 1974 and 2014. They wanted to see […]
Microbes lived in cavities 3 bya?
From New Scientist: 3 billion-year-old fossils show early microbes lived in cavities They looked much like bacteria today, and the cavities protected them. The find creates hope for life on Mars. “The record of Archaean microfossils is sparse and controversial,” says Birger Rasmussen at Curtin University, Australia, who previously reported the discovery of cavity-dwelling microbes […]
Ocean toxicity slowed rapid evolution of complex life?
From ScienceDaily: By examining rocks at the bottom of ancient oceans, an international group of researchers has revealed that arsenic concentrations in the oceans have varied greatly over time. But also that in the very early oceans, arsenic co-varied with the rise of atmospheric oxygen and coincided with the coming and going of global glaciations, […]
Sociologist: ID will become part of mainstream science inquiry
British sociologist Steve Fuller, author of Dissent over Descent, offers some thoughts on the anniversary of the U.S. Dover decision. Fuller has studied the controversy with a view to finding out what is going on, rather than advancing a position in a culture war. Here at Australian Broadcasting Corporation: 20 December 2015 marked the tenth […]