2015

From ScienceDaily: Rich array of artifacts shows mix of techniques dating to early Upper Paleolithic The rich array of artifacts shows a mix of techniques for making points, blades, scrapers and cutting flakes. “These toolmakers appear to have achieved a division of labor that may have been part of an emerging pattern of more organized social structures,” Stutz says. The theory that greater social division of labor was important at this prehistoric juncture was first put forward by anthropologists Steven Kuhn and Mary Stiner. “Our work really seems to support that idea,” Stutz says. “The finds from Mughr el-Hamamah give us a new window onto a transitional time, on the cusp of modern human cultural behaviors, bridging the Middle and Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Dr John Stewart, Associate Professor in Paleoecology and Environmental Change at Bournemouth University (BU), is part of a team which analysed data on rabbit bone remains, found in archaeological excavations of caves in the Iberian Peninsula. They found that while rabbits were a crucial part of the modern humans’ diet, they were relatively under-utilised by Neanderthals. “Rabbits originated in Iberia and they are a very special kind of resource, in that they can be found in large numbers, they are relatively easy to catch and they are predictable,” said Dr Stewart. “This means that they are quite a good food source to target. The fact that the Neanderthals did not appear to do so suggests that this was Read More ›

My (O’Leary for News)’s new piece at Salvo: Proving Grounded Multiverse Supporters Put the Brakes on Falsifiability … today, some scientists want to throw falsifiability overboard. They hope by doing this to protect the concept of the multiverse. Put simply, there is currently no evidence for the existence of any universes other than our own, making the theory of the multiverse unfalsifiable. But if the proposal to dispense with falsifiability were accepted, that would be very convenient for naturalist atheists. They could then argue that any stream of events that occurs in our universe may well have occurred differently in any one of an infinite number of other universes. So no inferences (other than their own) could be drawn from Read More ›

Or even a mystery series? At Retraction Watch: Upon realizing they had experienced a case of mistaken cell-line identity, the authors of a 2014 Nature paper on lung cancer think “it prudent to retract pending more thorough investigation,” as they explain in a notice published Wednesday. But The problem seems to stem from more than just honest error, according to corresponding author Julian Downward, a scientist at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK. In a 1,215 word statement, sent to us via the Director of Research Communications and Engagement at Cancer Research UK, which funds Downward’s research, Downward told us the backstory not presented in the journal’s retraction note: … More. Your mileage may vary, but the people I Read More ›

Rabbi Moshe Averick is comprehensively revising Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused, Illusory World of the Atheist (Mosaica Press). He asked if I know of interesting citations from 2015, explaining that he has put quotations in chrono order going back to 1934. If readers can help, please put the quotes with links in the comments box. I’d suggest looking at some of Suzan Mazur’s recent work at the Huffington Post, including Origin of life: Highlights of Suzan Mazur’s interview with researcher Corrado Spadafora and Suzan Mazur: A non-linear language needed for life? Meet Luis Villareal Her book, The Origin of Life Circus is an excellent source as well. There might also be something here. The Science Fictions series at your Read More ›

Theodore Dalrymple here: Listening as I do every day to the accounts people give of their lives, I am struck by the very small part in them which they ascribe to their own efforts, choices, and actions. Implicitly, they disagree with Bacon’s famous dictum that “chiefly the mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.” Instead, they experience themselves as putty in the hands of fate. It is instructive to listen to the language they use to describe their lives. The language of prisoners in particular teaches much about the dishonest fatalism with which people seek to explain themselves to others, especially when those others are in a position to help them in some way. As a doctor Read More ›

We are informed in the Chronicle Review that We have entered an age of willful ignorance To see how we treat the concept of truth these days, one might think we just don’t care anymore. Politicians pronounce that global warming is a hoax. An alarming number of middle-class parents have stopped giving their children routine vaccinations, on the basis of discredited research. Meanwhile many commentators in the media — and even some in our universities — have all but abandoned their responsibility to set the record straight. (It doesn’t help when scientists occasionally have to retract their own work.) No indeed, it doesn’t help. The mounting scandals in science make it difficult to regard many disciplines as sources of legitimate Read More ›

As some researchers using a computational model claim, according to ScienceDaily: Evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould is famous for describing the evolution of humans and other conscious beings as a chance accident of history. If we could go back millions of years and “run the tape of life again,” he mused, evolution would follow a different path. A study by University of Pennsylvania biologists now provides evidence Gould was correct, at the molecular level: Evolution is both unpredictable and irreversible. Using simulations of an evolving protein, they show that the genetic mutations that are accepted by evolution are typically dependent on mutations that came before, and the mutations that are accepted become increasingly difficult to reverse as time goes on. Read More ›

In “The Importance of Not Being Certain: Understanding why the science is never settled,” Charlie Martin writes There’s this thing “science” that people talk about a lot. Climate science, political science, social science, and not to leave out my own field, computer science. And, of course, areas of study that don’t need to have “science” in their names, like chemistry and physics. But what is this thing “science”? I’ve been thinking a lot and reading a lot about it, and no, I don’t have a final answer… and then it occurred to me that “I don’t have a final answer” is really the key to understanding “science.” I think the perfect example is in mechanics. In scientific terms, “mechanics” is Read More ›

Apparently yes. From Nautilus: Five Things We Still Don’t Know About Water Including: There is something remarkable about the mist surrounding Niagara Falls: The individual droplets move as if they are negatively charged. Together with his colleagues, David Chandler, of the University of California, Berkeley, used a theory capable of describing such rare events, called transition path sampling, to calculate the water evaporation coefficient. They arrived at a value near one. This corresponds fairly well to recent liquid microjet experiments that produce a value of 0.6 for both normal water and heavy water. However, there are a couple of wrinkles. For one thing, it remains unclear why experiments performed under more atmospherically relevant conditions yield much lower values. Also, the Read More ›

By working scientists. A friend writes to tell us: The International Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS) (Web) Kizugawa, Kyoto, Japan, has proposed 15 open questions on the origin of life: 02. Why is the origin of life still a mystery? Premise: Why is the origin of life still a mystery? Yes, we all in science accept 1924 Oparin’s idea that life on Earth originated from the inanimate matter via a series of chemical steps of increasing molecular complexity and functionality. However, the turning point nonlife-life has never been put into one experimental set up-actually it has never be clarified this from a conceptual point of view either. There are of course several hypotheses, and this plethora of ideas means already Read More ›

Further to: Dawkins is destroying his reputation? (He is now generally accepted as a figure of fun, when not just bloody offensive. A threat only to his allies): Brian Eno tells us, It’s a subject that deserves serious, courageous discussion, and nobody has been more effective in stimulating that discussion than Richard Dawkins. I think that’s all that needs to be said. We agree. We would vastly prefer that Dawkins make the case for Darwinism (the creation story of new atheism)  and against any view that assigns actual meaning to life than anyone else. See also: Dawkins empties bank accounts in Minnesota (A threat only to his allies, unless you bring your charge card.) Follow UD News at Twitter!

Give the premise that humans are merely evolved animals (the 99% chimpanzee schtick*), it is hard to see how a fight against global warming (if it exists and however caused) would not devolve into a morass of oppression. After all, our behaviour is ruled by selfish genes which mechanically replicate themselves. That process creates the illusion of purpose. So if the chatterati who take Darwin (and Dawkins) for granted also want to remake the world to “fight anthropogenic global warming,” their cause will mainly turn out to be helpful to the “alpha apes.” And that would be nature unfolding as it simply must. In the Hobbesian war of all against all, there is no appeal to ethics, which are one Read More ›

I too would like to know why race is immutable but sex is a social construct.  

… and there is considerable evidence of that (Rare Earth Principle*), what difference would that make to global warming, if caused by humans? If not caused by humans? Readers? Re Vince Torley’s Straight talk about global warming: an open letter to the Catholic clergy: As I said here, it is good that someone is trying to come up with the real costs of whatever people say we must DOOOO!! NOWWW!! Usually a recipe for disaster except for a few profiteers. Solyndra, anyone? Oh, and tinpot dictators just love that sort of thing because they can regulate vast new classes of activities without dumping any old ones – and it doesn’t matter if they fail. There are no costs to the Read More ›