2015

Reverend Fathers, Since the Pope’s upcoming encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, is due to be released later this month, I’m sure you will be very busy telling the world’s 1.2 billion Catholic laypeople (including myself) what the encyclical means. My reason for writing this post is that while most people (including members of the clergy) are quite well-informed about the science of global warming, they tend to be poorly informed about the solutions to the problem of man-made global warming, as well as the costs of implementing those solutions. Some of you may think that these are technical issues, which the clergy need not concern themselves with. But Scripture itself counsels us to be prudent servants of the Lord, Read More ›

That’s the claim at Wired : For the first time ever a computer has managed to develop a new scientific theory using only its artificial intelligence, and with no help from human beings. Computer scientists and biologists from Tufts University programmed the computer so that it was able to develop a theory independently when it was faced with a scientific problem. The problem they chose was one that has been puzzling biologists for 120 years. The genes of sliced-up flatworms are capable of regenerating in order to form new organisms — this is a long-documented phenomenon, but scientists have been mystified for years over exactly what happens to the cells to make this possible. Really? Physicist Rob Sheldon writes to Read More ›

From Casey Luskin at Evolution News & Views: Recently a friend sent me a link to a TEDx talk, “Digital biology and open science — the coming revolution,” which affirms that life’s “complex interacting molecular machines” reveal “molecular clockwork is real and pervasive” and appear to be “built by an engineer a million times smarter than” we are. The speaker is biologist and engineer Stephen Larson, who holds a PhD in neuroscience from University of California, San Diego, and is CEO of MetaCell, a systems biology research and consulting company that seeks to understand biology through computation. Now I don’t think that Dr. Larson is pro-intelligent design, which makes his descriptions of biology all the more striking. In fact, after Read More ›

New Scientist asks Island of wild children: Would they learn to be human? … The sound comes again across the tops of the trees. Hooting, and then distant replies. High-pitched and repetitive, the sounds are not words. But they mean something anyway: the hunters are coming home. They emerge one by one from the foliage, stepping out cautiously into a wide and sandy bay. There are five of them, all males. The basic concept was done fifty years ago by William Golding in Lord of the Flies (1954). The difference is, in these times, the line between fact and fiction is increasingly blurry. What Golding meant as a parable of universal (and contemporary) human nature told as fiction, dollars to Read More ›

I am afraid, because progressives don’t think my mind is right, and progressives are never satisfied until everyone’s mind is right.  I am afraid that in the not-too-distant future I am going to be playing Luke to some progressive Boss Paul: Luke: Don’t hit me anymore…Oh God, I pray to God you don’t hit me anymore. I’ll do anything you say, but I can’t take anymore. Boss Paul: You got your mind right, Luke? Luke: Yeah. I got it right. I got it right, boss. [He grips the ankles of the guard] Boss Paul: Suppose you’s back-slide on us? Luke: Oh no I won’t. I won’t, boss. Boss Paul: Suppose you’s to back-sass? Luke: No I won’t. I won’t. I got Read More ›

As was noted yesterday, psycho-social cascades can often create a locked-in, socially mutually reinforcing perception in a society at large or in a polarised sub culture, that can continue indefinitely. Regardless of true facts and duties of care to fairness. This is why the wedge document canard is particularly pernicious in and around discussions of intelligent design and the design inference. Especially, when it is joined to the further canards that ID is creationism in a cheap tuxedo, and that “intelligent design creationism” represents a right wing, antidemocratic, anti-science, anti-progress, totalitarian theocratic conspiracy. This toxic caricature often goes so far as to suggest that design theory was created as a way to evade the force of US Supreme Court rulings Read More ›

From Columbia mathematician Peter Woit’s Not Even Wrong blog: Today I happened to come across a really wonderful discussion there though, and wanted to draw attention to it, even though it’s from a year ago. It’s entitled A View from an Ex-String Theorist and consists of a long piece by someone who has recently left string theory, as well as some answers to questions asked by others. If you want to understand what string theory looks like these days to good theorists who are working on it, read what “No_More_Strings” has to say. The suggestion that “string theorists” should stop calling what they do “string theory” is an excellent one. … If you didn’t have to start every grant application Read More ›

At Retraction Watch: A new study suggests that much of what we think about misconduct — including the idea that it is linked to the unrelenting pressure on scientists to publish high-profile papers — is incorrect. Some factors were associated with a higher rate of misconduct, of course — a lack of research integrity policy, and cash rewards for individual publication performance, for instance. Scientists just starting their careers, and those in environments where “mutual criticism is hampered,” were also more likely to commit misconduct. More. That makes sense. To argue the opposite is like saying that the need to make a profit causes car dealers to dump rolling coffins on their customers. Given the career-ending risks, there must be Read More ›

A commenterrecently reminded meof one of the many fundamental fallacies of evolutionary thought. When I point out problems with evolution, and make arguments against evolutionary thought, it is not because I am against the idea or want it to be false. Life would be much easier if the evidence simply supported evolution, if evolutionary thought was a stellar example of intellectual progress, if—to put it simply—evolution was an undeniable scientific fact, just as evolutionists insist. But it’s not. Evolution is not any of those. Evolution is not supported by the empirical evidence, it is not a rational, intellectual movement, and it is not a scientific fact, undeniable or otherwise. I’m not grinding a personal ax here, I’m simply pointing out 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.) Unless, of course, you bring your charge card. No, really. Lawyer and writer John Gilmore says of Dawkins’ visit to Rochester, Minnesota: The program began with an off-putting series of short videos, essentially haranguing the audience to become a member of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, with any number of membership levels available depending upon how much one wanted to pay in support of the cause. The similarity to televangelist pitches was so palpable that I couldn’t shake it off for the balance of the evening. Of course, other analogies to religion and Read More ›

It is worth pausing to pull up more from the rich motherlode of the Kuran-Sunstein Stanford law review article on opinion and reputation cascades, to help us understand what has been going on: >> the probability assessments we make as individuals are frequently based on the ease with which we can think of relevant examples.‘ Our principal claim here is that this heuristic interacts with identifiable social mechanisms to generate availability cascades—social cascades, or simply cascades, through which expressed perceptions trigger chains of individual responses that make these perceptions appear increasingly plausible through their rising availability in public discourse. Availability cascades may be accompanied by counter-mechanisms that keep perceptions consistent with the relevant facts. Under certain circumstances, however, they generate Read More ›

His repu—WHAAAA??? He is now generally accepted as a figure of fun, when not just bloody offensive. A threat only to his allies. Wee hours coffee: From The Guardian: Is Richard Dawkins destroying his reputation? These days, Dawkins describes himself as “a communicator”. But depending on your point of view, he is also a hero, a heathen, or a liability. Many of his recent statements – on subjects ranging from the lack of Nobel prize-winning Muslim scientists to the “immorality” of failing to abort a foetus with Down’s syndrome – have sparked outraged responses (some of which Dawkins read aloud on a recent YouTube video, which perhaps won him back a few friends). For some, his controversial positions have started to Read More ›

Philosopher and photographer Laszlo Bencze on a reasonable understanding of methodological naturalism. Galileo was a methodological naturalist because he was not a methodological supernaturalist, the only other option. Galileo was interested in the natural world, specifically the movements of the planets and their moons. He studied these movements via natural methods, i.e., he observed them through a telescope. He did not use supernatural methods in his studies. What might “supernatural methods” be? He might have written his questions about the solar system on slips of paper and burned them with incense in expectations of receiving visions explaining everything. Of course that “supernatural methodology” sounds very silly. I’m not aware of any serious Christian thinker who ever used that method of Read More ›

Because they are religious fanatics. Humans need to be part of something larger than themselves.  They also need to place their lives within a context that includes an account of origins.  For post-Christian liberals, the former need is served by environmental alarmism and the latter is served by Darwinism — the origins myth of the secular elite.          

David Penny of Massey University, New Zealand, says while discussing a paper, no. Abstract: It is not really helpful to consider modern environmental epigenetics as neo-Lamarckian; and there is no evidence that Lamarck considered the idea original to himself. We must all keep learning about inheritance, but attributing modern ideas to early researchers is not helpful, and can be misleading. Open access He also notes, Thus, I should welcome this paper (Skinner 2015) – but still think that the paper is problematic -perhaps I see it as not addressing quite the right issues, or not the right questions? There has been a recent controversy in Nature over whether evolutionary biology needs to be rethought (Laland et al. 2014 argue for Read More ›