Yes, they are still grousing about that. And, from a distance, they sound surreal. From Dan Jones at New Scientist: In November, Donald Trump defied the pollsters to be elected the 45th US president. A few months earlier, UK voters decided to end their country’s 43-year membership of the European Union. Throughout Europe populist movements are prospering. In every case, opponents have cried foul: these campaigns, they argue, win support by distorting or flagrantly disregarding the truth. But wait. Doesn’t the losing side always say that, in every case? Vote for Doofus instead of Duffus and you’ll soon be hearing from the Duffites that Doofus won by “distorting or flagrantly disregarding the truth.” Much of the electorate is older now Read More ›

But not a God, with moral rules. From campus pastor Peter Burfeind at The Federalist: Lacking any evidence of an actual alien, Hollywood’s aliens speak more about the modern psyche fueling the imaginations of their designers. … The aliens in “Arrival” look like tree trunks. Get it? The trees are coming to tell us to work together. (They might acquaint themselves with the rock group Rush to get the full story.) I can’t imagine that has anything to do with the dreamy fantasies of environmentalists. Or again, the alien in “Alien” (1979), fetal in appearance, antagonizes the crew and their ship’s computer, “Mother,” until it gets sucked out of the ship. Wow, can’t imagine that had anything to do with Read More ›

No embargoes: From Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch: This Thursday, dozens of news outlets will publish stories on the same new study in the journal Science. On Friday, many of those same news outlets will all report on a study in the medical journal the Lancet. These newspapers and magazines will largely talk to the same sources, and many of their stories will be nearly identical. The reason for this synchrony is embargoes — agreements between reporters and sources that the former can have access to information from the latter, but not publish anything until a time the source has determined in advance. Nearly all of the major scientific journals use them and send the studies out to journalists five Read More ›

One would think that the French, having been overrun by a fascist country in 1940, would be especially careful to reign in the fascist impulses of their progressives.  But one would be wrong: In 2014, in conjunction with World Down Syndrome Day (March 21), the Global Down Syndrome Foundation prepared a two-minute video titled “Dear Future Mom” to assuage the anxieties of pregnant women who have learned that they are carrying a Down syndrome baby. More than 7 million people have seen the video online in which one such woman says, “I’m scared: What kind of life will my child have?” Down syndrome children from many nations tell the woman that her child will hug, speak, go to school, tell Read More ›

‘Tis the season of Top Tens. From the American Council on Science and Health here’s the first we got: #8. JAMA goes political. The Journal of the American Medical Association continues gambling with its reputation. This year, it published an article by President Barack Obama, in which he analyzed and applauded the impact of his own healthcare policy. The article was essentially not peer reviewed and met the very definition of a conflict of interest. Current Biology also made an unfortunate foray into politics. The journal published a hysterical article on the scientific consequences of Brexit. Sure, scientists should contribute to the political process. But scientists who do should spend as much time understanding the issues as they do understanding Read More ›

Whatever the media understand the term “evolution” to mean. Whatever politicians could do about it. Is it a secret hunger for the fascist dominance so well exhibited by one of their heros, H.L. Mencken? From O’Leary for News at Salvo: Recently, Phil Plait informed his shocked readers at Slate of a dreadful secret about Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence: You know anyone picked by Trump to be his running mate almost certainly will have a problem with established science, of course, but it turns out Pence is also a young Earth creationist. And one with a lot of conviction about it, too. In 2002, while a congressman from Indiana, he gave a short speech on the floor of Congress denying Read More ›

. . . that is, the design inference vs. the broader scientific investigation of a world of life and cosmos that are infused with complex, functionally specific information and complex, functional organisation? In the Turing test thread, just now, I raised this issue in responding to GP and SA . . . and I think this is worth headlining: ______________________ >>Perhaps, it is time to look at ID in a micro sense and a macro/general sense — a fashion that is now 100+ years old in the sciences, with Relativity as the leader (as is proper and fitting). The micro theory of ID is focussed on the design inference and its empirical/analytical warrant. This is the core, when can we Read More ›

Evo-Info: Some Things Computers Will Never Do: Nonalgorithmic Creativity and Unknowability: See also: Evolutionary Informatics Lab: A look inside Follow UD News at Twitter!

Philosopher of biology Paul Nelson will be speaking this weekend in the vicinity of Trinity College, Florida: Sunday, December 4th, The Crossroads Church, 7975 River Ridge Blvd. New Port Richey, FL Monday, December 5th, at 7:00 pm, University of South Florida, USF Alumni CenterTampa, FL More. See also: What we know and don’t know about the origin of life Follow UD News at Twitter!

This time they have climate scientist Roger Pielke in their sites, and even being proved correct did not save him: Much to my surprise, I showed up in the WikiLeaks releases before the election. In a 2014 email, a staffer at the Center for American Progress, founded by John Podesta in 2003, took credit for a campaign to have me eliminated as a writer for Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website. In the email, the editor of the think tank’s climate blog bragged to one of its billionaire donors, Tom Steyer: “I think it’s fair [to] say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538.” . . . I understand why Mr. Podesta—most recently Hillary Clinton’s campaign Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: The research was carried out by a team of scientists at BGI, Zheijiang University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who tackled and analyzed an exceptionally large genome, totalling more than 10 billion DNA “letters.” Ginkgo is considered a “living fossil,” meaning its form and structure have changed very little in the 270 million years since it first came into existence. Given its longevity as a species and unique position in the evolutionary tree of life, the ginkgo genome will provide an extensive resource for studies concerning plant defenses against insects and pathogens, and research investigating early events in tree evolution and in evolution overall. … The ginkgo genome stretches over more than 10 Gb, which is 80 Read More ›

Discussing bacteria that got started before abundant oxygen, Rob Sheldon, our physics colour commentator, writes to explain: According to my favorite microbiologist, Richard Hoover, the fossils are way too big to be sulfur-reducing bacteria. The geologists merely say something like “wow, sulfur-reducing bacteria must have been bigger back then!” which he finds unconvincing. On the other hand, fossilized cyanobacterial mats from stromatolites go back to 3.65 billion years ago, so by no means are these the earliest microfossils. The relationship between oxygen and sulfur-reducers is simple–oxygen kills them. THey are usually obligatory anaerobes. That’s why they live in the mud at the bottom of lakes. If you look on a periodic table, sulfur is below oxygen, and can do all Read More ›

Our Physicist and Computer Scientist from Russia — and each element of that balance is very relevant — is back, with more.  MOAR, in fact. This time, he tackles the “terror-fitted depths” of thermodynamics and biosemiotics. (NB: Those needing a backgrounder may find an old UD post here and a more recent one here, helpful.) More rich food for thought for the science-hungry masses, red hot off the press: _________________ >>On the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the context of the origin of life Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888) This note was motivated by my discussions with Russian interlocutors. One of UD readers here has asked me to produce a summary of those discussions, which I am happy to do now. I Read More ›

I’ve found that a lot of people who are interested in Intelligent Design are nonetheless unaware of the mathematics behind it. Therefore, I decided to do some videos teaching the basic ideas.
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Not that it helps Darwinism one bit. From ScienceDaily: By studying the evolutionary relationships of the orchid mantis and its distant relatives, the team discovered that females in the orchid mantis lineage increased in size and changed color over their evolutionary history to gain advantage over large pollinating insects, such as bees, as well as the ability to attract them for predation. However, the morphologically dissimilar males are small and camouflaged, enabling them to live a life of predator avoidance and mate finding. The team found that this difference in males and females, termed sexual dimorphism, was likely the result of female predatory success that favored larger and more conspicuously colored individuals. This result challenges the traditional explanation for sexual Read More ›