Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Claim that animals are 1.2 billion years old comes under fire

From ScienceDaily: The origin of animals was one of the most important events in the history of Earth. Beautifully preserved fossil embryos suggest that our oldest ancestors might have existed a little more than half a billion years ago. … However, using a recently developed relaxed molecular clock method called RelTime, a team of scientists at Oakland (Michigan) and Temple (Philadelphia) dated the origin of animals at approximately 1.2 billion years ago reviving the debate on the age of the animals. Puzzled by the results of the American team, researchers from the University of Bristol and Queen Mary University of London decided to take a closer look at RelTime and found that it failed to relax the clock. Their findings Read More ›

FFT: Antikythera, Paley, Crick, Axe, the “first computer” claim and the design inference on sign

The Antikythera mechanism is a fascinating object (thanks, EA . . . ), one that is often called the “first” [Analogue] Computer. It was recovered from a Roman shipwreck (likely c. 50 – 80 BC) near the island of that name, and the origin of the mechanism has been a challenge ever since a key observation described thusly by Wiki inadvertently speaking against interest: The Antikythera mechanism was discovered in 45 metres (148 ft) of water in the Antikythera shipwreck off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera. The wreck was found in April 1900 by a group of Greek sponge divers, who retrieved numerous large artefacts, including bronze and marble statues, pottery, unique glassware, jewellery, coins, and the mechanism. All Read More ›

Keep marchin’ marchin’: Newtonian physics is oppressive

From Toni Airaksinen at the College Fix: Feminist researcher invents ‘intersectional quantum physics’ to fight ‘oppression’ of Newton: ‘Binary and absolute differences’ are ‘exploitative’ A feminist academic affiliated with the University of Arizona has invented a new theory of “intersectional quantum physics,” and told the world about it in a journal published by Duke University Press. Whitney Stark argues in support of “combining intersectionality and quantum physics” to better understand “marginalized people” and to create “safer spaces” for them, in the latest issue of The Minnesota Review. More. Paper. (pay wall) The abstract reads In this semimanifesto, I approach how understandings of quantum physics and cyborgian bodies can (or always already do) ally with feminist anti-oppression practices long in use. Read More ›

Marchin’ Marchin’: Bill Whittle on Bill Nye and science

Bill Whittle, an “an American conservative blogger, political commentator, director, screenwriter, editor, pilot, author and the voice of The Common Sense Resistance” offers some entertaining thoughts on the gap between Bill Nye and science as an intellectual enterprise: See also: The war on reality will be waged street by street and Marchin’, marchin’ for Science (Hint: the problems are back at your desk, not out in the streets)

“Universal common ancestry” with no “universal common ancestor”?

Earlier, we noted an interesting find: Archaea: Salt-loving methanogen found: They appear to have specialized in living off environments nothing else wants by using processes nothing else does. We will see stranger things yet, doubtless. Now, from Jonathan Wells in Zombie Science: The archaea are very different from bacteria in the chemical makeup of their cell walls and in their DNA replication machinery. Indeed, some of the enzymes the archaea use to replicate DNA are similar to those used by eukaryotes. Woese concluded that the differences between archaea and bacteria, and between them and eukaryotes, were too great to be explained by descent from a universal common ancestor, as that term is normally understood. Carl Woese proposed that there had Read More ›

Environmentalism is a Religion Complete with Miracles

Such as global warming causing glaciers to shrink even though the local temperatures have NOT warmed.  Robert Tracinski explains here. BTW, medieval inquisitors called those who did not accept their views “heretics” or “infidels.”  The religion of environmentalism also has heretics and infidels, but they are called “deniers.”

Bonobos closer to humans than common chimpanzees are?

From ScienceDaily: A new study examining the muscular system of bonobos provides firsthand evidence that the rare great ape species may be more closely linked, anatomically, to human ancestors than common chimpanzees. … Scientists believe that modern human and common chimpanzee/bonobo lineages split about 8 million years ago with the two great ape species splitting about 2 million years ago. As common chimpanzees and bonobos evolved after their split, they developed different traits and physical characteristics, even though they remained geographically relatively close, with their main division being the Congo River. Because of this, researchers have been curious as to what those differences are and how they compare to humans. By studying the muscles of bonobos (which indicates how they Read More ›

Moscow monument to peer review recycles a useless cement block

Perfect. From Quirin Schiermeier at Nature: Monument to peer review unveiled in Moscow: Cornerstone of modern science immortalized in concrete. Last year, the director of the HSE’s Institute of Education, Isak Froumin, had asked his faculty for ideas about how to turn a useless block of concrete outside the university into something attractive and meaningful. More. Unfortunately, the way things are going, peer review is more likely to be the tombstone of science than the cornerstone and one can only hope that the debate about the problem is as vigorous in Moscow as here. Keep up to date with Retraction Watch See also: Breaking: National Academy of Sciences notices research integrity problem Hat tip:Pos-Darwinista

Archaea: Salt-loving methanogen found

From Abby Olena at The Scientist: Many strains of archaea are capable of living in environments with high salt concentrations, and others are able to produce methane, but only a few can do both. In a study published today (May 26) in Nature Microbiology, researchers identified and cultured two lineages of methane-generating archaea that thrive in salty lakes. The two strains—part of a class the authors named “Methanonatronarchaeia”—appear to be most closely related to the Halobacteria, a class of archaea found in salt-rich environments worldwide. … The authors compared representative genomes of the two lineages to each other, as well as to the genomes of other archaea. These comparisons suggested that the common ancestor of archaea was a methane-producer, a Read More ›

Defend intellectual freedom: Stop giving to your alma mater if necessary

From Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet: Here are five suggestions for reclaiming our right to think for ourselves: … 2. Stop giving to your alma mater just because you graduated there. It may not be the U you knew any longer. Some problems over the years originated in excellent intentions such as helping as many people attend college as possible. But we all tend to make an underlying assumption: that any given student would thrive in the world of ideas if only he were offered an opportunity. Money was poured into universities by private and government sources but much of it has resulted in administrative bloat, sometimes marketing nebulous “studies” programs that will not prepare a student for life in say, Read More ›

BTB & FFT: Is it true that “ID has no . . . recognised scientists, predictive qualities, experiments, peer reviewed publications, evidence, or credibility scientifically”?

H’mm, pretty devastating — if true. But, is it true? I doubt it. Let us start with this response to a certain objector who keeps providing lists of typical objector talking points (and who evidently wishes to be able to do so on UD’s nickel, without effective response). Not on our watch, gentilhombre: >>13 kairosfocus May 30, 2017 at 1:17 am F/N: DI’s opening remarks on the annotated list of ID professional literature updated to March 2017: BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND ANNOTATED LIST OF PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTING INTELLIGENT DESIGN UPDATED MARCH, 2017 PART I: INTRODUCTION While intelligent design (ID) research is a new scientific field, recent years have been a period of encouraging growth, producing a strong record of peer-reviewed scientific publications. In 2011, Read More ›

Researchers: Human-like ways of thinking evolved much earlier than thought

From ScienceDaily: By using highly advanced brain imaging technology to observe modern humans crafting ancient tools, a neuroarchaeologist has found evidence that human-like ways of thinking may have emerged as early as 1.8 million years ago. … “This is a significant result because it’s commonly thought our most modern forms of cognition only appeared very recently in terms of human evolutionary history,” said Shelby S. Putt, a postdoctoral researcher with The Stone Age Institute at Indiana University, who is first author on the study. “But these results suggest the transition from apelike to humanlike ways of thinking and behaving arose surprisingly early.” … “The fact that these more advanced forms of cognition were required to create Acheulean hand axes — Read More ›

RVB8 tries to dismiss ID as failed science

. . . with yet another list of talking points.  Namely: >>The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no experimentation? The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no predictive qualities? The irony of a scientific idea, Intelligent Design’, that refuses to identify, or even look for, the Designer? My scientific idea has no irony, it does what it sets out to do; prove origins, prove life is one system linked by evolution, and prove life can be understood without holding God’s hand.>> Accordingly, I have replied: >>More failed talking points: >>The irony of a scientific idea, ‘Intelligent Design’, with no experimentation?>> 1 –> False. Cf Axe et al, cf Scott Minnich et al, cf Durston et Read More ›

Is negative mass possible?

From theoretical physicist M. B. Paranjape at Physics Today: Another frequent concern expressed over the existence of negative mass is that it would cause an untenable instability of the universe. Stephen Hawking once told me that if negative mass existed, “the universe would be unstable and we would not be here to this day.” But negative mass exists only in an expanding universe, and because of energy conservation it can only be produced in positive–negative mass pairs. If there is a backreaction of the production of these pairs on the background cosmological energy, the production of negative mass should drive that energy density to zero, thus terminating the possibility of its production and quenching any instability. This mechanism could offer Read More ›

Intelligent design makes it into Nature journal

Or so one would assume. From Sarah Zhang at the Atlantic: In “The Energy Expansions of Evolution,” an extraordinary new essay in Nature Ecology and Evolution, Olivia Judson sets out a theory of successive energy revolutions that purports to explain how our planet came to have such a diversity of environments that support such a rich array of life, from the cyanobacteria to daisies to humans. Judson divides the history of the life on Earth into five energetic epochs, a novel schema that you will not find in geology or biology textbooks. In order, the energetic epochs are: geochemical energy, sunlight, oxygen, flesh, and fire. Each epoch represents the unlocking of a new source of energy, coinciding with new organisms Read More ›