Often used to dismiss the masses of evidence for fine-tuning of our universe, as opposed to chance. From Tim Barnett at Salvo: This response may have some rhetorical force, but it makes a fundamental mistake. To expose the error, let me give you another illustration. Imagine your best friend has been murdered and the lead suspect is on trial. In fact, DNA evidence puts the suspect at the scene with the murder weapon in hand. As a result, the defense attorney turns to the jury and says, “The DNA evidence makes it highly unlikely that my client is innocent. But unlikely things happen all the time. For example, for you to exist, your mom and dad had to meet, fall Read More ›

From Denyse O’Leary at Salvo: s there a “crisis” in cosmology, as science writer Dennis Overbye tells us at the New York Times? Or does cosmology merely face “challenges,” as we read at Scientific American? Either way, the tale grows strange. We have so much more data now, but it does not provide the evidence many expected. For example, the ardent faith placed in string theory—the hypothesis that the particles of conventional physics are actually vibrating, one-dimensional “strings”—has proven fruitless for decades. But what if evidence, or its absence, actually matters? Peter Woit, a Columbia University mathematician, is a brave academic. He is an atheist who has long critiqued fashionable string theory (Not Even Wrong, 2007) and the multiverse it Read More ›

Sure. That’ll work. From Nature: Keep shouting to save science: As political leaders on either side of the Atlantic set out contrasting positions on science funding, researchers everywhere need to ensure that their voices are heard. It is the best and worst of political times for science. … The US government has always been one of the largest and most reliable backers of basic science, but that would clearly change if Trump controlled the purse strings. Many scientists draw hope from the fact that he does not, and it’s already quite clear that Congress — which allocates funding — takes a different view of things. The NIH saw its 2017 budget increase in the deal announced in late April, and Read More ›

From ENV: Kin selectionists think that natural selection favors genes of related individuals. The idea, also called inclusive fitness, purports to explain self-sacrifice in animals and humans — why worker ants serve the queen without reproducing themselves, and why humans put themselves in danger for their families. Some of their genes, presumably, will be passed on through their kin. Kin selection theory was given a mathematical formulation by W. H. Hamilton in 1964, to the relief of many Darwinians eager to find an explanation for altruism. It was promoted by E.O. Wilson, father of sociobiology (which led to evolutionary psychology), Richard Dawkins, father of Selfish Gene theory, Jerry Coyne, and many other Darwinians. But when E.O. Wilson jumped ship in Read More ›