Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

What are the limits of Random Variation? A simple evaluation of the probabilistic resources of our biological world

Coming from a long and detailed discussion about the limits of Natural Selection, here: What are the limits of Natural Selection? An interesting open discussion with Gordon Davisson I realized that some attention could be given to the other great protagonist of the neo-darwinian algorithm: Random Variation (RV). For the sake of clarity, as usual, I will try to give explicit definitions in advance. Let’s call RV event any random event that, in the course of Natural History, acts on an existing organism at the genetic level, so that the genome of that individual organism changes in its descendants. That’s more or less the same as the neo-darwinian concept of descent with modifications. A few important clarifications: a) I use Read More ›

Fermi researcher: Dark matter field is in a state of “major disruption.” Rob Sheldon comments

Whatever dark matter is, is not what was expected. From Dan Hooper at Physics: The latest results from two dark matter searches have further ruled out many theoretically attractive dark matter particle candidates. The lack of a definitive detection of dark matter particles, in both underground experiments and at the Large Hadron Collider [4–7], has had a palpable effect on the community of scientists that study particle dark matter. Even though a discovery could very plausibly be right around the corner, there is a widespread view that many of the most theoretically attractive candidates for dark matter should have been detected by now, based on their predicted properties. In the absence of such a discovery, the field has begun to Read More ›

Ann Gauger’s cautious assessment of Scott Turner’s Purpose & Desire

With a number of apt quotations. From Ann Gauger on J. Scott Turner’s Purpose and Desire:What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It at Evolution News & Views: Turner’s book is fascinating, stimulating, and befuddling by turns. He has interesting ideas but little to back them up, and in places the prose goes fuzzy, perhaps because there is little to go on. His ideas are only in the beginning stages, and need to be tested and evaluated, because they are controversial. For example, we already know that organisms modify their environments to fit their physiological needs, whether it be microbial mats, termite mounds, or human beings. That is not controversial. I find the idea of Read More ›

Could alien life be buried in ET oceans?

No shortage of speculations as to where ET life might be hiding. From Mike Wall at LiveScience: E.T. may be out there, silently swimming in frigid oceans beneath miles and miles of ice. … Last week, planetary scientist Alan Stern offered up another idea: Maybe intelligent life is widespread throughout the galaxy but most of it lives in deep, dark subsurface oceans that are cut off from the rest of the cosmos. … For starters, Stern said, such buried oceans may be common across the Milky Way. Indeed, they should be, if our own solar system is any guide: Liquid-water oceans slosh beneath the frigid shells of the Jupiter moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa, for example, as well as the Read More ›

The Alt-Right and The Antifa are Fundamentally the Same

The Alt-Right spouts “blood and soil,” white identity, and nationalism.  The Antifa is a child of totalitarian tolerance manifested in political correctness and identify politics.  While at first blush they might seem radically different, they are in fact fundamentally the same. They are fundamentally the same because they are both manifestations of materialist politics, and as such they are both antithetical to the liberal (in the old sense of that word) Christian principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration appeals to the inherent dignity of every person created as they are Imago Dei, in the likeness and image of God.  At Gettysburg Lincoln insisted that as a people we are dedicated not to a tribe or a Read More ›

“It’s Emergent!” and “It’s Magical!” Have Equivalent Scientific Explanatory Power for Consciousness

Bruce Buff and Robert J. Spitzer write: But when it comes to the mind, this idea [i.e., emergence] has its issues. First, all scientifically observed emergence is actually unanticipated behavior resulting from known physical properties, and not new properties that exceed what physics can explain. Some materialists suggest that consciousness might emerge from physical processes on the quantum level, but any emergence there would be disrupted by anything that has an effect on quantum physics — such as holding up a cell phone to your head or getting an MRI. Simply put, emergence depends on properties that already exist in the system’s constituent parts. It doesn’t matter how many Legos are assembled in incredibly complex arrangements, they will never generate Read More ›

Activists are mad at the March for Science? Good!

Keep them mad. Maybe serious science is coming up for oxygen… just maybe. From Emma Marris at Nature: On 23 October, a group of current and former volunteers posted an open letter to the central March for Science organization in New York City, alleging that it is secretive, insensitive to the concerns of its volunteers, and unwilling to share power or information with organizers of its many affiliated ‘satellite’ groups around the world. The volunteers also claim that the organization sidelined and stonewalled experienced activists who wanted the movement to focus on how science can be used in ways that perpetuate racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. In a statement to Nature, the March for Science said that it Read More ›

Film: Darwinism and the human zoo

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: In Human Zoos, Dr. West explores the shameful legacy of pseudo-scientific racism that has trailed Darwinian theory from its inception down to today, with the emergence of the so-called alt-right. The film will premiere at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival on Saturday evening, November 11. It will release to the general public next year. More. The pseudo-scientific racism was  predictable from the get-go, once humans were proclaimed to be not special (we became subject to science-based reckonings as if we were animals). And once the Darwinian worldview was adopted by Big Cool Science, the racism became something those who wanted to get ahead just did not talk about. Call Darwinian racism, if you Read More ›

Museum of the Bible generates angst at Science (AAAS journal)

Lizzie Wade shares her worries about the new Museum of the Bible at Science: The grandiose new venture is bankrolled by the Greens, the billionaire family that owns the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores. Since 2009, the Greens, evangelical Christians known for their successful Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that health insurance plans pay for birth control, have amassed a private collection of 40,000 artifacts—both ancient and modern—relating to the Bible and the ancient Near East. The $500 million Museum of the Bible is a separate, nonprofit entity, but Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby, chairs its board, and the family has donated hundreds of artifacts to the museum. Forty thousand artifacts? Wow. Some of the Read More ›

Did the Protestant Reformation spur science?

Not really, says David Wootton at Nature: But it is still widely argued by historians of science that the Protestant religion and the new science were inextricably intertwined, as Protestantism turned away from the spirituality of Catholicism and fostered a practical engagement with the world, exemplified in the idea that a person’s occupation was their vocation. Merton was following in the footsteps of German sociologist Max Weber, who argued that Protestantism had led to capitalism. I disagree. First, plenty of great sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientists were Catholics, including Copernicus, Galileo and Pascal. Second, one of the most striking features of the new science was how easily it passed back and forth between Catholics and Protestants. At the height of the Read More ›

Physicist: The Galileo dispute involved science as well as religion

Of course. From physicist Christopher Graney at Aeon: In 1614, when the telescope was new technology, a young man in Germany published a book filled with illustrations of the exciting new things being discovered telescopically: moons circling Jupiter, moon-like phases of Venus, spots on the Sun, the rough and cratered lunar surface. The young man was Johann Georg Locher, and his book was Mathematical Disquisitions Concerning Astronomical Controversies and Novelties. And while Locher heaped praise upon Galileo, he challenged ideas that Galileo championed – on scientific grounds. You see, Locher was an anti-Copernican, a fan of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, and a student within the Establishment (his mentor was Christoph Scheiner, a prominent Jesuit astronomer). Locher argued that Copernicus was Read More ›

Occult gaining ground among “sciencey liberals”

As we noted here. From media analyst Dan Gainor at Newsbusters: The alt-left are some of the major beneficiaries of this insanity. Top liberal sites like Vice, Buzzfeed, Bustle and even Cosmo push the occult on their young readers. Countless internet sites run horoscopes, as newspapers did before them. But some outlets go a lot farther. Cosmo interviews “certified astrologer John Marchesella,” who claims that Aries folks, “don’t hold grudges. When you think about it, it takes a lot of patience to hold on to resentments.” This is how you know it’s garbage. I’m an Aries. (Other famous Aries are Lady Gaga and Kourtney Kardashian. So I got that goin’ for me.) Over at BuzzFeed, which pretends to be a Read More ›

Geneticist defends possible Adam and Eve in Nature: Ecology and Evolution

Against theistic evolutionists who insist that a single human pair is not biologically possible. Recently, British plant geneticist Richard Buggs posted a letter he had sent in May to BioLogos’ Dennis Venema, taking issue with the claim that a population of 10,000 is required, as stated in Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight, Adam and the Genome. Buggs never got an answer and he has since posted further thoughts at Nature: Ecology and Evolution (community): Does genomic evidence make it scientifically impossible that the human lineage could have ever passed through a population bottleneck of just two individuals? This is a question I am asked semi-frequently by religious friends. With my current understanding of the genetic evidence, I can’t state categorically Read More ›

At public evolution meeting in Scotland, crowd told: “gene” is not an accurate term

Well, that’s certainly not what Grandma learned about genes and evolution at school. Would it be legal to teach that in the United States? From Suzan Mazur at HuffPost: Although there could have been a bit more science presented at the recent D’Arcy Thompson On Growth and Form centenary celebration in Scotland at Dundee and St Andrews universities—-part of a year-long commemoration—-the art and music talks seemed clearly to charm the crowd. It was a small gathering, roughly 100 people, that expanded to 200 for keynote speakers—Evelyn Fox Keller of MIT and Steven Wolfram, CEO of Wolfram Research. She is referring to the public portion of a meeting from whch she was banned, as a journalist, from the science discussion Read More ›

Philip Cunningham: Quantum mechanics is as weird as we thought

No help for materialism. – Reflecting light off satellite backs up Wheeler’s quantum theory thought experiment – October 26, 2017 – Bob Yirka: Excerpt: Back in the late 1970s, physicist Johan Wheeler tossed around a thought experiment in which he asked what would happen if tests allowed researchers to change parameters after a photon was fired, but before it had reached a sensor for testing—would it somehow alter its behavior mid-course? He also considered the possibilities as light from a distant quasar made its way through space, being lensed by gravity. Was it possible that the light could somehow choose to behave as a wave or a particle depending on what scientists here on Earth did in trying to measure Read More ›