2017

The piece is notable for apparent incoherence on the subject: From philosopher Joseph Laporte at Big Questions Online: As we learn from Augustine’s Confessions, he felt the crushing burden of his vices and of his own helplessness to lift himself without God’s grace. That fits with many people’s experience. Besides, it’s Christian orthodoxy: without grace, there is no action toward spiritual flourishing. Here it’s helpful to invoke freedom-for-excellence. Without God’s help, we lack freedom-for-excellence, freedom to be virtuous. In my insecurity, I go shopping for clothes; later I look in my closet with buyer’s remorse. Or, I’m late again and ask myself what went wrong with my time management. Or, my memory of adolescence is no longer fresh, so I Read More ›

Our new word for the weekend. From Ross Pomeroy at RealClearScience: Most thinkers, including famed astrophysicist Carl Sagan, agree that mathematics could serve as the foundation for our discussions. With that in mind, British scientist Lancelot Thomas Hogben rafted a language system called Astraglossa. Communicated over radio signals, short pulses called “dashes” would represent numbers, and longer batteries of pulses called “flashes” would represent mathematical symbols like addition or subtraction. Once the basics of arithmetic are established between our species, Hogben imagined moving the discussion on to astronomy, a hobby we would obviously both have in common. After all, two aliens species talking about space would probably be like two Earthlings talking about the weather. But maybe not. What if Read More ›

According to those who have been resuscitated from clinical death. From Fox News: The evidence reportedly suggests a surge of brain activity immediately after a near-death experience. “What tends to happen is that people who’ve had these very profound experiences may come back positively transformed — they become more altruistic, more engaged with helping others. They find a new meaning to life having had an encounter with death,” Parnia said. “But there isn’t like a sudden magical enhancement of their memories,” he added. “That’s just Hollywood jazz.” More. The best evidence for near-death experiences is, in fact, the changed priorities of those who have them. But then, pop culture acknowledges that no one on their deathbed ever wishes they’d spent Read More ›

Sources See also: Philip Cunningham’s critique of methodological naturalism

From philosopher Emily Thomas at The Conversation: Is there space between the stars? The relationist Leibniz argued that space is the spatial relations between things. Australia is “south of” Singapore. The tree is “three meters left of” the bush. Sean Spicer is “behind” the bush. That means space would not exist independently of the things it connects. For Leibniz, if nothing existed, there couldn’t be any spatial relations. If our universe were destroyed, space would not exist. In contrast, the absolutist Clarke argued that space is a sort of substance that is everywhere. Space is a giant container, containing all the things in the universe: stars, planets, us. Space allows us to make sense of how things move from one Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: Günter Bechly is a distinguished paleontologist, specializing in fossil dragonflies, exquisitely preserved in amber for tens of millions of years. After revealing his support for the theory of intelligent design, he was pushed out as a curator at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany. He subsequently joined Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture as a Senior Fellow. Now we learn that our colleague has suffered another act of censorship: he has been erased from Wikipedia, ostensibly for not being “notable” enough. Funny, no one had ever heard much about Gunter Bechly before then. At Evolution News, we have documented a range of instances of censorship and intimidation. Rarely, Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: A British enthusiasm for feeding birds may have caused UK great tits to have evolved longer beaks than their European counterparts, according to new research. … The specific gene sequences which had evolved in the British birds were found to closely match human genes known to determine face shape. There were also strong similarities with genes identified with beak shape in Darwin’s study of finches — one of the best-known examples of how physical traits have adapted to different environments in the wild. This led the researchers to think that great tit beaks were evolving by natural selection in British great tits, perhaps in response to the widespread use of bird feeders.Paper. (paywall) – Mirte Bosse, Lewis G. Read More ›

From Michael Greshko at National Geographic: Despite claims of a new origin story for humans, the fossils more likely belonged to a very distant branch on the primate family tree. … Study leader Herbert Lutz, the deputy museum director at the Mainz Natural History Museum, says that he and his colleagues have been dumbfounded by the teeth for the last year. Their paper, posted online Friday on the article-sharing platform ResearchGate, claims that the teeth bear a close resemblance to some extinct African relatives of modern humans. … The canine tooth described in the paper has an unusual, intriguing shape, says University of Toronto paleoanthropologist Bence Viola, an expert on the teeth of humans’ extinct relatives. However, the molar—which he Read More ›

From Shannon Palus at New Scientist: THERE is a hole in the sun. Right in the middle, a mass the size of 1500 Earths has simply disappeared. Much of what we know about the sun’s behaviour says it should be there – but when we interpret the data encoded in sunlight, that chunk of stuff is nowhere to be seen. That has shaken up our understanding of how the sun works, and physicists are struggling to figure out what fills that hole. It could be a thing, like dark matter. It could be a concept, with elements such as carbon and nitrogen simply behaving in a way we didn’t expect under crushing pressure. Or perhaps we’re looking at the sun Read More ›

From Mikhail Tikhonov at The Scientist: More profoundly, microbial ecosystems are a strange world where many familiar concepts start to break down, including “species,” “fitness,” and maybe even “organism.” In our everyday experience, we are rarely in doubt whether a given creature is a fox or a rabbit. Further, it seems very easy to delineate where an “individual” ends, and its “environment” begins. Our ability to do so is often taken for granted, and underlies how we think about both ecology and evolution. Whether these assumptions remain adequate for microbes is, however, increasingly doubtful. … The issue of microbial species being ill-defined is a hot topic in the biological literature. In a recent paper in Physical Review E, I try Read More ›

From Cathay O’Connell at at Cosmos: Like me, physicists around the world are in the midst of an important search that has so far proven fruitless. Their quarry is nothing less than most of the matter in the universe, so-called “dark matter”. So far their most sensitive detectors have found – to be pithy – nada. Despite the lack of results, scientists aren’t giving up. “The frequency with which articles show up in the popular press saying ‘maybe dark matter isn’t real’ massively exceeds the frequency with which physicists or astronomers find any reason to re-examine that question,” says Katie Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Melbourne. In many respects, the quest for dark matter has only just Read More ›

Yes. From Peter Dockrill at Science Alert: Of the 451 cell lines known to be compromised, the most famous contaminating source is what’s known as HeLa cells, named after their source, Henrietta Lacks. In 1951, this 31-year-old mother of five from Virginia died from cervical cancer. But during treatment before her death, cells were taken from Lacks’ cervix in a biopsy without her consent. Later, cell biologist George Otto Gey discovered these cells could be kept alive and grow indefinitely in a lab – as such, HeLa cells became the first immortalised cell line, meaning they didn’t eventually die due to cellular senescence. That everlasting quality made them a valuable research specimen that was distributed across the world, ultimately contributing Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: The spark of life, the authors say, was the creation of RNA polymers: the essential components of nucleotides, delivered by meteorites, reaching sufficient concentrations in pond water and bonding together as water levels fell and rose through cycles of precipitation, evaporation and drainage. The combination of wet and dry conditions was necessary for bonding, the paper says. In some cases, the researchers believe, favorable conditions saw some of those chains fold over and spontaneously replicate themselves by drawing other nucleotides from their environment, fulfilling one condition for the definition of life. Those polymers were imperfect, capable of improving through Darwinian evolution, fulfilling the other condition. “That’s the Holy Grail of experimental origins-of-life chemistry,” says Pearce. That rudimentary form Read More ›

From Michael Denton’s new book, Wonder of Water: This wonder fluid is fit for life on Earth in an absolutely stunning number of ways. It is fit for the formation of proto-planetary discs, for the formation of the planets, for the formation of the oceans, and for their subsequent preservation. Water is uniquely fit for the hydrological cycle, the tectonic cycle, and the temperature regulation of the human body. The properties of water play a critical part in the formation of the great oceanic currents, which circulate crucial nutrients throughout the world ocean. Those currents play a key role in global temperature regulation and moderation and in controlling the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Water is superbly and uniquely fit Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Travis Hagey, Michigan State University evolutionary biologist, shows how different groups of lizards — geckos and anoles — took two completely different evolutionary paths to developing the beneficial trait of sticky toe pads. In a paper published in the journal Evolution, Hagey showed that anoles seemed to commit to a single type of toe pad, one that generates lots of friction. As a group, they were able to develop sticky toe pads early. Geckos, meanwhile, opted for an evolutionary “drunken stumble,” and seemingly didn’t commit to a single approach, instead evolving toe pads that generate plenty of friction in some species and others that excel at sticking directly to a surface. … “We’re trying to explain how evolution Read More ›