2017

From Robert Tracinski at the Federalist: I am a Carl Sagan fan from way back. His 1980 TV miniseries “Cosmos” hit me at just the right age and inflamed a lifelong love of science. But we’ve had nearly 40 years to assess the long-term effects and see how Sagan unwittingly contributed to a trend that muddled public understanding of science. This weekend’s so-called “March for Science” is a perfect example of what went wrong. Fact morphed into narrative: If you don’t really need science so much as the narrative, then what you get is our own era’s official replacement for Sagan: Neil deGrasse Tyson. As the decades pass, Sagan’s imitators become less thoughtful and more propagandistic, less interested in conveying Read More ›

Refusing To Believe Early Progressives Loved Eugenics Will Not Erase The Horrible Truth After seeing the end result [of pushing eugenics in the early 20th century] in the Holocaust, progressives naturally sought to bury their connection to this genocidal concept, and succeeded in doing so, at least when they can discredit conservatives who persist in mentioning it. That problem bubbled to the surface last week when Bloomberg’s economist and writer Noah Smith tweeted, “Apparently some people believe that eugenics was the scientific consensus 100 years ago. Sounds like a total myth to me.”

“an American scholar whose rigorous writings over a half century have made theism – the belief in a divine reality or god – a serious option within academic philosophy” Here: — Tuesday, 25-April-2017 WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. – Alvin Plantinga, an American scholar whose rigorous writings over a half century have made theism – the belief in a divine reality or god – a serious option within academic philosophy, was announced today as the 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate. Plantinga’s pioneering work began in the late 1950s, a time when academic philosophers generally rejected religiously informed philosophy. In his early books, however, Plantinga considered a variety of arguments for the existence of God in ways that put theistic belief back on the Read More ›

From Kacey Deamer at LiveScience: The wild-born, pure Australian desert dingo recently took first place in the World’s Most Interesting Genome competition, and will have her DNA decoded thanks to the Pacific Biosciences SMRT Grant Program. The grant provides genome sequencing for “a particularly fascinating plant or animal.” … “Sandy is truly a gift to science. As a rare, wild-born pure dingo, she provides a unique case study,” Ballard, who submitted the bid to sequence Sandy’s DNA, said in a statement. “Pure dingoes are intermediate between wild wolves and domestic dogs, with a range of non-domesticated traits. So sequencing Sandy’s genome will help pinpoint some of the genes for temperament and behavior that underlie the transition from wild animals to Read More ›

Physicalism is the point of vew that everything is material, including information, presumably adopted out of despair, as an alternative to saying even dumber things. From philosopher Daniel N. Robinson at the New Atlantis: In attempts to account for distinctly human endeavors, explanations have a narrative quality. Thus, Jane’s aspiration to be a concert violinist accounts for — that is, explains — the many hours of practice expended over a course of years. Henry wishes to understand the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. The story — the explanation — runs along these lines: Wellington, after the battle of Quatre Bras, moved his forces to Waterloo. The allied Prussians moved to positions drawing a large portion of the French forces away Read More ›

From Mic, via AP: You don’t need a scientific calculator to know that the March for Science was a massive success. Stretching across the United States — as well as globally from the North Pole to New Zealand — the March for Science saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets on Earth Day in many cities, adding up to totals much higher nationwide. Here are a few photos that begin to capture just how huge crowds nationwide became throughout the Earth Day celebration.More. Actually, looking at the photos, as UD commenter Chris Haynes notes, the crowds are just not that impressive. A number of foreseeable reasons come to mind, which makes one wonder about the impulse to hold Read More ›

The recent capture of a live giant shipworm highlights devolution. One form of devolution is allowing complex body systems to become vestigial, relying on microorganisms instead. From BBC: The giant shipworm is unique not just for its size, but also for feeding on nutrients in mud and marine sediment instead, using a type of bacteria. It therefore has a much smaller digestive system compared to other shipworms. And while the discovery of the animal itself is exciting, the team’s research has revealed there is an entire hidden ecosystem at play. The giant shipworm has bacteria that live inside its shell, converting chemicals from the nearby rotting wood into energy and nutrients, similar to what plants do with sunlight.More. Devolution poses Read More ›

Read More ›

Surely no one bet against that. From Ryan Cross at Science: More widespread support comes from the Clergy Letter Project in Olympia, a group of some 14,400 ordained clergy members that supports teaching evolution and climate change. Founder and executive director Michael Zimmerman says a survey of the group’s members showed strong support for the march. Negative responses mostly came from people who said they believed the event wouldn’t change anything, and might even further polarize science, Zimmerman says. “The new slightly more political focus of the march might have turned some members off,” he says. (In contrast, he notes, responses in favor of supporting the People’s Climate March were unanimous.) The Clergy Letter Project is best known for supporting Read More ›

From Evolution News & Views: Dr. Bechly specializes in the fossil history and systematics of insects, particularly dragonflies. From 1999 until the end of 2016, he served as the curator for amber and fossil insects in the Department of Paleontology at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart. … Chosen to organize the largest museum exhibit in Germany celebrating the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth in 2009, Bechly ended up having gnawing doubts about Darwin after he read books by intelligent design proponents Michael Behe and William Dembski. Initially keeping his scientific heresy a secret, he began years of private discussions with intelligent design proponents including CSC Director Stephen Meyer. … Dr. Bechly was one of the presenters at Read More ›

The Uncommon Descent News AI team came across this golden oldie, the Purpose of Purpose talk on YouTube, datelined Omaha, Nebraska (2009). While our Dawkinsbot was very lifelike even back then, the rant, let’s face it, is pretty dated. Which just shows how far we have come. To recap, concerns have been raised recently that scientists are bored with and annoyed by the bot, which is bad for our strategy to discredit Darwinism. They have to actually be paying attention first! Plus, not too long ago, the bot started melting down over nonsense retailed in the Twitterverse and we had to do an emergency rework of the politics module. But on the whole, this old footage does show that we are Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: New research by scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA overturns a long-standing paradigm about how axons — thread-like projections that connect cells in the nervous system — grow during embryonic development. The findings of the study, led by Samantha Butler, associate professor of neurobiology, could help scientists replicate or control the way axons grow, which may be applicable for diseases that affect the nervous system, such as diabetes, as well as injuries that sever nerves. … They found that neural progenitors organize axon growth by producing a pathway of netrin1 that directs axons only in their local environment and not over long distances. This pathway of netrin1 Read More ›

From Harvard sociologist Andrew Jowett at the Atlantic: The movement’s rhetoric suggests that if governments simply fund and heed scientific research, the world will march steadily toward peace and prosperity. Applying science to politics will create “an unbroken chain of inquiry, knowledge, and public benefit for all.” This is, dare I say, an unscientific conception of human action. A huge body of social-scientific literature—or just a good, hard look at the political scene—shows that conflict, uncertainty, and collective self-interest would remain central features of democratic politics even if all of the disputants took scientific findings as their starting point for policy recommendations. In a 2004 essay, Daniel Sarewitz, a professor at Arizona State University, challenged the longstanding expectation that bringing Read More ›

For now. From Texas Education Agency: The board changed biology standard (4)(A) from “compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and evaluate scientific explanation for their complexity;” as approved on first reading to: “compare and contrast prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, including their complexity, and compare and contrast scientific explanations for cellular complexity.” The board also changed biology standard (6)(A), which, as approved on first reading, read: “identify components of DNA, describe how information for specifying the traits of an organism is carried in the DNA, and evaluate scientific explanations for the origin of DNA;” As approved Friday, it now reads “identify components of DNA, identify how information for specifying the traits of an organism is carried in the DNA, and Read More ›

Money walks. At the Washington Times: Take, for example, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The current NIH budget is $32.3 billion, all of it from taxpayers. The Trump administration proposes to reduce that amount, though the decision is up to Congress. A scientist quoted in a recent article in The Atlantic says the proposed reduction would “bring American biomedical science to a halt.” But the NIH budget has been reduced several times in the past eight years without that happening. The 2017 March for Science is not about protecting experimental science, which is in no danger — at least, no danger from the U.S. government. It’s about pressuring lawmakers to vote for more money. But throwing more money Read More ›