From Michael Shermer at Scientific American: Are these “hard” problems, as philosopher David Chalmers characterized consciousness, or are they truly insoluble “mysterian” problems, as philosopher Owen Flanagan designated them (inspired by the 1960s rock group Question Mark and the Mysterians)? The “old mysterians” were dualists who believed in nonmaterial properties, such as the soul, that Read More…
Month: June 2018
The Atlantic asks experts where the aliens are… seriously
From Derek Thompson at The Atlantic: In the seventh episode of Crazy/Genius, a new podcast from The Atlantic on tech, science, and culture, we put the question to several experts, including Ellen Stofan, the former chief scientist of nasa and current director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; Adam Frank, a writer and Read More…
John Farrell Versus Isaac Newton
The title of John Farrell’s article in Commonweal from earlier this year is a dead giveaway. When writing about the interaction between faith and science, as Farrell does in the piece, the title “The Conflict Continues” is like a flashing red light that the mythological Warfare Thesis is coming at you. Read more
Maybe atheists really ARE into the paranormal and superstition…
Otherwise how do we explain this? From Matthew Olson at Digg: This Collaborative Map Of The Paranormal In Seattle Is The Best Thing Online This Week Founded by Seattleites Garrett Kelly (@boontdustie) and Jeremy Puma, the Liminal Seattle map is the region’s new go-to tool for tracking “fairies, ghosts, bigfoot, time travelers, extraterrestrials, ultraterrestrials, crow Read More…
Anomaly: Human mortality hits a plateau after 105 years of age
From Mark Barna at Discover: A study published today in Science indicates that people are indeed living longer and that the maximum lifespan for humans has not yet been reached. … And what they found was that after the age of 105, human mortality seems to hit a plateau. That is, you aren’t any more Read More…
From RealClearScience: No, we can’t trust government data on diet and nutrition
In a world where some researchers earnestly study the question of why so many people don’t ”trust science,” we learn from Michael Marlow & Edward Archer at RealClearScience: In contrast [to confidence in politicians], public confidence in the ‘scientific community’ runs at 40% and has remained stable since the 1970s. This trust, however, turns out Read More…
Do crows’ vending machine skills “redefine intelligence”?
From Victoria Gill at the BBC: Now, an experiment using a vending machine specifically designed for crows has revealed something about how intelligence evolves. These are, of course, the famous New Caledonian crows, very smarter at manipulating objects. They were able to peck the right size paper token in order to get a treat from Read More…
External testicles as poor design? The few mammals that don’t have them turn out to have lost them, say gene researchers.
From ScienceDaily: In almost all adult mammals, testes are located either in a scrotum or in the lower abdomen. But testes initially develop deep inside the abdomen at a position close to the kidneys, as seen in mammalian embryos. The final testicular position is the result of a descent process that occurs during animal development. Read More…
At Forbes: About extraterrestrial life, “fancy probabilistic analysis” just isn’t science
From astrophysicist Ethan Siegel: No amount of fancy probabilistic analysis can justify treating guesswork and wishful thinking as having any sort of scientific weight. Applying scientific techniques to an inherently unscientific endeavor, such as inventing estimates to unknowns about the Universe, doesn’t make it any more scientific. The opposite of knowledge isn’t ignorance; it’s the Read More…
Mystery: ENST comments on the fossil African turaco found in North America at 52 mya …
How it got to North America is a conundrum for evolution studies thugh hardly a new or unusual one. From Evolution News and Science Today: In a delightful article here yesterday, German paleontologist Günter Bechly documents the many absurdities that result when the Darwinian teaching on universal common ancestry runs up against a consideration of the Read More…
Francisco Ayala has stepped down in sexual harassment controversy at University of California Irvine
The library named in honor of the well-known theistic evolutionist and 2010 Templeton winner is to be renamed. From a university media release: UCI proposes new name for School of Biological Sciences, science library after internal investigation substantiates sexual harassment claims against signature donor June 28, 2018 IRVINE, Calif., June 28, 2018 – The University of Read More…
Experimental physicists devise test to find out if dark matter really exists
From the University of Bonn: A new study found a way to determine whether the mysterious “star putty” really exists Researchers at the University of Bonn and the University of California at Irvine used sophisticated computer simulations to devise a test that could answer a burning question in astrophysics: is there really dark matter? Or Read More…
Does an arrested galaxy violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
“…stuck in an unproductive state of arrested development…” From Tim Collins at the Daily Mail: A rare galaxy stuck in a state of arrested development is providing scientists with a unique window into the early days of the universe. The unusual cosmic region has remained frozen for the past 10 billion years, producing no new Read More…
Researchers: Ediacaran animals increased in size to spread their offspring rather than compete for food
From ScienceDaily: The research, led by the University of Cambridge, found that the most successful organisms living in the oceans more than half a billion years ago were the ones that were able to ‘throw’ their offspring the farthest, thereby colonising their surroundings. The results are reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Prior Read More…
Life on other planets? Yes, for sure, if Earth’s microbes get there with our help
The discovery of complex organic molecules on Saturn’s moon Enceladus raises the question:What about introducing organisms from Earth, even if none exist out there now? From Laurie Fickman at the University of Houston: In professor George Fox’s lab at the University of Houston, scientists are studying Earth germs that could be contaminating other planets. Despite Read More…