“The mission of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is to promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. … some of the founding members of CSI include scientists, academics, and science writers such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Philip Klass, Paul Kurtz, Ray Hyman, James Randi, Martin Read More…
Year: 2018
HGP responds to “society consensus morality,” i.e. cultural relativism
Over the years, I have noticed a tendency at UD and elsewhere to ignore and bury quite significant and substantial comments when discussion threads reflect interactions with those more concerned to make points rather than to have serious dialogue. Ironically, serious dialogue is what is necessary if a genuine consensus is ever to be built. Read More…
Does it matter in science if no one can replicate your results?
From Neuroskeptic at Discover: In a new paper in the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Chris Drummond takes aim at the ‘reproducibility movement’ which has lately risen to prominence in science. … If we have multiple pieces of evidence for a hypothesis, but none of those pieces of evidence are reproducible, the hypothesis Read More…
How do we know that the rock structures in Arabia are evidence of design?
From Evolution News & Views: Here we are in 2018, and we still don’t know who, when, or why ancient people left their marks in the Arabian desert in the form of large stone structures, some of them hundreds of meters long. But as we observed back in November, “All we know is that they Read More…
Researchers: Why are DNA mutations biased toward ‘G-C’ content?
From ScienceDaily: To make the iconic, twisted double helix that accounts for the diversity of life, DNA rules specify that G always pairs with C, and A with T. But, when it’s all added up, the amount of G+C vs A+T content among species is not a simple fixed percentage or, standard one-to-one ratio. For Read More…
An Unhappy New Year for computers and smart devices: the Meltdown & Spectre flaws in Intel, AMD and ARM processors
On Wednesday, January 3rd, there has been an announcement of two security flaws that affect Intel, AMD and ARM micro-chips, thus potentially affecting PC’s, telephones and a great many appliances alike. As a Yahoo News article reports: “Phones, PCs, everything are going to have some impact, but it’ll vary from product to product,” Intel CEO Read More…
WJM vs Popper and his supporters on error and progress
WJM often provides quite refreshing insights. Here, in the challenge of criticism thread, he responds to CR (and to Origenes), and in so doing, addresses Popper: WJM, 8: >> Popper’s answer is: We can hope to detect and eliminate error if we set up traditions of criticism—substantive criticism, directed at the content of ideas, not Read More…
CR’s fallibilism vs the issue of sufficiently reliable rationality
UD serves as a forum in which many issues are debated and as a result form time to time, there are things that it is helpful to draw to wider attention by headling. Here, something from the objectivity and morality thread, as food for thought : KF, 302: >>CR: Every proposition is fallible because there Read More…
H.G. Wells vs George Orwell: Can science save us?
From Richard Gunderman at The Conversation: Wells, one of the founders of science fiction, was a staunch believer in science’s potential. Orwell, on the other hand, cast a much more skeptical eye on science, pointing to its limitations as a guide to human affairs. … Wells’ enthusiasm for science had political implications. Having contemplated in Read More…
Selfies and science: The self-esteem edition – When government buys science, it’s no use complaining when results are politicized
From Will Storr at the Guardian, on how the obviously false “self-esteem” bunkum in education received the status of “science”: In the 1980s, Californian politician John Vasconcellos set up a task force to promote high self-esteem as the answer to all social ills. But was his science based on a lie? The flawed yet infectious Read More…
Photosynthesis pushed back even further. Time to revisit the “Boring Billion” claim
Past time, really. From ScienceDaily: Maybe the ‘Boring Billion’ wasn’t so boring, after all The world’s oldest algae fossils are a billion years old, according to a new analysis by earth scientists at McGill University. Based on this finding, the researchers also estimate that the basis for photosynthesis in today’s plants was set in place Read More…
Origenes vs CR on the challenge of criticism
Sometimes, a blog comment is so cogent that it desrerves headline billing. In the following case, Origenes brilliantly rises to that level in responding to frequent critic, CR. So, from the moral grounding thread: Origenes, 268:>>CR @ CR: My point was and has continues to be: how does a proposition obtain the status of being Read More…
Convergent evolution: Researcher “amazed” by similarities between long-extinct marine reptiles and modern life forms that are NOT their descendants
From ScienceDaily: Researchers were surprised when sauropterygians with very different lifestyles had evolved inner ears that were very similar to those of some modern animals. “Sauropterygians are completely extinct and have no living descendants,” said Dr James Neenan, lead author of the study. “So I was amazed to see that nearshore species with limbs that Read More…
Convergent evolution?: After millions of years of evolution, bamboo lemurs share 48 gut microbes with giant pandas and red pandas
But share only eight gut microbes with their closely related cousins, the ringtail lemurs. This is not a neat Darwinian picture. From ScienceDaily: “The bamboo lemur’s evolutionary tree diverged from that of both panda species 83 million years ago — that’s 18 million years before dinosaurs went extinct,” says Erin McKenney, a postdoctoral researcher at Read More…
Humans not responsible for chimpanzees killing each other?
No? Well, not according to a recent article in Nature: Abstract: Observations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) provide valuable comparative data for understanding the significance of conspecific killing. Two kinds of hypothesis have been proposed. Lethal violence is sometimes concluded to be the result of adaptive strategies, such that killers ultimately gain Read More…