Afterword: Many scientists think of themselves as philosopher kings, far superior to those in the “basket of deplorables.” The deplorables have a hard time understanding why scientists are so special, and why they should vote as instructed by them.
Month: March 2019
Study challenges theory that sexual conflict is a driver of speciation
Sexual conflict, and sexual selection in general could conceivably turn out to be so “complicated” that, while it usually makes a difference when it occurs, it does not point in any particular direction for evolution.
Researchers: Microbes can make evolution work faster for their hosts
Okay, but then aren’t the microorganisms the unit of selection rather than the host’s genes? This might work for adaptations to change in habitats (they describe one), but it won’t be Darwinism.
Do some particles defy the universe’s push for disorder?
Question emerges: ““There is some beautiful structure that somehow coexists with a totally random environment,” Papić said. “What kind of physics allows this to happen?”
Researcher: Origin of photosynthesis founded on “incorrect assumptions”
Cardona: I shall attempt to demonstrate that these three ideas are often grounded in incorrect assumptions built on more assumptions with no experimental or observational support.
Researchers: Dickinsonia (571–541 mya) could have had mouth and guts
Associate Professor Jochen Brocks commented, “These fossils comprise our best window into earliest animal evolution and are the key to understanding our own deep origins.” Yes, in the sense that sudden emergence rather than a long, slow Darwinian process seems more likely all the time.
Unique giant virus messes with current theories of viral evolution
Giant viruses have only been known from the past few decades. There is still debate about whether viruses are actually life forms. Surely, there will be many game changers to come. Anyone attempting to compile an evolutionary history of giant viruses would be like the person who writes the history of a major league playoff series after the first game. Without the crystal ball.
Why a senior scientist doesn’t “believe” in “science”
Robert Tracinski: Many people use the claim “as a way of declaring belief in a proposition which is outside their knowledge and which they do not understand.”
Pushback against abandoning “statistical significance” in science
Of course, as science embraces post-modernism, “irrefutable nonsense” could be the new standard. Along with ever more strenuous demands that we trust science.
Michael Behe responds to the critics at his university, Parts 2 and 3
Contra Lang and Rice, it’s preposterous to say that the data “are more than sufficient to convince any open minded skeptic that unguided evolution is capable of generating complex systems.” Unless one defines a skeptic of Darwin’s theory (the most prominent proposed “unguided” explanation) as closed-minded, a quick visit to the library will disabuse one of that notion.
Two views of Ben Shapiro’s interview with Steve Meyer
Meanwhile, a critic, French-Canadian neuroscientist Jean-Francois Gariépy, who appears to be an alt right figure, has made his own vid, at The Public Space reviewing/attacking Shapiro’s interview with Meyer.
Michael Behe’s response to Lehigh colleagues’ criticism
If Behe’s critics were right, new life forms would be popping into existence all the time.
Researchers: Newly discovered frog separated from others by 50 million years
“It’s a perfect scenario for cooking up new species,” he said. What? Wait! This isn’t a “new species.” This is a holdover from 50 million years ago, during which it’s always been an obvious frog.
Motor nerves turn out to need “expert guidance”
And it all happens without intelligence of any kind? “Expert guidance” without experts?
A philosopher explains why machines are not creative
When you consider all the reasons why machines cannot be creative, one must ask, is the belief that we can build superintelligent machines rooted in naturalism (nature is all there is), often called “materialism,” or in evidence?