Educational psychologist Eric Loken points to some good outcomes in terms of more open science. But, he admits, only one in four scientists uses the techniques.
Month: April 2019
What’s the difference between a wolf and a dog? Terminology, it seems…
Perhaps most groups of canines have never been very separate for any length of time and that fact may have served them well.
Researchers: Most life-friendly planets orbiting young stars would quickly lose atmosphere
From their results: More likely is that many of the planets orbiting M-dwarf stars to have very thin or possible no atmospheres. In both cases, life forming in such systems appears less likely than previously believed.
AI meets Eek! Eek!
This summer, AI will be put through virtual mazes designed to test the intelligence of lab animals.
“Amazed” researchers: Mitochondria found that produce energy without any DNA
The researchers speculate as to how, despite appearances, not having any mitochondrial DNA is an evolutionary advantage. But wait a minute. Maybe it isn’t. The life form may, in fact, be on the way out.
ID-friendly scientist’s book features three Nobel Prize winners’ endorsements
Marcos Eberlin’s new book is now available at Amazon. Digging through the files, we came across the fact that in 2017, a conference at which he was to speak had to flee Portugal for Spain.
Falsifiability is overrated, some cosmologists say
The article doesn’t explain what the “fine-tuning problem” means. It means that the universe shows evidence of design. No one has been able to explain that away. However, if basic thinking in science is jerked around enough, maybe ideas that don’t work can be offered social promotions and sit right alongside demonstrated ones.
The Multiverse is Anti-Scientific
The UD News Desk’s latest post has me thinking. The multiverse is not only unscientific, it is positively anti-scientific. If there are an incomprehensibly vast (I believe some say even infinite, though that is hard to conceptualize) number of universes, then any being or phenomenon can be explained by “we just happen to live in […]
The key to falsifiability of not evidence but observability
Laszlo Bencze: The multiverse theory is irrefutable because alternate universes are, by definition, forever inaccessible. (If they were accessible through some very difficult convoluted route, they would still be part of our universe.)
Satellite DNA is Essential and Species-Specific in Drosophila melanogaster
This week’s “we thought it was junk but it turned out to be crucial” study comes with the added bonus that the so-called “junk” is also species-specific / taxonomically restricted. The general topic is tandemly repeated satellite DNA in the much studied fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. These satellite DNA regions comprise 15-20% of D. melanogaster’s genome, and […]
Researchers: Rise in “religious Nones” masks growth in evangelicalism
Atheists have also grown from 1.6% of the adult population to 3%, which is a significant increase. But the smaller the starting number, the easier it is for any increase to be significant. It;s the mushy middle that is shrinking.
Jay Richards: New evangelical statement on AI avoids major pitfalls
Including irrelevance. “Although the Statement nowhere distinguishes between “weak” and “strong” AI, the signers are clearly (and rightly) skeptical that computers can become conscious moral agents.”
The day Stephen Hawking undercut the multiverse
Regis Nicoll: Stephen Hawking had for many years considered the idea that “black holes are birthing centers for Star Trek phenomena like wormholes, time tunnels and multiple universes.” Then, in 2004, he turned on the idea.
The BBC on “how religion evolved”
A BBC journalist suggests it started as food-sharing among ape-like creatures (that’s not at all the recorded history of the Christian rite of holy communion but never mind).
Jerry Coyne insists that secular humanism is not a religion
It sounds as though the Darwinian biologist is confusing “religion” with “theism”.