PLOS paper admits to nonrandom mutation in evolution
Plant expert: Very ancient fungi made life possible for plants on Earth
Researchers: Early human toolkit (400 kya) showed precision toolmaking
Michael Egnor: Can animals “reason”? My challenge to Jeffrey Shallit
Jerry Coyne is already mad at Marcos Eberlin
Charles Darwin’s grandfather’s poetry prophesied evolutionary theory
Marcos Eberlin shouldn’t exist
Should we call the Pauli Exclusion Principle quantum fine-tuning?
Pre-existing genes a more likely cause of herbicide resistance than new mutations
Researchers: Supernova prompted humans to walk upright
Another snippet from “Why People Don’t Trust Science Any More”
Fungus found that can oxidize gold
Woke U fires prof, hires chimp ;)
Logic & First Principles, 21: Insightful intelligence vs. computationalism
One of the challenges of our day is the commonplace reduction of intelligent, insightful action to computation on a substrate. That’s not just Sci Fi, it is a challenge in the academy and on the street — especially as AI grabs more and more headlines. A good stimulus for thought is John Searle as he further discusses his famous Chinese Room example: The Failures of Computationalism John R. Searle Department of Philosophy University of California Berkeley CA The Power in the Chinese Room. Harnad and I agree that the Chinese Room Argument deals a knockout blow to Strong AI, but beyond that point we do not agree on much at all. So let’s begin by pondering the implications of the Read More ›