Epstein:The result: The experts were, by and large, horrific forecasters.
Month: May 2019
PLOS paper admits to nonrandom mutation in evolution
Researchers may find it a relief to just discuss the situation honestly, minus Darwinian claptrap. Maybe people would get more done.
Plant expert: Very ancient fungi made life possible for plants on Earth
The history of life keeps changing on us. Much more stasis, much less Darwin. Where will we end up?
Researchers: Early human toolkit (400 kya) showed precision toolmaking
The really dumb caveman is becoming an endangered species.
Michael Egnor: Can animals “reason”? My challenge to Jeffrey Shallit
Could Shallit be replaced by even the most talented and methodical of counting ravens?
Jerry Coyne is already mad at Marcos Eberlin
Jerry will never be short of an explanation, no matter what the circumstance.
Charles Darwin’s grandfather’s poetry prophesied evolutionary theory
Erasmus Darwin remains largely unread in an age when he could be read online for free. There must be something amiss with Ed Simon’s assumption that persons of his type can “cure the world.”
Marcos Eberlin shouldn’t exist
You’d never guess from his career that thinking the universe shows evidence of design would ruin science. How did he escape Darwin’s thugs?
Should we call the Pauli Exclusion Principle quantum fine-tuning?
Absent the Principle, says astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, “most horrifically, carbon-based organic compounds — the building blocks of all life as we know it — would be an impossibility for us.”
Pre-existing genes a more likely cause of herbicide resistance than new mutations
It sounds as though the necessary evolution occurred a long time ago and that a Darwinian process just isn’t happening. But they are not likely allowed to discuss it that way.
Researchers: Supernova prompted humans to walk upright
Funny, if bipedalism originated in a global catastrophe, that it never occurred to any other primate to resolve the problem by becoming fully bipedal. But keep thinking. Resist groupthink.
Another snippet from “Why People Don’t Trust Science Any More”
Today, if we are surrounded by dangerous flimflam, we may also be surrounded by blowhards puffing for “science” on its behalf.
Fungus found that can oxidize gold
Imagine. Non-reactive gold does all that for fungus. Is there anything is nature that is absolutely useless?
Woke U fires prof, hires chimp ;)
A light-hearted look by neurosurgeon Michael Egnor at what would happen if we really thought that unreason is better than reason.
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 […]