2019

Details are unclear but U.S. President Trump has threatened to cut off federal research funds to colleges and universities that deny free speech: In an interview after Trump’s speech, Terry Hartle, senior vice president for the American Council on Education, called the executive order “a solution in search of a problem,” because “free speech and academic freedom are core values of research universities.” Oh. Well then they shouldn’t have any problem with the President’s position at all, should they? Some experts believe the President may succeed in using an executive order to restrict research funds. “There’s a history of the federal government requiring universities to do certain kinds of things in order to receive federal research funding,” Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a Read More ›

You think you’re free to read what you want? Think again: Three days ago on this forum, I raised the question how long would it be before Amazon, which has now started banning videos skeptical of vaccines, starts banning books. I thought books would be safer. But no. Tommy Robinson’s book Mohammed’s Koran has now been banned on Amazon. For the story, see here. For the Tommy Robinson page at Amazon showing that the book has indeed been removed (proof by absence), see here. Barnes and Noble has likewise removed it. … Bill Dembski, “Censorship of Books at Amazon” at billdembski.com The Big Shuddup was bound to happen in monopoly markets. It is much easier to stop a single leak than hundreds of them. Read More ›

In Sulawesi, Indonesia. Wallace, Darwin’s ignored co-discoverer, had explored a good deal in that area: A very impressive 1.5 meter tall bust of Wallace on a 2.6 meter high plinth was inaugurated on the 21st February 2019 at the well known Tangkoko Nature Reserve in north-east Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is certainly the largest and most imposing monument to Wallace in the world so far. It is also the first bust or 3D likeness of him outside the UK and the first monument to him in Wallacea, the biogeographical region which is named in his honour. George Beccaloni, “Impressive New Monument to Alfred Russel Wallace in Sulawesi, Indonesia” at The Alfred Russel Wallace Website Interesting coincidence with finding Wallace’s (thought-extinct) bee. Read More ›

There is a creeping scientism in our intellectual climate. We have been led to think that Science is the gold standard of reliable, substantial knowledge and that institutional science and its leaders are the curators of knowledge. This is of course deeply connected to the wider domination of evolutionary materialistic scientism, which compounds the above with the notion that the stuff studied by the physical and chemical sciences is effectively the limit of credibly, reliably knowable reality. Where, let us note that scientism is a part of the defining cluster of naturalism, in both its metaphysical and “methodological” guises. We can readily see that in that ever so humble source, Wikipedia, speaking confidently and comfortably on its own philosophical bent: Read More ›

As Michael Egnor tells us, scientism is not a cure for stupidity. But never mind, quite a few science savants have rushed in fearlessly: Evolutionary biologist David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute, told Nautilus, “Stupidity is using a rule where adding more data doesn’t improve your chances of getting [a problem] right. In fact, it makes it more likely you’ll get it wrong.” I won’t contradict an evolutionary biologist on the topic of stupidity. In any event, Italian economic historian Carlo M. Cipolla (1922–2000) argued that “A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses” (his Third Basic Law Read More ›

Yes, if you believe the mirror test proves it: The bluestreak cleaner wrasse has passed the famous mirror test for self-recognition (originally intended for primate apes and monkeys). According to a recent paper (open access), three out of four fish tested by researchers from Osaka City University in Japan were able to learn to identify the object in a mirror as their own images. But what does that mean? When chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, and magpies passed the test1, researchers theorized that these animals, recognized as intelligent, were demonstrating a concept of “self.” Now they are not so sure. Is the cleaner wrasse, which grooms other fish for parasites, really self-aware? Are fish much smarter than we think? More. But what Read More ›