Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

First known animal that doesn’t breathe

That’s called devolution, when life forms simply junk complex equipment they never use. One wonders if there is any characteristic of live that some life form or other has not devolved to get rid of. But they will, of course, likely be parasites like salminicola. Read More ›

Michael Egnor: The mind’s reality is consistent with neuroscience

Egnor: I think the best explanation of the relationship of the mind to the brain is Aristotelian hylomorphism which is the viewpoint that the soul is the form of the body and that certain powers of the soul, particularly the intellect and will, are not generated by matter but are immaterial things. Read More ›

Green plants discovered in China dated at a billion years ago

It’s not “land” vs. “sea” that’s really significant here. It’s how much time was available for the development of photosynthesis. If the claim is that photosynthesis developed via natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism), then it must have somehow randomly happened in that billion years. Was there enough time? becomes an unavoidable question. Read More ›

China

JStanley’s comment here put me in mind of this photograph I took in a Xian market some years ago.

Science writer dons sandwich board: Ask me anything about evolution!

But why on earth did she think that such a strategy would ever be an aid to effective communication? Wasn’t she, at bottom, just trying to put the supposedly stupid mid-Western rubes on display for the supposedly sophisticated Brits? That stuff is wearing thinner all the time though the targeted Brit demographic might be the last to know. Read More ›

Forbes’ physics columnist Ethan Siegel can’t wait to get beyond the Big Bang

But doesn’t seem to have a ticket. So a mechanism that caused the Universe to come into existence with these properties already in place? But then what caused that mechanism? If a mechanism caused that mechanism, what in turn caused the previous mechanism? Siegel obviously wants to get past the idea of an actual beginning but orthodox science does not seem to allow that. Some religious propositions might suffice, of course, but he does not want to go there. Advice from readers? Read More ›

Betelgeuse begins to re-brighten

. . . and that, at about the suggested time for an up-turn. Astronomy telegram clip: >>The Fall and Rise in Brightness of Betelgeuse ATel #13512; Edward Guinan, Richard Wasatonic (Villanova University),Thomas Calderwood (AAVSO) and Donald Carona (Texas A& M University) on 22 Feb 2020; 12:59 UTCredential Certification: Edward Guinan (edward.guinan@villanova.edu) As previously reported (see ATel #13365, #13410 and #13439), the red supergiant Betelgeuse has been undergoing an unprecedented decrease in its visual (V) brightness since October 2019. Photometry secured over the last ~2 weeks shows that Betelgeuse has stopped its large decline of delta-V of ~1.0 mag relative to September 2019. The star reached a mean light minimum of = 1.614 +/- 0.008 mag during 07-13 February 2020. This Read More ›

The spreading of corona virus

UK’s Daily Mail reports: They also provide a map: A concern is that mild cases are masked under the common cold, and that the incubation period may be up to four weeks or thereabouts, not the fortnight that has been used hitherto. They are not finding a “patient zero” for some of these outbreaks, which is why there is talk of un-traceability and climbing towards pandemic. On the design front there is speculation that the genome has traces of engineering, and that people may have not been incinerating animals in a biological lab near Wuhan, but illegally disposing of them in the bush meat trade. Speculation, not confirmation. It will be interesting to see the criteria by which they might Read More ›

Spoof alert!: Jerry Coyne is interviewed at Dissociated News

Coyne has been a frequent topic on our page in recent months and a reader dug this out from 2013 and sent it in. Michael Egnor imagines an interview with Jerry Coyne on deplatforming opponents: They're still talking about it. After I told them not to. Read More ›

Straw in the wind? Get a load of the insightful review of a string theorist’s Big Book at Nature

In sharp contrast with the classic slobbering review at Time of string theorist Brian Greene’s new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Penguin 2020), , which resurrects mid-twentieth century attempts to undermine traditional religions via schlock science religion, the Nature reviewer is not impressed. (Kiddos, that was back when Time Magazine mattered, as did newsprint in general.) By contrast, Philip Ball at nature appears appropriately skeptical. Read More ›

String theorist’s philosophy of life – Time’s reviewer laps it up

Some reviewers almost make us forget that string theory was supposed to be science, not religion. Get a load of this review of string theorist Brian Greene’s new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Penguin 2020) Read More ›

Karsten Pultz: A motorhead looks at design in nature

Karsten Pultz: I’m sure if Behe had asked any of the mechanics there at the garage, what they thought about the neoDarwinian hypothesis that complex machinery can be produced by random processes, they would have answered that such an idea is extremely silly, if not right out ludicrous. Read More ›