Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Anyone remember psychologist Hans Eysenck? There’s now a retraction frenzy on his papers

The rap? Among other things, “the implausibility of the results presented, many of which show effect sizes virtually unknown in medical science.” Read More ›

Further on Sev (and EG) vs the Christian Faith in community

Some of our frequent commenters have recently made fairly explicit claims against/challenges to the Christian Faith, especially as it intersects community. For one, in responding to my earlier headlining of a response to his claims, Sev has now gone on record: Sev, 2: >> where some Christians imply that the faith as a whole has suffered the same level of religious prejudice as, say, the Jews I’m bound to say that’s an exaggeration to put it mildly. [–> in fact, Pew has noted in recent years, evidence that consistently indicates that the most persecuted religious group in the world is Christians, of course, such is tellingly severely under-reported in the major global media.] How many members of the US Congress Read More ›

Is Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) gaining respectability again?

Sarah Scoles: Proper science is now more willing to embrace SETI... Don’t just ignore all the outliers as outliers, in other words: Important truth, if not whole truth, can lurk inside of them too. Read More ›

Mike Egnor vs. Jerry Coyne on how consciousness evolved

Egnor: The assertion that consciousness “evolved” is either empty (it doesn’t explain the arrival of consciousness, only its survival) or it presupposes panpsychism—the presence of consciousness in inanimate matter. Panpsychism is anathema to materialists like Coyne, who desperately try to eliminate Mind from nature. Read More ›

The remarkable connection between mathematics and physics

According to Mullings, the reason for the association between mathematics and physics is not that the mathematics is causative but rather that mathematics studies the logical structure of possibility and constraint. As a result, if the mathematics successfully captures the possibilities and constraints in the real world, it will provide a tool for further analysis of potential possibilities. Read More ›

The deplorable word has been spoken: Consciousness cannot have evolved

Wow. This will be interesting to watch. Remember when AI pioneer David Gelernter bid Darwin goodbye? So far as we know, nothing bad happened to Gelernter. If nothing awful happens to Kastrup, we might have more reasonable discussions in the future of what consciousness even is. Read More ›

Theodore Dalrymple on what the heck has happened to the New England Journal of Medicine

If you still think science can’t get “woke” (and croak), author and retired psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple would ask you to consider the NEJM Read More ›