Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Business prof argues: Journals these days are obsessed by theory

Marinetto: The fetishisation of theory does have practical payoffs for editors. For one Swedish academic, Pär J. Ågerfalk, the charge of “insufficient theoretical contribution” can be employed as a neat rhetorical brush-off for submissions that editors do not like the look of but “cannot quite put their finger on why”. Read More ›

Smithsonian Magazine on the biggest human fossil discoveries of the past decade; ENST replies

One reason it’s not been an especially “vibrant” decade is that the subhumans all turned into relatives, and reasonably smart ones at that. Paleontologists are still looking for the subhuman that would validate Darwinism. Read More ›

Rob Sheldon on current efforts to explain the universe’s expansion

Sheldon: Yet another example of "curve fitting", adding free parameters whose only purpose is to get a closer fit to the data. This is why particle physics and cosmology has made no progress over the past few decades as Sabine Hossenfelder warns. No one even faintly understands what a theory is supposed to wear to Stockholm, much less accomplish for posterity. Read More ›

Dr. Fauci and Big Farma

Please indulge my well-earned cynicism. Let’s recap what’s been going on. Dr. Raolt says that HCL is showing remarkable results with his CoVid patients. Dr. Raolt expands this study beyond his own clinic and patients. Dr. Fauci says that this is “anecdotal.” A doctor in New York says that HCL, when given early on, is showing remarkable results: 80 to 90% of his patients are surviving (or, was it even higher?). Dr. Fauci says that this is “anecdotal.” Then a study comes out that says that Remdisivir, produced by Gilead, has done a full clinical trial and that their drug lessens the time of illness from 14 days to 11 days but it only mildly improves the death rate. Dr. Read More ›

We are told: The recipe for the origin of life has been revised

Scientists revising their origin of life theories is—in the present climate—somewhat like fiction writers revising their novels. Nothing in the world wrong with it. But let’s be clear what level of real-world information we are talking about. Read More ›

Fish evolve in a single generation? Not so fast…

Timothy Standish: The authors seem to have found that if you already have alleles that adapt you to a certain set of conditions, then you will be able to rapidly adapt to those conditions. The speed is impressive, but you could argue that the speed with which natural selection can work is not the real question. The real question is, “How fast can those alleles that make organisms more fit arise de novo in a population that doesn’t already have them?” Read More ›

Icelandic genome provides clues to Neanderthal history, creates puzzle

Puzzle: However, the researchers also found significant fragments of genetic material from another archaic species of human, Denisovans, in the DNA of the Icelanders, and this was something of a surprise. Up to now, Denisovan genes have primarily been found in Australian Aborigines, East Asians and people in Papua New Guinea. So how did these genes end up in Islanders' DNA? And when? Read More ›

Michael Egnor: Jerry Coyne just can’t give up denying free will

Egnor: Someday, I predict, there will be a considerable psychiatric literature on the denial of free will. It’s essentially a delusion dressed up as science. To insist that your neurotransmitters completely control your choices is no different than insisting that your television or your iphone control your thoughts. It’s crazy. Read More ›

Newsweek: Lockdown “Clumsy” and “Heavy-Handed”

To our progressive interlocutors: When even Newsweek bails on you, it is time to abandon your narrative. MOST U.S. HOSPITALS ARE EMPTY. SOON THEY MIGHT BE CLOSED FOR GOOD instead of merely preserving hospital beds and other resources, this heavy-handed injunction has created a burden of its own design: a historic number of empty beds in systems left untouched by the pandemic. Those hospitals have resorted to unprecedented levels of furloughs to stave off temporary budget shortfalls, but industry and economic trends point to more lasting outcomes unless immediate action is taken.