Researchers: Organic chemicals essential for life found in Martian meteorite; Rob Sheldon responds
Researchers: Organic chemicals essential for life found in Martian meteorite; Tim Standish responds
Orthomyxo’s Hero May be the Worst Scientist of All Time
Frequent commenter Orthomoyxo often cites the Imperial College model that touched off the worldwide panic. Now that the author of that model has resigned in disgrace, NR reports on how awful his record truly is. The whole article bears reading. Highlights: Indeed, Ferguson’s Imperial College model has been proven wildly inaccurate. To cite just one example, it saw Sweden paying a huge price for no lockdown, with 40,000 COVID deaths by May 1, and 100,000 by June. Sweden now has 2,854 deaths and peaked two weeks ago. As Fraser Nelson, editor of Britain’s Spectator, notes: “Imperial College’s model is wrong by an order of magnitude.” Indeed, Ferguson has been wrong so often that some of his fellow modelers call him “The Master of Read More ›
Smithsonian Magazine: Nearest black hole’s position can be seen without a telescope
If you are in the southern hemisphere, as were the ESO (European Southern Observatory) astronomers: The pair of stars in a system called HR 6819 is so close to us that on a clear night in the Southern Hemisphere, a person might be able to spot them without a telescope. What that stargazer wouldn’t see, though, is the black hole hiding right there in the constellation Telescopium. At just 1,000 light-years away, it is the closest black hole to Earth ever discovered, and it could help scientists find the rest of the Milky Way’s missing black holes. Megan Gannon, “Astronomers Discover the Closest Known Black Hole” at Smithsonian Magazine It was discovered by accident: The scientists originally became interested in Read More ›
Chemist Marcos Eberlin on the molecules: They say “Design!”
Marcos Eberlin, the bad boy chemist from Brazil who says, yes, it’s design—but is too productive to just be fired—talks about why he thinks molecules demonstrate design: Biology, cosmology, physics, mathematics, computer engineering, chemistry… You could have an interesting argument among proponents of intelligent design about which field of science will ultimately clinch the argument for ID. Famed chemist Marcos Eberlin claims the honor will go to chemistry. Chauvinism, you say? Perhaps. You could take that up with the three Nobel laureates who endorsed his recent book, Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose. For a lighter moment, see Jerry Coyne is already mad at Marcos Eberlin
Researchers: Maybe elliptical galaxies aren’t especially cradles of life
Physicalist philosopher: Consciousness Is Not a Problem. Dualism Is!
Orthomyxo Types on Keyboard; When Letters Appear on Screen “It’s Physical!”
The appalling depths to which materialists will sink in attempting to insulate themselves from the conclusions compelled by the evidence were demonstrated in this exchange between Orthomyxo and Upright Biped regarding the genetic code: UB: There is a point in time and space where an association is made between a codon and an anticodon. There is also a point in time and space when there is an association made between an anticodon and an amino acid. UB: the association between the codon and the amino acid is a discontinuous association. It is not established by dynamics, but by a) a specific type of organization, and b) simultaneous coordination between two independent sets of multiple sequences Note that the nothing UB said is the least bit controversial. Read More ›
New at Inference Review: On the Mind-Machine Problem
Science philosopher Imre Lakatos (1922-1974) on how science fails
New at Inference Review: A sizzling exchange on the origin of life
A note on layer-cake communication systems and protocols
There is a live exchange on the molecular nanotech communication systems in the cell that is trying to reduce them to Chemistry; where a chemical reaction is a physical process. Accordingly, I beg to remind one and all regarding layered communication systems and protocols: This is an elaboration of the general communication system: Here is how Yockey summarised it: Where, the standard genetic code [one of about two dozen dialects] reads like: The double helix: As was noted by Crick, right from the outset: In context: Now, we can see for ourselves just how desperate objectors to the design inference must be in the face of the point that D/RNA expresses a string data structure carrying a prong-height-based alphanumeric, 4 Read More ›
Stunning Levels of Ignorance Regarding the Genetic Code
ID critic Ed George was asked the following question: “Are you suggesting that the genetic code works through a series of chemical reactions?” His response: “Duh!” When asked to elucidate, he wrote the following comment: DNA is a chemical (deoxyribonucleic acid). It interacts with other chemicals (e.g., transcriptase) to form yet other chemicals (e.g., RNA) that reacts with other chemicals (e.g., amino acids) to form other chemicals (e.g., proteins). This is admittedly overly simplified, but there is nowhere in this process that does not involve chemical reactions. It is astonishing that someone who purports to be able to describe how DNA works (even on a simplified basis) would display such ignorance. Every educated person — theist, atheist, materialist, monist, dualist, Read More ›