Readers may recall that New Scientist published an article three days ago on 13 ways we need to “rethink the theory of nature.” Their Number 3 rethink is … Move Over, Selfish Gene. It’s replaced not just by kin selection now but by cultural group selection. Most of the article is paywalled but here’s the gist of #3: But kin selection cannot explain why humans are so nice to strangers… Some researchers think the solution lies in an idea called cultural group selection. Forget shared genes, they argue: selection can favour cooperative groups if the people within them share enough culture. The idea is controversial because to work it requires that groups remain culturally distinct. As critics point out, people Read More ›

Yes, it seems some connected Alinsky School Community Organiser groups have been videotaped in the act, by independent, viral video journalists. Caught, in the act of unloading telling messages and riot equipment — shields and shield walls are not normal, “peaceful”/lawful protest equipment (and no, shields are not purely defensive) — from a rental truck: Another . . . augmented . . . vid clip allows us to recognise the renter of the truck (black shorts girl), even as longer shields are being handed out: This is of course directly connected to the incident where two police officers were shot by rioters in Louisville. So, we can readily connect riots, red guard cannon fodder cultural revolution activism, the ecosystem of Read More ›

He sees that as a framework for much of the change around us: Nineteenth-century Darwinism was much more than a revolutionary scientific theory. It was hardly a scientific theory in any meaningful sense. Natural selection, as atheist philosopher Jerry Fodor has pointed out, isn’t a meaningful level of scientific explanation. It’s barely more than a tautology. Natural selection is an “empty” theory — “survivors survive” has no genuine explanatory power. As ID pioneer Phillip Johnson observed, Darwinism was really a new philosophical theory. It was the view that there is no teleology — no purpose — inherent to nature. Purpose in biology, Darwin insisted, is an illusion. Differential survival alone can explain “purpose” in nature. Darwin proposed that all of Read More ›