Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Rawlsian Myth of the Morally Neutral Perspective

The other day I had an exchange with a progressive about Amy Coney Barrett.  The exchange was touched off by Ms. Progressive’s comment about Barrett’s faith:  “I don’t think her religion is a problem as much as her religious convictions driving her decision making is.” I encounter this sort of muddled thinking from progressives all of the time.  And it is always based on the same progressive myth – the myth that some people (namely, progressives) arrive at their conclusions (whether the conclusion concerns a matter of policy, law, politics or whatever else) from some morally neutral and objectively rational “view from nowhere” while other people’s conclusions are based on their biases (or bigotries if the progressive is not feeling Read More ›

Hey, it’s Friday night? Anthropologists get in on “We are NOT alone!”

Of course, there’s the detail of actually finding any extraterrestrial life forms before we all fight viciously for the right to represent them as their agents and, if they are intelligent (but not especially so) get them to sign long-term contracts … ;) Read More ›

Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is being labelled “anti-science”

Also, let this sink in: Despite believing in determinism, Hossenfelder believes we should “decide” against a new particle collider… We can decide? On that account, to other naturalists, she is “anti-science.” Naturalism is weird like that. Eats its own. Read More ›

How is that project of reintroducing lost species coming?

The interesting part will be to see whether—if both the animals and the environment have changed—reintroduction or recreation from advanced genomic techniques produces a viable independent species or a species that humans must indefinitely maintain. Read More ›

There, that’s it! Environment changes made humans more adaptable

Hey, this is a good theory as to why people needed to branch out and develop more networks. But we’re overlooking a key issue here: Humans could only do that if something already differentiated us from hyenas… It wasn’t just the environment. Read More ›

Crabs evolved separately at least five times

At Popular Mechanics: It’s not just superficial shape that unifies the five evolved crab forms. The paper details neurological commonalities, shared circulatory systems, and more, while also detailing the organ and systems that differ in shape and size. Read More ›

The Immense Negative Impact of External Physical World Theory

[ETA: The OMG TOO LONG I don’t know if I wanna read all that teaser: I have said before it’s impossible to deny the value of the external physical world theory. In one sense it’s true – we have made a lot of scientific progress under that model. However, in comparison to what MRT could have provided and prevented, the overall effect has been disastrous, not just for science, but for the human condition as well.] External physical world theory is the theory that an objective, physical world exists external of mind that causes a set of subjective personal experiences, thus explaining the difference between experiences we have in common with other people, and experiences that others don’t appear to Read More ›

Rob Sheldon on those curious DNA circles in the human body and the death of Common Descent

This little toolkit looks designed for horizontal gene transport (HGT), but there wasn't anything similar to it for eukaryotes. Then came this article. And apparently humans (a rather sophisticated eukaryote) have circular DNA as well, it just was overlooked for 30 years. Read More ›

Free will makes more sense of our world than determinism—and science certainly allows for it

Scientists weigh in on both sides but accepting free will allows us to avoid some serious problems around logic and personal freedom. Read More ›

One of those rare instances where science is self-correcting … Ioannidis is vindicated

Hey, that's good news. But what about all the people whose lives were turned upside down by the herd of stampeding buffalo otherwise known as our moral and intellectual superiors? Read More ›