Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

At Science: Water bears most likely did not survive a crash land on the moon

What impact does the test have on panspermia, the hypothesis that life might travel between planets via comets? "some parts of a meteorite impacting Earth or Mars would experience lower shock pressures that a tardigrade could live through, Traspas says." Read More ›

Big (?) Surprise: Cool, glitzy papers less likely to be replicated

Of course. The papers that are unlikely to be replicated are mostly going to be stuff that people want and need to believe that isn’t necessarily so. Or not demonstrated via the sources that gave rise to the paper, anyway. To begin any kind of serious analysis, we would need to classify the papers by general theme and general drift. That might give us a picture of what type of finding is too readily believed. But is it a picture anyone wants? Who, that has any say in the process, can really afford it? Read More ›

Attack on Darwinism at AAAS’s flagship mag “Science” re racism and sexism

Let’s pass over the question of why Cool People never noticed that stuff about Charles Darwin for nearly a century and a half. Noticing now? Good. Then what does Agustín Fuentes suppose should replace Darwinism? A war on science? A war on math? A war on people who think getting right answers is a good thing? What's supposed to be the next step? Read More ›

Timely reminder from the New Atlantis that you are not Galileo

A new book on Galileo thumps the tub for “science,” with predictable results, says a reviewer. Aw, even Galileo wasn’t "Galileo," for crying out loud. And science isn’t well served by uncritical fans of the concept itself, apart from day-to-day realities. Read More ›

Bill Dembski on what John Archibald Wheeler got right and wrong about “it from bit”

Dembski agrees that the universe is, at bottom, information but proposes “informational realism” as a sounder approach to unpacking the idea. Read More ›

New! Speakers/topics for the Linnean Society’s meeting on teleonomy vs. teleology, May 28 and 29 online

Come to think of it, how come every life form avoids or flees predators but life as a whole is not supposed to show any sense of purpose? Um... Can we TALK about this? Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Clarity about life that some demented people experience just before dying

The phenomenon of terminal lucidity first attracted attention when it appeared among people who were cognitively challenged or demented (because otherwise, it might not have been noticed) Read More ›

Tigers, lions, ligers … what’s the future? From the hybridization files

In reply to the reader who wondered the other day if ligers (lion plus tiger) can breed and produce offspring, the answer is yes. The results give rise to big kitties with a horde of odd names to describe the crosses: ti-tigon, ti-liger (tig-liger), li-tigon, li-liger. But only the females are fertile. Read More ›