Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Sabine Hossenfelder: Is math real?

Hossenfelder: The physicists who believe in this argue that unobservable universes are real because they are in their math. But just because you have math for something doesn’t mean it’s real. You can just assume it’s real, but this is unnecessary to describe what we observe and therefore unscientific. Read More ›

When “following the science” meant joining the Nazis

Klinghoffer: I’m still reeling at the stupidity of whoever at Scientific American decided to give a green light to publishing an article, “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy,” by Allison Hopper. The absurdity of tarring critics of Darwinism with racism boggles the mind — given how Darwin’s own legacy, down to today’s Alt-Right, is so tied up with racial pseudo-science, viciously denigrating Africans, African-Americans, and others. Read More ›

Apparently, some people have noticed the nonsense at Nature Communications about geology as not a safe field for persons of color

About that third comment above: There is no reason to put “scholarship” and “Nature Communications” in the same sentence if this “paper” is supposed to be an example of the type of thing it produces. Read More ›

L&FP, 48 – i: The conscience factor in consciousness

Conscience is a major aspect of our consciousness, one of the “first facts” of our embodiment in the world, thus part of the start-point for sound thinking. Hence, Cicero’s recognition that it was consensus even in his day that “[sound] conscience is a law”: Given word games that may crop up, let us note a high quality dictionary: con·science (kŏn′shəns)n.1. a. An awareness of morality in regard to one’s behavior; a sense of right and wrong that urges one to act morally: Let your conscience be your guide.b. A source of moral or ethical judgment or pronouncement: a document that serves as the nation’s conscience.c. Conformity to one’s own sense of right conduct: a person of unflagging conscience. 2. The Read More ›

Bret Weinstein now smeared at Wikipedia?

Readers may well remember biology teacher Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying, a progressive teacher couple at Evergreen State College, early victims of the very Woke they had themselves encouraged, without realizing where it must end. Read More ›

Have we found the earliest evidence of animal life at 890 million years ago?

At The Scientist: "Now, in a study published today (July 28) in Nature, Elizabeth Turner, a geologist at Laurentian University in Canada, identified structures in 890-million-year-old fossils of organisms similar to modern bath sponges, potentially pushing back the emergence of the animals to at least that long ago." Read More ›

Michael Egnor: Materialist science is like driving with the parking brake on

Egnor: None of the good philosophy being done today is being done by any materialist. That is that whatever good philosophy is being done, and there is some, is being done by people who at least in part reject materialism. The good part of their philosophy is the part that rejects materialism. Read More ›

KF on Proof

KF’s comment to a prior post deserves its own OP. If only people understood the simple, yet profound, point KF is making. KF writes: Proof is a term too often used more for rhetorical impact than for humble acknowledgement of the achievements and limitations of human reasoning and deduction especially. As such, we must bear Godel in mind, truth and proof are very different, and axiomatic systems for complicated areas face incompleteness and/or possible incoherence. Even mathematics is not an absolutely certain discipline. Science cannot prove beyond such and such has so far passed certain empirical tests and may be taken as so far reliable, when it is at its best. Too often it is not and becomes a lab Read More ›

Another reason not to teach Darwinism in the public school system

One rather hopes the students’ suit is settled by now and they can get on with their lives. Unfortunately, Benga never really got over his own experience and ended up committing suicide." But we’ve been saying this practically forever: Quit teaching Darwinism in the public school system. There are ways of addressing evolution sensitively that don’t include teaching Darwinism. Maybe insurance companies should quit insuring schools where Darwinism is taught against these specific types of incidents. Read More ›

Science journalist: Science IS political!

If it is admitted that “science is political,” Why Trust Science? is a very good question indeed. A bigger question looms: Will frank assertions that science is political, accompanied by a demand for trust, be any good for science? Isn’t this more likely to to be the beginning of a highly politically charged but largely barren period? Read More ›

Will the Tokyo Olympics be a “super-evolutionary” COVID-19 event?

That’s the question at Wired. If there is no “super-evolutionary event” as a result of the Tokyo Olympics, is there anything that we can reasonably conclude? Could we conclude, for example, that natural selection is not necessarily the terrifying creative force that some have claimed? Read More ›

Sabine Hossenfelder’s op-ed not published at APS?

This is the kind of thing she said: What about Avi Loeb’s claim that the interstellar object `Oumuamua was alien technology? Loeb has justified his speculation by pointing towards scientists who ponder multiverses and extra dimensions. He seems to think his argument is similar. But Loeb’s argument isn’t degenerative science. It's just bad science. He jumped to conclusions from incomplete data. Read More ›