Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

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 ›

This California story shows what a mess the whole concept of speciation is in

Many issues are worth raising, including whether "species" is a clear enough concept to warrant being a measure, as opposed to, say, role in an ecology. When is it wise to intervene to preserve something? Goals driven by passions are often misguided and wasteful. Read More ›

Stephen Hawking was actually overdue for a critical look

Klinghoffer: "As Keating and Seife discuss, much of his fame, too, stemmed from efforts to disprove that God was needed either to account for the Big Bang that brought the universe into existence or to account for the physical laws that govern the cosmos." Hawking’s celebrity made it really difficult to discuss those issues in a forum where both sides were fairly represented. Read More ›

Linnean Society is sponsoring a meeting on teleonomy in living systems 28th – 29th June 2021

Linneans: "Although it is now widely accepted that living systems exhibit an internal teleology, or teleonomy, the full implications of this distinctive biological property have yet to be explored." Are the Linneans trying to come to grips with design in nature within a framework they can handle? Read More ›

Michael Egnor: Is neurotheology just a “brain prosperity gospel”?

Egnor: Neurotheology stamps a scientific imprimatur on the profoundly misguided doctrine that if you believe in God, if you observe the Sabbath, if you never fail to pray your rosary, your brain is better! Your frontal lobes get better blood flow, your hypothalamic neurotransmitters are better balanced, and your cerebellum is more finely tuned! But for what? A cerebral facelift? Read More ›

Worry of the month: Could humans have contaminated Mars with life?

Christopher Mason: There is a chance, however, that if we do detect signs of life on Mars, it could have come from Earth in the first place. Ever since the first two Soviet probes landed on the Martian surface in 1971, followed by the US Viking 1 lander in 1976, there likely have been some fragments of microbial, and maybe human DNA, on the Red Planet. Read More ›