In Scientific American (April 2011), Paul J. Steinhardt asks “The Inflation Debate: Is the theory at the heart of modern cosmology deeply flawed? (April 6, 2011) : Summary Cosmic inflation is so widely accepted that it is often taken as established fact. The idea is that the geometry and uniformity of the cosmos were established Read More…
Author: News
Denyse O'Leary is the News blogger for Uncommon Descent
PZ Myers lets the facts and logic fend for themselves
“Seriously, aren’t atheists ashamed of P.Z. Myers, asks Reb Moshe Averick (the “maverick”rabbi and author of The Confused, Illusory World of the Atheist), for The Allgemeiner (May 29, 2011): One of my mentors, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, (of blessed memory), made the following, rather sobering, observation about human nature: “Nobody ever allowed something as trivial as Read More…
Louisiana: Goodbye, Darwin in the schools lobby. Now back to teaching. Or what?
In “Scientists Issue Letter Supporting Louisiana Science Education Act” (Evolution News & Views, May 27, 2011), John West tells us that 15 PhD scientists signed a letter saying that it’s okay for Louisiana teachers to discuss problems with Darwinism. The Louisiana Senate agrees: yesterday the Louisiana Senate Education Committee voted down a bill that would Read More…
Remember those primitive people who had no words for numbers?
Which shows how number sense evolved? Forget them. In “Geometry skills are innate, Amazon tribe study suggests,” (BBC News , 24 May 2011), Jason Palmer reports , Tests given to an Amazonian tribe called the Mundurucu suggest that our intuitions about geometry are innate.Researchers examined how the Mundurucu think about lines, points and angles, comparing Read More…
Arsenic-driven origin of life takes hit
In “Critics take aim at NASA ‘arsenic life’ study” (May 27, 2011), CBC News tells us Eight articles questioning a controversial study claiming that some bacteria can use the normally toxic substance arsenic to build DNA have been published in the journal Science.The study, published last December in Science, was led by NASA scientist Felisa Read More…
Humans evolved to get revenge?
No, as a matter of fact. In “Winners, losers – and revenge” (Britain’s The Sunday Times, May 25, 2011), David Hawkes, reviewing a book, tells us, “The echoes of revenge drama, from Iago to Charlie Sheen, can still be heard today”and manages to discuss the subject meaningfully, precisely because he isn’t pretending to tell us Read More…
Did humans evolve to “outrun the fastest animals on earth”?
At Outside Online (“Fair Chase,”May 2011), Charles Bethea tells us On the plains of New Mexico, a band of elite marathoners tests a controversial theory of evolution: that humans can outrun the fastest animals on earth. Controversial? Yes, apparently: As ridiculous as this spectacle might appear, the men are testing a much-debated scientific notion about Read More…
Probing the mysteries of psychopathy
“A Psychopath Walks Into A Room. Can You Tell? (NPR May21, 2011) Arresting title, that, for an interesting proposition: “Robert Hare, the eminent Canadian psychologist who invented the psychopath checklist, … recently announced that you’re four times more likely to find a psychopath at the top of the corporate ladder than you are walking around in Read More…
Bedtime stories for Darwin’s children: Why the dinosaur had a long neck
In “Evolution, sex and dinosaur necks, BBC’s Wondermonkey, Matt Walker asks (24 May 2011) whether long-necked sauropods like diplodocus evolved their necks via sexual selection: A recent theory proposed is that sex, or more accurately sexual selection, was the main driver.The idea is that down the generations, male sauropods evolved ever longer necks to dominate rivals Read More…
New paper using the Avida “evolution” software shows …
… it doesn’t evolve. Remember when AVIDA proved Darwin right? These results provide evidence that low-impact mutations can present a substantial barrier to progressive evolution by natural selection. Understanding mutation is of primary importance, as selection depends on the mutational production of new genotypes. Numerous changes that would be beneficial may nevertheless fail to occur Read More…
Three foot killer shrimp of the Cambrian surprise scientists
At MSNBC (5/25/20), Charles Q. Choi tells us “Bizarre shrimp-like predators grew larger and survived longer than thought”: The creatures, known as anomalocaridids, were giant predators (ranging from 2 to possibly 6 feet in length) with soft-jointed bodies and toothy maws with spiny limbs in front to snag worms and other prey. [ … ] Read More…
Biologos is cover feature in Christianity Today
Here. This link works. Thanks Mung. Notes on the article here.
Phillip Johnson’s “two-platoon” strategy demonstrated on free will
Johnson meant that real Darwinists say what Darwinism entails (materialist atheism) and then Christian Darwinists rush in to announce that we can somehow harmonize it with Christianity by not taking seriously what Darwinists actually say. Explained in detail here. The analogy is to American football. In The Moral Landscape, for example, new atheist and PhD Read More…
Karl Giberson and Francis Collins explain how Canadians can become a separate species
In The Language of Science and Faith, (IVP Books, 2011) explaining how microevolution can become macroevolution, they explain, If a population of some species undergoes a substantial number of such changes [genetic mutations], it can eventually turn into a new species, a process called speciation. Usually speciation requires that the population be geographically isolated from Read More…
Atheist philosopher Raymond Tallis banishes evolutionary psychology from the choir.
Reviewing Elena Mannes’ “The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song” (The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2011), Tallis writes, Ms. Mannes, an Emmy-winning granddaughter of the founders of New York’s Mannes School of Music, is inspired by the possibility that neuroscience may help us harness the potential of music to Read More…