Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Author

News

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 22, 2021
Categories
Intelligent Design
Mind
Neuroscience
Tagged
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Michael Egnor’s thought experiment on partial brain transplants

News
March 22, 2021
Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
4
Egnor: We tend to assume that there must be a medium of communication both between our eyes and our whole brain in order to see. But people who have had split brain surgery see quite well even though their hemispheres have been separated (thus there is no direct connection). If the eyes (and hemispheres) are separated by 4000 miles, would the principle be any different? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 22, 2021
Categories
Artificial Intelligence
Intelligent Design
Mind
Neuroscience
Tagged
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Can cryogenics (freezing at death) preserve memories or consciousness?

News
March 22, 2021
Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
2
The question cryogenics of the connectome raises is, can we freeze and then recover consciousness itself as opposed to simply saving imprints of a person’s memories? Dr. Frankenstein is now taking your calls. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 21, 2021
Categories
Books of interest
Culture
Darwinism
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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How Darwinism wound its way into various schemes for improving American society

News
March 21, 2021
Books of interest, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
2
Scambray: Hofstadter softened Darwin, making his a “conservative” force, supporting the laissez-faire status quo. Others classified Darwin as a change agent, a precursor to social planning. These intermural quarrels aside, Watson demonstrates that progressivism “aimed a dagger at the heart of the Constitution.” … Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 21, 2021
Categories
Darwinism
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Grand Darwinian experiment with 10,000 generations of yeast proves that Mike Behe is right

News
March 21, 2021
Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
2
If the authors could have predicted adaptation through loss-of-function mutations, why didn’t they let high school textbook authors and pop science presenters in on the secret?: Michael Behe is right: Darwin devolves. Evolution is mostly about devolution. Does that maybe make sense in a universe where entropy is growing? But where does it leave Darwin? At the bus stop after the last bus has left? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 21, 2021
Categories
Intelligent Design
Racism
speciation
Tagged
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Taking aim at species classifier Carl Linnaeus for racism — but not Darwin

News
March 21, 2021
Intelligent Design, Racism, speciation
3
Now, how on earth did Haeckel get the idea of “social Darwinism”? Or is it “social Derwoodism.” Surely Haeckel can’t have been riffing of the celebrated Brit toff who wrote all this racist stuff? Whatever, Darwin still has an asbestos reputation among the Woke. Anyone can be blamed for the generally racist attitudes of 19th century scientists except the man who did so much to pass them on. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 21, 2021
Categories
Intelligent Design
Media
Tagged
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At MMN: Columbia professor wants government to regulate news media (Don’t imagine these moves won’t affect ID)

News
March 21, 2021
Intelligent Design, Media
3
Bassett: “[J]ournalists have bizarrely transformed from their traditional role as leading free expression defenders into the most vocal censorship advocates, using their platforms to demand that tech monopolies ban and silence others,” writes award-winning journalist and former attorney Glenn Greenwald. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 20, 2021
Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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A forthright admission of how the lamprey larvae change official vertebrate history

News
March 20, 2021
Evolution, Intelligent Design
3
Lamprey paper first author: “Once fortified with historical inertia, just-so stories are difficult to interrogate.” Just-So stories in science are not just difficult to interrogate but risky! People fear the questioner Doubts the Narrative and That Is Not Allowed. The essay is charming and it is heartening to read someone in science who is prepared to let evidence, not Narrative, be the guide. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 20, 2021
Categories
Astronomy
Cosmology
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Researchers: “Vast reservoir” of complex molecules found in cold cloud, not dying stars, as expected

News
March 20, 2021
Astronomy, Cosmology, Intelligent Design
3
Researcher: "It's like going into a boutique shop and just browsing the inventory on the front-end without ever knowing there was a back room. We've been collecting little molecules for 50 years or so and now we have discovered there's a back door. When we opened that door and looked in, we found this giant warehouse of molecules and chemistry that we did not expect," said McGuire. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 20, 2021
Categories
Extraterrestrial life
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Sabine Hossenfelder asks: Whatever happened to life on Venus?

News
March 20, 2021
Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design
3
Hossenfelder ends by reminding us, re phosphine on Venus, that “ absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” True, but that’s just a corollary of the fact that one can’t prove a negative. No, we can’t but that doesn’t prevent us from drawing reasonable conclusions. The proverb has been used to cover far too many situations where a more realistic conclusion would be “There is no particular reason to believe this.” Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 20, 2021
Categories
Extraterrestrial life
Intelligent Design
Science fiction
Tagged
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At Mind Matters News: What if extraterrestrials can’t afford to take chances with us?

News
March 20, 2021
Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design, Science fiction
2
The Dark Forest Hypothesis assumes that we can use sociology to figure out what extraterrestrial intelligences might be like or might want. But can we? What's become of sociology these days? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 19, 2021
Categories
Genetics
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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New form of human DNA found – a four-stranded knot

News
March 19, 2021
Genetics, Intelligent Design
2
Researchers: The new shape looks entirely different to the double-stranded DNA double helix... "We think the coming and going of the i-motifs is a clue to what they do. It seems likely that they are there to help switch genes on or off, and to affect whether a gene is actively read or not." Just a random swish of chemicals, right? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 19, 2021
Categories
Academic Freedom
Education
Intelligent Design
science education
Tagged
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Michael Egnor reflects on Joshua Swamidass’s proposal for effectively canceling Christian colleges

News
March 19, 2021
Academic Freedom, Education, Intelligent Design, science education
4
Egnor: "Notably, Swamidass completely leaves out the one criterion that is the cornerstone of accreditation of educational institutions: outcome metrics... don’t know (and Swamidass has nothing to say about it) how students from Christian colleges compare, but is it well established that homeschooled kids (who are disproportionately taught by conservative Christian families) score almost 100 points higher on the SAT and score correspondingly higher on the ACT than the national average." Okay, but no one sponsoring the war on math is concerned about outcomes because educators have the power to jimmy marks to reward whatever they want to reward and then pass the problem on to others who must then do the same. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 19, 2021
Categories
Astronomy
Extraterrestrial life
Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Remember space junk ‘Oumuamua? A conventional explanation is now offered: Nitrogen ice from Pluto

News
March 19, 2021
Astronomy, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design
4
It’s curious how folklore can prevail for ages in science as long as it has a naturalistic origin. Maybe Top People shouldn’t count on everyone just forgetting that now. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 19, 2021
Categories
Intelligent Design
Mathematics
Peer review
Tagged
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Gregory Chaitin’s take on: Was math invented or discovered?

News
March 19, 2021
Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Peer review
4
Chaitin, best known for Chaitin's unknowable number: "Some mathematics, I think, is definitely invented, not discovered. That tends to be trivial mathematics ... But other mathematics does seem to be discovered. That’s when you find some really deep, fundamental mathematical idea, and there it really looks inevitable. " Read More ›