Gleiser: So when people talk about Copernicus and Copernicanism—the ‘principle of mediocrity’ that states we should expect to be average and typical, I say, “You know what? It’s time to get beyond that.”
Author: News
Denyse O'Leary is the News blogger for Uncommon Descent
Abandon statistical significance, learn to live with uncertainty, scientists demand
Let’s see where this goes. Will it lead to less magic with numbers or more and bigger magic?
Sabine Hossenfelder: How you can help science out of a rut
With her publisher’s permission, Sabine Hossenfelder is making Appendix C of her book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, available at her blog: This bit of that excerpt is addressed to the science-minded public: As a science writer or member of the public, ask questions: ● You’re used to asking about conflicts of interest […]
We are now informed that evolution can go backward
Of course, they must see evolution as a benevolent deity instead of an impersonal one, if it can act to prevent a bad outcome, as described above. Well, if it’s an established religion, it’s an established religion.
What? Oumuamua was just a comet? After all the ET hype?
Yeah. Sure. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that it was orthodox science media (Scientific American, we are looking at you… ) who were marketing the space alien thing, not some crackpot in a tinfoil hat. And yet the same people have the nerve to sponsor reams of stuff on why “people” believe in pseudoscience.
Survival at a price: Bacteria cut off flagella to stay alive
The world of Darwinian evolution features so many exceptionally clever animals that are nothing like the humdrum creatures we must tie down or tranquilize in order to help. And the profs just attribute it all to natural selection, as if that would explain anything in a situation where some prevision seems required.
Templeton winner: Atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method
Marcelo Gleiser: “Atheism is a belief in non-belief. So you categorically deny something you have no evidence against.”
Robert J. Marks: Things Exist That Are Unknowable
The mathematically provable idea that something exists but is unknowable has clear philosophical and theological implications.
Apparent non-crackpot physicist wins Templeton Prize
Marcelo Gleiser sounds as though he thinks that the great mysteries of physics are about this universe, not space aliens, computer sim universes, cyborgs, and so forth (on that score, see 2011 Templeton winner Sir Martin Rees).
Researchers: Mammals’ “arms” backdated 100 million years; predate dinosaurs
From ScienceDaily: Bats fly, whales swim, gibbons swing from tree to tree, horses gallop, and humans swipe on their phones — the different habitats and lifestyles of mammals rely on our unique forelimbs. No other group of vertebrate animals has evolved so many different kinds of arms: in contrast, all birds have wings, and pretty […]
Study: Oddly, it’s not media but researchers who pile on hype
Most of the article is just establishment hand wringing. The main reason so many people don’t “trust science” is the same one that causes people not to trust used car dealers.
Researchers build public “library” to help understand photosynthesis
From ScienceDaily: It isn’t easy being green. It takes thousands of genes to build the photosynthetic machinery that plants need to harness sunlight for growth. And yet, researchers don’t know exactly how these genes work. Now a team led by Princeton University researchers has constructed a public “library” to help researchers to find out what […]
Rob Sheldon responds to demand to get rid of elderly scientists
Sheldon: If they had actually done their homework, instead of rebelling against their parents, they would have learned what we knew by 2011: The average age for great discoverings is older now.
OOL researcher Paul Davies: They used to make fun of me for saying Earth, Mars swapped microbes…
If we discover life on Mars and it turns out to be a lot like life on Earth, as Davies suggests, will that be experienced as an achievement or a disappointment? It certainly won’t prove anything like what some have hoped. Heck, it won’t even prove that We Are NOT Alone…
How bacteria use harpoons to speed horizontal gene transfer
Well, if that’s a way bacteria evolve, what becomes of common descent and speciation? What do we mean by “bacterial species”?