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The incorrect insect egg model relied too much on model organisms

Krauze: the organisms we have chosen to represent invertebrates, like C. elegans and D. melanogaster, are simpler than the average invertebrate. And this means that we're likely underestimating the complexity of the last common ancestor of animals (Metazoa). ... Attempts to correct for this bias has found that the last common Metazoan ancestor was surprisingly complex, seemingly 'overdesigned' for its simple morphology. Read More ›

Do we really need a “plan” for a response to aliens?

If a tenth of the effort were put into cleaning up the corruption around peer review, as for example in: The astonishing rise of junk science, that would be a better use of time than figuring out what to say to the Klingons or Jabba the Hutt when they or theirs finally show up. Read More ›

University of Maryland: Oumuamua was not an alien spacecraft

“Stick with analogs we know, you advise”? Yes, good idea. It used to be the usual approach among scientists. So why was it suddenly suspended? We are still wondering. Or maybe we know but no one wants to discuss it. See Tales of an invented god . Read More ›

At Peaceful Science: An anti-creationist psychiatrist misunderstands evidence for an immaterial mind, says Michael Egnor

In neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s view, “Here is one way of seeing it” If someone took a sledgehammer to your computer and pulverized it, yet it still worked fairly well, you would conclude that there was something rather strange about the computer that you had not previously considered: I am not arguing that fMRI imaging of patients in PVS measures abstract thought. I am saying that the presence of fMRI activity that correlates with complex thought is a serious problem with the materialist theory of the mind. After all, these PVS patients have massive permanent brain damage and have been medically diagnosed as having no mind at all. Yet many of them do have minds and are capable of thinking quite Read More ›