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  From David Snoke at the Christian Scientific Society: Jack Collins presented a compelling argument for an “attribute” view of the image of God, that is, a view that the image of God means that we have attributes that are like God in some ways that animals aren’t. … Jeff Schwartz presented a lively and controversial discussion of mindfulness. We all learned what it is, how it is being taken very seriously by modern psychiatrists of all stripes, and how the data shows that it involves distinct states of the brain that can be identified. In a nutshell, mindfulness has three parts: Mike Egnor gave a talk full of brain science data in support of his position of Aristotelean dualism. Read More ›

The book is Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos: From reviewer Yann Benetreau-Dupin at physics archiv: There are in fact two ways to read this book. One is to see it as a response to Victor Stenger’s 2011 book The Fallacy of Fine-tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us. On this reading, A Fortunate Universe is a popular-level adaptation of Barnes’s article (Barnes, 2012) with a similar title.2 A second way to read this book is as a didactic work. On this second account, the issue of the fine-tuning of the universe for life is an opportunity to survey a vast array of facts, theories, and problems in Read More ›

Abstract at ScienceDirect: Science denialism poses a serious threat to human health and the long-term sustainability of human civilization. Although it has recently been rather extensively discussed, this discussion has rarely been connected to the extensive literature on pseudoscience and the science-pseudoscience demarcation. This contribution argues that science denialism should be seen as one of the two major forms of pseudoscience, alongside of pseudotheory promotion. A detailed comparison is made between three prominent forms of science denialism, namely relativity theory denialism, evolution denialism, and climate science denialism. Several characteristics are identified that distinguish science denialism from other forms of pseudoscience, in particular its persistent fabrication of fake controversies, the extraordinary male dominance among its activists, and its strong connection with Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Drexel University and Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have discovered how the Rad52 protein is a crucial player in RNA-dependent DNA repair. The results of their study, published in Molecular Cell, reveal a surprising function of the homologous recombination protein Rad52. They also may help to identify new therapeutic targets for cancer treatment. Radiation and chemotherapy can cause a DNA double-strand break, one of the most harmful types of DNA damage. The process of homologous recombination — which involves the exchange of genetic information between two DNA molecules — plays an important role in DNA repair, but certain gene mutations can destabilize a genome. For example, mutations in the tumor suppressor BRCA2, which is involved in DNA repair Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: A discovery of multiple toothpick grooves on teeth and signs of other manipulations by a Neanderthal of 130,000 years ago are evidence of a kind of prehistoric dentistry, according to a new study led by a University of Kansas researcher. As a package, this fits together as a dental problem that the Neanderthal was having and was trying to presumably treat itself, with the toothpick grooves, the breaks and also with the scratches on the premolar,” said David Frayer, professor emeritus of Anthropology. “It was an interesting connection or collection of phenomena that fit together in a way that we would expect a modern human to do. Everybody has had dental pain, and they know what it’s like Read More ›

From Wim Hordijk at the Evolution Institute: Evolution is still all too often (but wrongly) downplayed as “just a theory” in public discussions. This is partly due to an unfortunate misunderstanding of what a theory means in science, as opposed to its common language meaning. Evolution by natural selection is much more than just a hypothesis, and is as much a valid and well-accepted scientific theory as the theory of gravitation. What Darwin did for biology is on par with what Newton did for physics — and mathematics plays an important role in both theories. More. How come no physicist ever said, gravity is as real as evolution? Note: The ‘Evolution Institute’ sounds like a dodgy outfit, “Applying evolutionary science Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: However, a forthcoming book by biologist J. Scott Turner, Purpose & Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It, is a real shot across the bow. Dr. Turner’s last book, from Harvard University Press, was The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself. The new book, from HarperOne, is aimed not at an academic audience but straight at the broadest thoughtful reading public. Turner is a delightful, clear, and highly engaging writer, and he sets out his argument against smug Darwinism forthrightly. As he shows, biology itself is in crisis, having failed to grapple with the enigma of what life really is. More. J. Scott Read More ›

From RetractionWatch: The five papers in Nature are published as Brief Communications Arising, the journal’s way of flagging an important debate over a paper. The short papers provide new data to challenge a central part of a paper’s conclusions. The study’s authors, however, have responded to all five, defending their methods, especially their controversial decision to rely in part upon a visual inspection of mortality data in concluding there is a limit to human lifespan. Senior author Jan Vijg, a geneticist, told Retraction Watch: What else do we say? It boggles my mind how people can come up with these stupid arguments. You see there’s a plateau; mortality [for supercentenarians, people older than 110 years] is not going down and Read More ›

From Geraint Lewis at New Scientist: A fundamental concept is coming back to the fore – that the universe may be fine-tuned for life. The idea is that physical laws and constants are inexplicably just right to support it; any different and we wouldn’t be around to ponder this. The notion that this might be so has been around for decades, but has sat on the sidelines, considered idle speculation or even outside the bounds of science. This article is carefully written, so as to undermine the facts and promote multiverse blather. Otherwise, it would not be in New Scientist at all. Underlying all of these potential explanations are serious philosophical questions. Is adopting the multiverse as a solution to Read More ›

From neuroscientist Raymond Tallis at New Atlantis: The project of understanding time is to try to get a clear and just idea of the nature of the relationship between the universe and the observer in respect of time. By rethinking time in this way, we may elude a form of naturalism that sees us as being at bottom material objects whose nature will ultimately be described by physics. We are more than cogs in the universal clock, forced to collaborate with the very progress that pushes us towards our own midnight. By placing human consciousness at the heart of time, it is possible to crack ajar a door through which a sense of possibility can stream. More. See also: Prof. Read More ›

Because it is so profitable? Galileo would sure be amazed. But now this: From the Guardian: The core of Elsevier’s operation is in scientific journals, the weekly or monthly publications in which scientists share their results. Despite the narrow audience, scientific publishing is a remarkably big business. With total global revenues of more than £19bn, it weighs in somewhere between the recording and the film industries in size, but it is far more profitable. In 2010, Elsevier’s scientific publishing arm reported profits of £724m on just over £2bn in revenue. It was a 36% margin – higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon posted that year. … The way to make money from a scientific article looks very similar, except that Read More ›

From Denis MacEoin at Gatestone: The strictures in the ways of thinking in Islamic fundamentalism affect all sorts of things, from politics to history to interfaith relations to peace negotiations. … We may ask why a wealthy state such as Saudi Arabia still beheads people on charges of witchcraft and sorcery, yet the USA, the UK and other countries engage in close trade relations with it. In 2005, Shafayat Mohamed declared that the 2004 Indonesian tsunami had been caused by a rise in homosexuality, yet he remains the imam of the Deobandi militant Darul Uloom Institute in Florida. In 2016 a Muslim man, Omar Mateen, murdered 49 gay men at a nightclub in Orlando. Had he been influenced by Shafayat Read More ›

From University of Utah at EurekAlert: The shores of Lake Turkana, in Kenya, are dry and inhospitable, with grasses as the dominant plant type. It hasn’t always been that way. Over the last four million years, the Omo-Turkana basin has seen a range of climates and ecosystems, and has also seen significant steps in human evolution. Scientists previously thought that long-term drying of the climate contributed to the growth of grasslands in the area and the rise of large herbivores, which in turn may have shaped how humans developed. It’s tough to prove that hypothesis, however, because of the difficulty of reconstructing four million years of climate data. Researchers from the University of Utah have found a better way. By Read More ›

From Philip Ball at Aeon: It’s a strange idea that measurement needs explaining at all. Usually what we mean by a measurement seems so trivial that we don’t even ask the question. A ball has a position, or a speed, or a mass. I can measure those things, and the things I measure are the properties of the ball. What more is there to say? But in the quantum world things aren’t so obvious. There, the position of a particle is nothing more than a whole set of possible positions until the moment when it is observed. The same holds true for any other aspect of the particle. How does the multitude of potential properties in a quantum object turn Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: UA anthropologist David Raichlen and UA psychologist Gene Alexander, who together run a research program on exercise and the brain, propose an “adaptive capacity model” for understanding, from an evolutionary neuroscience perspective, how physical activity impacts brain structure and function. Their argument: As humans transitioned from a relatively sedentary apelike existence to a more physically demanding hunter-gatherer lifestyle, starting around 2 million years ago, we began to engage in complex foraging tasks that were simultaneously physically and mentally demanding, and that may explain how physical activity and the brain came to be so connected. “We think our physiology evolved to respond to those increases in physical activity levels, and those physiological adaptations go from your bones and your Read More ›