Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Author

News

Science is no more a “road to truth” than is art or religion

... virtually all modern philosophers and sociologists of science do not speak of science in this way. And we would know. Two of us have a combined 63 years of studying and teaching the philosophy of science. And we can assure you that the gap between the consensus among those who have carefully studied the logic and methods of scientific research and this more popular view of science could not be more cavernous... Read More ›

New excerpt from Animal Algorithms

Eric Cassell: Scientists typically specialize, and a biologist who does this may see problems for evolutionary theory in his or her own subdiscipline but then figure those problems are the exception and that evolutionary theory has things well in hand elsewhere in the life sciences. Read More ›

Researchers: Endothermy (warmbloodedness)could have started over 300 million years ago

Pushing back the time things could have happened just by accident (a million monkeys typing)... Researchers: "This is likely to be controversial, but we think, and hope, that it will spark some great conversations and it could lead to a change in our understanding of the ways body warmth is maintained." Read More ›

Is Sarah Salviander going to make a difference in science?

Of herself she says: Astrophysicist. I have a PhD in Astrophysics and worked for many years in academia as a scientific researcher. Though I am currently focused on ministry work, I am still active in astrophysical research. Visit my research page here. Read More ›

Did we domesticate crops or did they domesticate us?

A recent paper prompts the question: Emerging evidence of plant domestication as a landscape-level process The evidence from ancient crops over the past decade challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the process of domestication. The emergence of crops has been viewed as a technologically progressive process in which single or multiple localized populations adapt to human environments in response to cultivation. By contrast, new genetic and archaeological evidence reveals a slow process that involved large populations over wide areas with unexpectedly sustained cultural connections in deep time. We review evidence that calls for a new landscape framework of crop origins. Evolutionary processes operate across vast distances of landscape and time, and the origins of domesticates are complex. The Read More ›

What? Brain surgeons are NOT smarter than the rest of us?

We are told, “Data from 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons suggests they are not necessarily cleverer than general population”: Researchers examined data from an international cohort of 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons who completed 12 tasks online using the Great British Intelligence Test (GBIT) from the Cognitron platform, as well as answering questions around their age, sex and levels of experience in their speciality. The tasks examined various aspects of cognition, including planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities. The researchers then compared the results against those previously gathered from more than 18,000 members of the British public. The findings, which were published in the festive edition of the BMJ, reveal that only neurosurgeons showed Read More ›

Major cosmological principle — the universe is the same in all directions — is under fire

At Quanta: “The consensus now is that it is a small effect that does not, in the end, cause too much trouble,” Nadathur said. But that 2% could yet prove consequential. Durrer is investigating whether backreaction might help resolve a growing cosmological crisis. Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Jonathan Bartlett: Will the Sokal hoaxes worsen the academic echo chamber?

There’s nothing wrong per se with mainstream thinking — it probably became mainstream for good reasons. However, when only mainstream thinking is allowed, this leads to insularity and an echo chamber mentality. Read More ›