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From ScienceDaily: Thinking of gene loss as an evolution force is a counterintuitive idea, for it is easier to think that only when we gain something -genes in this case- can we evolve. However the new work by these authors, who are members of the Research Group on Evolution and Development (EVO-DEVO) of the UB, paints the vision of gene loss as a great potential process of genetic change and evolutionary adaption. … According to Professor Ricard Albalat, “it has been shown that the possibility of losing genes is linked to the lifestyle of the species. Parasites, for instance, show a greater tendency of gene loss because since they re-use their host’s resources, lots of their genes become dispensable and Read More ›

Recently, our WJM offered: Debunking The Old “There Is No Evidence of God” Canard Atheists/physicalists often talk about “believing what the evidence dictates”, but fail to understand that “evidence” is an interpretation of facts. Facts don’t “lead” anywhere in and of themselves; they carry with them no conceptual framework that dictates how they “should” fit into any hypothesis or pattern. Even the language by which one describes a fact necessarily frames that fact in a certain conceptual framework that may be counterproductive. More. I sometimes get lassoed into such discussions and have found three rules to help: 1. First, find out if the person is a pure naturalist atheist who believes that nature is all there is, everything just somehow Read More ›

From Waynesburg University (Pennsylvania) biology prof Wayne Rossiter, author of In the Shadow of Oz,, offers a new series on theistic evolution, starting with Square Peg for a Round Hole: Robinson admits that Dennett has struck a vital spot in pro-Darwinian theology: “His remarks stung: there is indeed a legitimate question about whether the way in which theology engages with Darwinism amounts to anything more than a set of purely defensive and rather desperate moves.” Indeed. He goes on to broadly suggest that Dennett (and secular scientists in general) might benefit from the metaphysics of Christian theism. But this defensive maneuver seems a limp defense. The best Robinson manages in the chapter is the red herring of reversing the tables, Read More ›

From Adam Shapiro at Religion Dispatches: Did Richard Dawkins hand creationists their next school strategy? It’s not just ID and antievolution that has historically found itself entangled with religious advocacy. According to Luskin, evolution’s history is also rife with supporters making religious or irreligious claims. When a New Atheist figurehead like Richard Dawkins claims that Darwin made it possible to be “an intellectually fulfilled atheist,” he substantiates the claim that evolution itself is not neutral when it comes to promoting or inhibiting religion. As Luskin argues, “If the public is aware of the close historical association between the advocacy of evolution and anti-religious activism, then the teaching of evolution may make religious Americans feel like political outsiders.” (For legal context, Read More ›

From Pradeep Mutalik here: Three puzzles test whether the concept of infinity has purchase in the physical world. Editor’s note: The reader who submits the most interesting, creative or insightful solution (as judged by the columnist) in the comments section will receive a Quanta Magazine T-shirt. More. Readers can always submit here if they wish. T-shirt only by arrangement. See also: New Scientist vs. William Lane Craig on infinity explanations Follow UD News at Twitter!

From Ross Andersen at Atlantic: We can’t extrapolate from our experience on this planet, because it’s only one data point. We could be the only intelligent beings in the universe, or we could be one among trillions, and either way Earth’s natural history would look the exact same. … We certainly don’t have grounds to say that the “odds are high” that some civilization preceded ours, or enough evidence to suggest that skepticism about the possibility “borders on the irrational.” More. That’s the trouble. 1 is not a good number to work with when assessing probability. See also: NASA “shameful” in not looking harder for alien life? Are these people willing to grasp the possibility that we might BE alone? Read More ›

From Sarah Knapton at Telegraph: In January, astronomers Professor Konstantin Batygin and Professor Mike Brown from California Institute of Technology predicted the existence of a ninth planet after discovering that 13 objects in the Kuiper Belt – an area beyond Neptune – were all moving together as if ‘lassooed’ by the gravity of a huge object. Now scientists from Cambridge University and Spain have discovered that the paths of the dwarf planets are not as stable as they thought, meaning they could be falling under the influence of more planets further out.More. See also: Planet better than Earth claimed within reach Follow UD News at Twitter!

The Opossum Files!: On June 6, philosopher Vincent Torley, one of our Uncommon Descent authors, asked us to consider the opossum as evidence for common descent: Consider the opossum (a marsupial mammal): the evidence for common descent (Vincent Torley, June 6, 2016): Remarkably, the recent spate of articles over at Evolution News and Views (see here, here and here) attacking the claim that vitellogenin pseudogenes in humans provide scientific evidence for common descent, all missed the point that Professor Dennis Venema was making, which was not about the existence of pseudogenes, but about the spatial pattern in the genes. The pattern is strikingly clear if we compare chickens with opossums. And since humans belong to the same class as opossums (namely, Read More ›

By mathematician (and string theory skeptic) Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: It seems that Carroll was arguing that the multiverse shows that we need to change our thinking about what science is, adopting his favored “abduction” and “Bayesian reasoning” framework, getting rid of falsifiability. Using this method he arrives at a probability of the multiverse as “about 50%” (funny, but that’s the same number I’d use, as for any binary option where you know nothing). So, from the Bayesians we now have the following for multiverse probability estimates: 1. Carroll: “About 50%” 2. Polchinski: “94%” 3. Rees: “Kill my dog if it’s not true” 4. Linde: “Kill me if it’s not true” 5. Weinberg: “Kill Linde and Rees’s dog if Read More ›

From Yahoo: WASHINGTON, June 15, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — “Allowing the FCC to rule the Internet like a public utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act will do nothing but produce a broadband shortage,” said George Gilder, bestselling technology author and Discovery Institute senior fellow. “This just creates new incentives for broadband providers to divert investment into advertising and content platforms or other countries,” Gilder added. By a 2-1 vote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld the net neutrality rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. More. This much I know is true: Bureaucrats can administer a shortage of goods and services just as easily as a surplus but businesses in free Read More ›

From Globe and Mail: While fertilization is the crucial first step to all human life, it has not been easy for scientists to determine precisely what happens when egg and sperm meet. In addition to the technical challenges, experiments that require human fertilization immediately raise ethical issues. To sidestep these dilemmas, researchers in both groups found ways to separately generate two proteins that are known to be crucial for fertilization and studied their interaction. The teams were then able to deduce the three-dimensional structures of the proteins and show precisely how they fit together, atom to atom. Their complementary findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature. … One intriguing detail is that the Izumo1 protein, which is long and Read More ›

From Emily Singer at Quanta: According to the new findings, published in Genetics this month, Neanderthal genomes were rife with harmful DNA that significantly reduced the species’ fitness. The researchers conclude that Neanderthals were roughly 40 percent less fit than modern humans, meaning they were less likely to produce offspring. More. Okay, so it turns out we didn’t murder them, like everyone said we had. That’s the trouble when you’re supposed to be extinct. People can insist that Neanderthals are the Bad Seed and they can’t launch a grievance. Fortunately, even if it’s nonsense, no one gets hurt. Far cry from eugenics. See also: There’s a gene for that… or is there? and Neanderthal Man: The long-lost relative turns up Read More ›

From New Scientist: “NASA has been shameful in not searching for extraterrestrial life and at the same time claiming that’s one of the motivations for their programmes,” says Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. “The Mars programme counts life as the reason for the programme, and then the missions NASA implements don’t even approach the question at all.” McKay cites the example of the upcoming Mars 2020 rover, which will primarily search for signs that life once existed on the Red Planet. Rather than hunting for alien microbes today, the rover will set aside samples that NASA hopes some future mission will bring back to Earth, where we can probe them for signs Read More ›

From Douglas Axe, author of Undeniable, in response to Atul Gawande (“Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense”), who was complaining about lack of public confidence in science. At Evolution News & Views: Maybe the better way to restore public confidence is to abandon the condescending mindset and embrace a much more radically inclusive view of science. Maybe the moms Gawande referred to — the ones who jumped to the conclusion that vaccines were dangerous — aren’t all that different from professional scientists who jump to the conclusion that public dissent is dangerous. Gawande gave five handy tips for writing people off as pseudoscientists, but instead of alienating people by dismissing them Read More ›

From BBC: The microbes, called Geobacter metallireducens, were getting their electrons from organic compounds, and passing them onto iron oxides. In other words they were eating waste – including ethanol – and effectively “breathing” iron instead of oxygen. f course, this is not breathing as we would recognise it. For one thing, bacteria do not have lungs. Instead, the bacteria pass their electrons to metal oxides that lie outside the cell. They do this through special hair-like wires that protrude from the cell’s surface. These tiny wires act in much in the same way that copper wire does when it conducts electricity. They have been dubbed “microbial nanowires”. More. We’ve noted this before, here and here. If a life form Read More ›