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At Quillette, Brian Boutwell defends the concept of “race”: Evolution, as it applies to the social sciences, would have also made the list some decades back. But pioneers like E.O. Wilson, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, David Buss, Margot Wilson, and Martin Daly (as well as a number of others) have absorbed many punches and blows for us younger generation of scholars. Their efforts produced a sizeable evidentiary base regarding the role that evolutionary processes have played (and continue to play) in sculpting human psychology. Debates still rage, and controversies still exist, but nowadays arguing that natural selection played some role in molding human psychology will no longer jeopardize your career. Huh? Far from thinking evolutionary psychology would jeopardize a career, Read More ›

From Quartz: The idea that papers are publishing false results might sound alarming but the recent crisis doesn’t mean that the entire scientific method is totally wrong. In fact, science’s focus on its own errors is a sign that researchers are on exactly the right path. Ivan Oransky, producer of the blog Retraction Watch, which tracks retractions printed in journals, tells Quartz that ultimately, the alarm will lead to increased rigor. There’s going to be some short-term and maybe mid-term pain as all of this shakes out, but that’s how you move forward,” he says. “It’s like therapy—if you never get angry in therapy, you’re probably not pushing hard enough. If you never find mistakes, or failures to reproduce in Read More ›

Again? From NOVA:Today, there is wide scientific consensus that black holes are real. Even though they can’t be observed directly—by definition, they give off no light—astronomers can infer their hidden presence by watching how stars, gas, and dust swirl and glow around them. But what if they’re wrong? Could something else—massive, dense, all-but-invisible—be concealed in the darkness? A telescope as big as the Earth could tell a black hole from an exotic imposter. While black holes have gone mainstream, a handful of researchers are investigating exotic ultra-compact stars that, they argue, would look exactly like black holes from afar. Well, almost exactly. Though their ideas have been around for many years, researchers are now putting them to the most stringent Read More ›

Inspired by Michael Denton’s Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis (2016)

It’s in the air. Talk of replacing Darwinism. See, for example: Don’t let zoologists hog the stage at the upcoming Royal Society rethink evolution meet. Long overdue for a serious discussion. That said, some cures really are worse than the disease. From Gatestone Institute, embedded in an article on the current bout of suppression of media in prospective EU member Turkey, Turkish law professor Ayse Isil Karakas, both a judge and elected Deputy Head of the ECHR, said that among all member states, Turkey has ranked number one in the field of violations of free speech. “619 lawsuits of freedom of expression were brought at the ECHR between 1959 and 2015,” she said. ” 258 of them — almost half Read More ›

From Hank Campbell at Science20, a potpourri of people he wishes didn’t have funds: Meanwhile, Denier For Hire groups like SourceWatch (see their executive director libel me here) who spend their time and money vilifying pro-science groups in every other area (food, technology, chemistry, energy, medicine) turned a blind eye to the advocacy research being done by the dark money people and corporations on the political side of the aisle that fund them. Crappy job, Hank, but someone has to do it. The popular science media are often a field demonstration of monochromatic advocacy. … Academics were not going to be duped by such faux political allies forever, and as time has gone on academic scientists have caught on to Read More ›

Scientism: Believing that all correct answers come from science (and, in practice, that the answers offered on behalf of whatever counts for science in given situation is correct). How does that play out in the criminal justice system? From Kelly Servick at Science: … for decades, forensic examiners have sometimes claimed in court that close but not identical ballistic markings could conclusively link evidence to a suspect—and judges and juries have trusted their expertise. Examiners have made similar statements for other forms of so-called pattern evidence, such as fingerprints, shoeprints, tire tracks, and bite marks. But such claims are ill-founded, a committee at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded in 2009. “No forensic method has been rigorously shown to Read More ›

From Rachel Feltman at the Washington Post: Neil deGrasse Tyson, science aficionado. With over 5 million Twitter followers and two television programs, NDT probably has a wider audience than any science communicator in the world. He’s a brilliant astrophysicist and a fantastic spokesperson for all things cerebral. Zounds. The planet just might make it through the catastrophe anyhow. It started with this tweet: From Feltman again: Miriam Kramer from Mashable chimed in with ducks, because duck sex is literally the most terrifying thing on the planet and pretty much the only argument it takes to disprove intelligent design. More. That would only be an argument against intelligent design if the system didn’t work well, but it does. Not that Kramer Read More ›

If so, ethologist Patrick Bateson is onto something. But how would we know? From ScienceDaily: Most fossils preserve the physical remains of organisms and their structure; however, geologists and paleobiologists recently found fossils that show the behaviors of predators preserved as traces in ancient sediments. Thus, fossils from southeast Missouri are helping scientists unlock clues about the behaviors of these predators and their interactions with their prey. Evidence shows that these ancient organisms were behaviorally sophisticated, tailoring their attacks for effectiveness. Tracks from the site showed that the predators attacked from above, moving alongside to use their many legs for more effective grappling of their prey. Further, predators preferentially selected smaller prey, indicating that they attacked their food rather than Read More ›

… at the Royal Society’s November meet on evolution. From Suzan Mazur interviews eminent ethologist Patrick Bateson at Huffington Post: Sir Patrick Bateson: Zoologists Should Not ‘Hog’ Upcoming Royal Society Evolution Meeting Suzan Mazur: When will the speakers for the November Royal Society event be announced? Patrick Bateson: Very shortly, I think. Suzan Mazur: Can you say what the subject of your talk will be? Patrick Bateson: I want to talk about a subject that has interested me for many years, namely how the organism plays an active role in the evolution of its descendants through its adaptability. When the challenge is one never previously experienced by the organism’s ancestors, the mechanisms generating the plasticity may be inherited but the Read More ›

Slowly making the public aware that a lot of those soapboxes are rotting. A bit at a time. From ScienceDaily, US National Institutes of Health wants us all to know this: Four ways inheritance is more complex than Mendel knew Today, we know that inheritance is far more complex than what Mendel saw in his pea plants. Our scientists who track progress in genetics research funded by NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences share some of the things researchers have learned about how traits are passed from one generation to the next. More. Listed are: 1. Some of our genes come only from Mom. 2. The environment may have the potential to trigger molecular changes that pass from generation to Read More ›

And proud of it? Policy analyst Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry offers one suggestion at The Week, ripping off science presenter Bill Nye, holding forth on the uselessness of philosophy: Many, though certainly not all, of the scientists who opine loudest about the uselessness of philosophy are public atheists. The form of atheism they promote is usually known as “eliminative materialism,” or the notion that matter is the only thing that exists. This theory is motivated by “scientism,” or the notion that the only knowable things are knowable by science. Somewhat paradoxically, these propositions are essentially religious — to dismiss entire swathes of human experience and human thought requires a venture of faith. They’re also not very smart religion, since they end up Read More ›

And literacy. From qz: Nine- and 10-year-old children in England who participated in a philosophy class once a week over the course of a year significantly boosted their math and literacy skills, with disadvantaged students showing the most significant gains, according to a large and well-designed study (pdf). More than 3,000 kids in 48 schools across England participated in weekly discussions about concepts such as truth, justice, friendship, and knowledge, with time carved out for silent reflection, question making, question airing, and building on one another’s thoughts and ideas. More. Unlike many edu-advocacy findings, this one makes sense. Philosophy teaches us to think in a systematic way. It’s hard to see how that wouldn’t help with math and literacy. But Read More ›

From Breitbart: US Attorney General: We’ve ‘Discussed’ Prosecuting Climate Change Deniers “This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch, responding to a question from green activist Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)4% at a Senate Judiciary Hearing.… Perhaps the kind of RICO action Whitehouse has in mind is similar to the one proposed to President Obama a few months ago by a number of key climate scientists, led by one Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University. However this campaign appears to have gone mysteriously quiet of late. Could it perhaps be Read More ›

  The Origin of Life Circus e-book for $7.50. The Origin Of Life Circus: A How To Make Life Extravaganza investigates the politics of origin of life science and synthesizing of life. Suzan Mazur, whose coverage of science began decades ago at Hearst Magazines, takes you into the lab and in conversation with dozens of the world’s greatest thinkers on the subject of origin of life – among them: Jack Szostak, Freeman Dyson, Carl Woese, Dimitar Sasselov, Matthew Powner, James Simons, Harry Lonsdale, Stu Kauffman, Andrew Pohorille, Steve Benner, Dave Deamer, Nigel Goldenfeld, Pier Luigi Luisi, Lawrence Krauss, Lee Smolin, Nick Lane, Jaron Lanier, and more. Mazur has made a career out of interviewing mostly non-Darwinian biologists. That’s because there are Read More ›