Common sense comes in for a bit of support in “Still Red in Tooth and Claw” (The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2011), on animal morality: Though stories of seemingly altruistic animals tug at the heartstrings, humans are nature’s sole moralists.Nothing tugs at the anthropomorphic heartstrings, though, more strongly than accounts of compassion or altruism Read More…
Animal minds
Joe Carter on Monkey Brains
Over at First Things Joe Carter considers whether naturalism can ever account for valid belief. “To have trustworthy convictions, we have to have properly functioning noetic equipment (i.e., a brain, spinal cord, sensory apparatus, etc., that recognize reality). But can a strictly materialistic, non-teleological, evolutionary process produce such reliable equipment? The philosopher Alvin Plantinga, one Read More…
Coffee!! Thicker foreheads: Meet thickets of Darwinism
In “Men developed thicker foreheads and jaws due to fighting, over women” Richard Alleyne, science correspondent for Britain’s Telegraph, who presumably knows better, advises us (14 May 2010): Winning a mate used to depend only on physical prowess and men with the strongest jawline and thickest skulls were better able to survive onslaughts from love Read More…
Coffee!! More completely ridiculous news, courtesy tax-funded or legacy broadcasters:
The longer I live, the more stupid stuff I hear in legacy mainstream media whose only possible value is to front Darwinism. Here’s a good one: Chimpanzees eat their dead? “Researchers may have witnessed it, but been unwilling to report it for fear of drawing undue attention to cannibalism among our close relatives, he says. ” Read More…
Coffee!! Well, anyway, don’t run the OTHER way
A friend wrote recently to tell me that we learned recently from the BBC that toads can ‘predict earthquakes’ and seismic activity Common toads appear to be able to sense an impending earthquake and will flee their colony days before the seismic activity strikes. The evidence comes from a population of toads which left their Read More…
Coffee! But who said monkeys were smart?
This from ScienceNewsDaily about “grooming” behaviour in primates: ‘Our computer model GrooFiWorld shows that complex calculating behaviour is completely unnecessary. We can add the simple rule to the existing DomWorld model that an individual will begin grooming another when it expects to lose from it upon attacking the other. This in itself leads to many Read More…
Uncommon Descent Contest 18 Ancient reptile brain explains human psychology? – winner announced
Here’s the contest. The question arose from my longstanding puzzlement over claims that reptile behaviour could be sharply demarcated from bird or mammal behaviour, according to a tri-partite brain organization. The evidence did not seem to support that. For example, if we use a crude, obvious measure like looking after young, well, many crocodilians (including Read More…
Coffee! Animal minds: Are dogs or wolves smarter?
Animal minds are a big topic now. Always fascinating for me, but I was all the more intrigued when a local panhandler sold me the “homeless” Outreach paper on the street – always a source of news that should be approached with caution – and guess what? The lead article informs me that “Wolves are Read More…