Category: Culture
What’s wrong with social psychology, in a nutshell
| July 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Psychology, Science |
From Ben Shapiro at Daily Wire: You’ve undoubtedly seen those preening headlines from major outlets about how conservatives are more “authoritarian” by nature than Leftists. See, for example, here and here and here and here and here and here. But it turns out that this is nonsense. Such studies are generally vague and deliberately constructed to make it appear that conservatives are more “authoritarian” than Leftists. […]
Science writer complains, everyone claims to be a scientist these days
| July 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
With some justification. The question arises, who has the right to say so? From Alex Berezow at ACSH: The topic came up on Twitter, the world’s foremost outlet for intellectual discourse. Writer and historian Audra Wolfe, who holds a PhD in the history of science, posted this bizarre tweet: Actually, no, it hasn’t, no matter […]
Teilhard de Chardin: The “evolution” priest’s legacy included racism and social Darwinism, says theologian
| July 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, theistic evolution |
From John P. Slattery at Religion Dispatches: In fact, a movement has been underway to resurrect, as it were, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as a renewed foundation for theological reflection. According to a November report in America magazine, Pope Francis is already considering removing the “warning” attached to Teilhard’s historical writings, and more recently the […]
Gravitational waves: Scientific revolutions can take decades, science editor says
| July 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Physics |
From John Timmer at Ars Technica: LIGO’s detection of gravitational waves came almost exactly a century after Einstein had formulated his general theory of relativity and an ensuing paper mathematically describing the possibility of gravitational waves. Or at least that’s the story as it was presented to the public (including by yours truly). And in […]
Can science be the only source of truth?
| July 17, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Logic and First Principles of right reason, Science |
From Ruth M. Bancewicz at Science + Belief, on key points offered by Dutch philosopher Professor René van Woudenberg at a recent Faraday workshop, including: There are all sorts of ways in which scientists find some theories more satisfying than others, but science itself is not always a deciding factor in the decision. Logic, reason, […]
When a bioengineer cannot avoid evidence for design in nature…
| July 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
From Denyse O’Leary at Salvo: Minority Reporter: A Finnish Bioengineer Touches the Third Rail Randomness and chaos are much easier to market today than order, meaning, and purpose. The songs write themselves. Serious scientists, therefore, can find themselves in conflict with a view that is not so much an argument as an attitude to life, […]
Richard Weikart on the anti-Semitic burst in evolutionary psychology
| July 12, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Evolutionary psychology, Intelligent Design |
From Richard Weikart at ENST: Even in cases of behaviors that seem to hinder reproduction, evolutionary psychologists can invent some good-old “just-so story.” E.O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist and the founder of sociobiology, claimed that homosexuality might be selected for, because a homosexual would be able to help siblings have more offspring. Is there any […]
Darwinism vs. ID: A game of foxes vs. lions
| July 11, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Science |
From my (O’Leary for News) review of sociologist Steve Fuller’s book, Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game: How ID Foxes Can Beat the Darwinian Lions Fuller clearly finds the foxes more interesting and sympathetic figures than the lions: “The lion rules by focused shows of force, as opposed to the fox’s diverse displays of cunning.” […]
Does the social triumph of naturalist atheism always lead to magical beliefs?
| July 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Religion |
Or just at the New York Times? From an op-ed by Steven Petrow at The New York Times: Do You Believe in Magic? I Do Talismans and amulets — objects believed to have magical powers — were once part of any self-respecting doctor’s medicine bag. More. Petrow, a writer, is a cancer survivor who is […]
Bret Weinstein on Jordan Peterson v Sam Harris
| July 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Science |
From former Evergreen biologist Bret Weinstein at YouTube: Bret Weinstein’s follow up report on the Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson debates that he moderated in June of 2018 in Vancouver, B.C. This event was billed as an in-depth discussion between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson about the relationship between science and ethics, facts and values, […]
Study: Religiously affiliated people lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…”
| July 1, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Medicine, Mind, Religion |
From Chuck Dinerstein at American Council for Science and Health: There is increasing evidence that a correlation exists between a person’s social support and engagement and their longevity. At a bare minimum, it makes sense because it is challenging to manage chronic disease or recovery from hospitalization on your own. A new study looks at […]
Sam Harris on taboo topics, Jordan Peterson, and getting sent to PC hell
| July 1, 2018 | Posted by News under Atheism, Culture, Intellectual freedom, Intelligent Design, Naturalism |
Readers will remember Sam Harris as one of the Four Horsemen of the atheist apocalypse (with Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens). Recently, he fell out with the progressives and ended up on the Dark Internet. He talks with Dan Hall at the Independent: Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, best-selling author, philosopher and host […]
Anomaly: Human mortality hits a plateau after 105 years of age
| June 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
From Mark Barna at Discover: A study published today in Science indicates that people are indeed living longer and that the maximum lifespan for humans has not yet been reached. … And what they found was that after the age of 105, human mortality seems to hit a plateau. That is, you aren’t any more […]
From RealClearScience: No, we can’t trust government data on diet and nutrition
| June 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science |
In a world where some researchers earnestly study the question of why so many people don’t ”trust science,” we learn from Michael Marlow & Edward Archer at RealClearScience: In contrast [to confidence in politicians], public confidence in the ‘scientific community’ runs at 40% and has remained stable since the 1970s. This trust, however, turns out […]
Francisco Ayala has stepped down in sexual harassment controversy at University of California Irvine
| June 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Biography, Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
The library named in honor of the well-known theistic evolutionist and 2010 Templeton winner is to be renamed. From a university media release: UCI proposes new name for School of Biological Sciences, science library after internal investigation substantiates sexual harassment claims against signature donor June 28, 2018 IRVINE, Calif., June 28, 2018 – The University of […]
As astrology goes mainstream, will Big Science start to accommodate it?
| June 26, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Religion, Science |
For Big Science, credibility is tied up with money. And what happens when those who control the money believe that astrology is just as legitimate as quantum mechanics? Krista Burton professes and justifies her beliefs at the New York Times: Is Astrology Religion for Those of Us With No Religion? Major beauty brands like Glossier, […]
Sociology of science prof: Philosophers have given up distingushing science, in principle, from other types of pursuits
| June 25, 2018 | Posted by Denyse OLeary under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science |
From Daniel Sarewitz at the Weekly Standard, reflecting on Sabine Hossenfelder’s Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, … What, then, joins Hossenfelder’s field of theoretical physics to ecology, epidemiology, cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology, biochemistry, macroeconomics, computer science, and geology? Why do they all get to be called science? Certainly it is not similarity of […]
Why climate activist scientist won’t debate the science
| June 25, 2018 | Posted by Denyse OLeary under Climate change, Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
From climate scientist Kate Marvel at Scientific American: Once you put established facts about the world up for argument, you’ve already lost In fact, as a general rule, I refuse to debate basic science in public. There are two reasons for this: first, I’m a terrible debater and would almost certainly lose. The skills necessary […]
Does lack of a good father figure promote atheism?
| June 24, 2018 | Posted by Denyse OLeary under Atheism, Culture, Evolutionary psychology, Intelligent Design, Psychology |
From Wintery Knight Here’s a lecture by New York University professor Paul Vitz to explain a connection between atheism and fatherlessness: Wintery Knight also suggests an article by Paul Copan which points out how father presence/absence and father quality affects belief and disbelief in God: Seventh, the attempt to psychologize believers applies more readily to […]
In any Darwinian scheme, someone must be the subhuman. Otherwise, there is no beginning to human history.
| June 24, 2018 | Posted by Denyse OLeary under Creationism, Culture, Darwinism, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
In response to the recent story “Do racial assumptions prevent recognizing Homo erectus as fully human?”, a friend wrote to say that many Darwin defenders miss the point, as follows: The problem is not merely that Darwin, a man of his age, was a racist. The problem is that his bias resulted in him and […]
