Culture

From Henry Bodkin at the UK Telegraph: holesterol does not cause heart disease in the elderly and trying to reduce it with drugs like statins is a waste of time, an international group of experts has claimed. A review of research involving nearly 70,000 people found there was no link between what has traditionally been considered “bad” cholesterol and the premature deaths of over 60-year-olds from cardiovascular disease. Published in the BMJ Open journal, the new study found that 92 percent of people with a high cholesterol level lived longer.More. Hope no one’s career went south for being a “denialist.” See also: The skinny on salt, veggie oil,, skim milk, whole foods. Nutrition science is nearly baseless but it rules. Read More ›

Another self-referential piece from New Yorker: Science is not a major or a career. It is a commitment to a systematic way of thinking, an allegiance to a way of building knowledge and explaining the universe through testing and factual observation. The thing is, that isn’t a normal way of thinking. It is unnatural and counterintuitive. It has to be learned. Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense. Common sense once told us that the sun moves across the sky and that being out in the cold produced colds. But a scientific mind recognized that these intuitions were only hypotheses. They had to be tested. (Atul Gawande) Rubbish. Science is a normal Read More ›

From Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: String theory continues to make progress. Today the news is from Megan Fox: “Sometimes I just know things,” she explains. “I accidentally tap into stuff sometimes. I used to do it as a kid, and I do it as an adult. I crossed over and saw a future string.” String, as in string theory. Fox is into stuff like that. She’s also spiritual. On her Instagram profile, she describes herself thusly: “Child of the Cherokee Tribe … forest nymph … Lunar Leo mother goddess to 2 bohemian revolutionaries-my kamikaze free spirit & my peaceful warrior.” A few months ago it was Jaden Smith moving the subject forward: More. Do these people have a Read More ›

From Science, where there is a paywall so I can’t swatch a bit of it for you (but you might be able to read it), there’s this big worry, via Michael Baltzley: Some students might earn credits for learning “creationism.” Would that include reading Suzan Mazur’s The Paradigm Shifters: Overthrowing “the Hegemony of the Culture of Darwin”? Or anything about rethinking evolution? Should we punish such students by forcing them to join the Pants in Knot war on creationism in Louisiana? Except, if they had any brains, they’d probably either go home (preferred option) or switch sides (well, we all gotta learn). Note: Many countries have just avoided these wars, saving the taxpayer time, grief, and money. Some fellow tried starting Read More ›

On how to calm down a client, from Lawyers Weekly:  Meet in a quiet room with pictures of nature or wildlife on the walls. This reduces the effect of the stress hormone cortisol. Apart from anything else the cortisol mitigation will ensure the client is less likely to have a heart attack on your premises! Offer refreshment – including food – to the client. This encourages the production and uptake of two vital anti-stress neurochemicals glutamate and oxytocin. More. Pictures of nature? Ever anxious to help, we recommend this picture from nature, free with the biscuits and coffee. You did notice the hippie beads around the bobcat’s neck, didn’t you? Yes, they’re there! You just aren’t looking hard enough. Fast Read More ›

Maybe naturalism is reaching its natural basement. I just got this media release: Bigotry, dismissiveness, stereotyping and objectification are all forms of depersonalization that are negatively shaping human behavior. Dr. Dorothy I Riddle, psychologist and economic development specialist, has dedicated her life to ending violence. In her new book, she provides practical strategies for re-wiring how humans and nonhumans relate to the world, such as tolerance and working towards compassion for all. May I send you a complimentary copy of “Moving Beyond Duality” or help coordinate an interview or guest article? The tome in question would seem to be some iteration of this one: Are you free of prejudice? Less than five percent of us are because of the pervasiveness Read More ›

From Retraction Watch: Pro-life activists have asked JAMA to retract a 2005 paper that suggested fetuses can’t feel pain before the third trimester. Critics are arguing that newer findings have shown pain sensation appears earlier in gestation, yet the 2005 data continue to be cited in the discussion around abortion. What’s more, they note, some of the authors failed to mention their ties to the abortion industry. The 2005 paper has been cited 191 times, according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. We spoke with Howard Bauchner, Editor in Chief at JAMA and The JAMA Network, who told us something similar to what he said last week, when PETA asked to retract a paper they claim could be harmful to Read More ›

At: This is a case study in Darwinism beyond ridiculous, I noted “Monogamy” and “sibling co-operation” among humans are terms that are meaningful only among humans. They depend on the recognition of abstractions like “marriage” and “family.” Humans often do things, in recognition of relationships, that are not in their survival interests. It is not the same as in beetles and birds. commenter goodusername writes in response: I don’t think they’re claiming that the terms “monogamy” and “sibling co-operation” has any meaning to beetles. And I think people would care for their partners, and siblings would care for each other, even without “recognition of abstractions like ‘marriage’ and ‘family.’” No. First, when people make inferences about human relationships by referencing Read More ›

Because there is something fundamentally wrong with its typical view of life. Life forms are not merely matter in motion. From Jonathan Wells at Evolution News & Views on Third Way (for evolution) thinker Stephen L. Talbott: According to his profile at The Third Way of Evolution, Talbott spent many years working in the engineering organizations of computer manufacturers before he joined the Nature Institute in 1998 (the same year I joined Discovery Institute). He “attempts to show how our understanding of the organism and its evolution is transformed once we recognize and take seriously the organism as an intelligent agent meaningfully (though not necessarily consciously) pursuing its own way of life.” In his most recent article (the first in Read More ›

Science historian Darin Hayton eloquently fumes, Once again the internet is all excited by some scientists’ findings that solve a historical mystery. In this case, “UTA scientists use Planetarium’s advanced astronomical software to accurately date 2500 year-old lyric poem” (as the University of Texas at Arlington press announcement puts it). Unsurprisingly, UTA’s “press release” (by which I mean “propaganda”) misrepresents the article. Despite the link to the article in the “press release,” nobody at UTA—either in media relations or in the planetarium—apparently could be bothered to read the article. I shouldn’t, therefore, be surprised that most other people trafficking in this story have likewise ignored the article. While not surprised, I am disheartened to see that even purportedly reputable, pro-science Read More ›

Tom Woodward, author of Doubts about Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design (2003) and its sequel (2006), Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design, is coauthor with Dr. James Gills of The Mysterious Epigenome: What Lies Beyond DNA (2012), writes to tell us, Just a quick report from the front lines of the ID/Darwin debate here in Copenhagen, Denmark, as I near the end of a 15-day speaking tour of those two countries. First, for another few hours, you can see a surprise major article in the largest daily newspaper of Denmark, The Jutland Post (Jyllens-Posten), where here you can scroll down to see the headline at least, and a pic of me holding up one of our Read More ›

Even icon Carl Sagan doesn’t get a pass these days. From Cara Giaimo at Atlas Obscura: Throughout human history, people have struggled with two competing impulses: the desire to make a mark for future generations, and a deep confusion about what, exactly, that mark should be. The Golden Records, though probably the most extreme manifestation of this impulse, are far from the first. “There have been time-capsule type experiences ever since humans have measured time,” writes librarian William Jarvis in Time Capsules: A Cultural History. It’s easy to make fun of time capsules, but, as Jarvis details, it’s much harder to fill them with the kind of material that will actually stand the test of time. Often, the things we Read More ›

At Hump of the Camel: Not that Denton’s thesis is entirely new. Perhaps the simplest summary is that it is a re-affirmation of his first book questioning the Neodarwinian Synthesis thirty years ago, now strengthened by much work in biology since, combined with a new structuralist viewpoint which he inherits from Richard Owen before and during Darwin’s time. I might add (because Denton doesn’t stress it) that structuralism – the idea that much of biological form depends on lawlike constraints, rather than adaptive contingency – was the prevalent theory of evolution, in the form of orthogenesis, at the time when Darwinism was found wanting in explanatory power at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was only the Neodarwinian Synthesis Read More ›

The global warming hype, unlike the nutrition freakout or the far side of Darwinism, could actually be true. But the behaviour of the proponents tells against that. From Willie Soon and István Markó at : Increasingly, we are seeing more and more outrageous and aggressive anti-scientific claims that anyone who is not willing to embrace the dangerous global warming bandwagon and to condemn its culprit, CO2, is actually the equivalent of a Holocaust Denier. This sort of name-calling, loud self-promotion and fact twisting actions, closer to political rodeo than to healthy scientific debates, are simply telling us that our opponents have already lost their fallacious arguments and are getting short on any real scientific facts. Professor Albert Einstein had it Read More ›

In response to Vincent Torley’s Leading thinker on human evolution admits: we’re more than just an ape, Anaxagoraswrites at 2: I feel reassured that at least some scientists understand that humans are unique. Most laymen allready knew that. Yes, and that’s the critical mass of the stinking corruption that infests science media on this subject today: Everyone knows it’s true, yet science media continue to shovel garbage at us, such as that chimpanzees are entering the Stone Age or can handle high-level abstractions. No one is supposed to ask: If so, why are they still swinging in the trees? If the purveyors of this stuff are sane, they must realize that it cannot be true. But they must also know Read More ›