Culture

  … in a science and technology culture in which it is otherwise axiomatic that humans are merely evolved animals. So, can we cheat death by uploading ourselves as virtual AI entities? Cheating death is a serious goal of some transhumanists. Futurist Ray Kurzweil(now a Google innovator) calls such a digital fate the Singularity, as in his book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Published in 2006, it is still in the top ten in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. In 2017, he announced, 2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence. I have set the date 2045 for the ‘Singularity’ which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence Read More ›

Closing out our religion coverage for the week, there is an interesting series of cartoons from Jordan Collver at Nautilus, on why people do or don’t “believe in” evolution. Here’s one panel: Some notes: The girl at middle left seems to be a fan of Berra’s Blunder (describing the outcome of alleged unintelligent natural processes by citing as examples the known product of explicit design). But the blunder is accepted in science literature today. The guy at middle right seems to believe that he can put his faith in “Jesus” and just accept the fully naturalist atheism on which “evolution,” as understood in most media today, is grounded. Most science journals would make short work of his “Jesus” as a Read More ›

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. In reality, authoritarian personality types exist across the political spectrum. All you have to do is change the incentive structure in the questions, and you’ll suddenly find Leftists who hate freedom and conservatives who love it. Jesse Singal of New York Magazine has a long and worthwhile piece about the scientific flaws in the authoritarian modeling. … Confirmation bias has allowed too many members of the Left to ignore embarrassing Read More ›

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 what the Bunny’s sign says. The scientific method is designed specifically to root out bias and false assumptions, including political ones. Sure, individual scientists can be political, but the scientific method is not. Its ideological agnosticism is why it works so well. In fact, the self-correcting nature of science means it is the best source of secular knowledge that humankind possesses. However, Dr. Wolfe’s characterization Read More ›

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 National Catholic Reporter reported on an online movement to name him a “doctor of the Church.” Recent scholarly research, however, should cast doubt upon any such movements, as Teilhard’s positive influence may not be able to overcome his commitment to and employment of a philosophy of eugenics and social Darwinism. … Evolution, for Teilhard, is the hermeneutic key for understanding the place of Christ within Read More ›

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 some ways, it’s even true. But the reality of how relativity progressed to the point where people accepted that gravitational waves are likely to exist and could possibly be detected is considerably more complicated than the simple narrative described above. In this week’s Nature Astronomy, a group of science historians lays out the full details of how we got from the dawn of relativity to Read More ›

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, experience, intuition, aesthetics, personal preference – all of these can play a part. As time goes on, and more data are gathered, we can become more certain which theory is an accurate reflection of reality. Eventually some theories have so much data behind them – gravity or the common ancestry of all living things, for example – that they are treated almost as facts. More. Read More ›

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, not so much a marshalling of evidence as a demand that posturing overrule evidence. Case in point: Matti Leisola, a gifted Finnish bioengineer, started out as a good Darwinist. But he could not avoid the massive pushback from the evidence of design he . . . More. Yes, it’s mostly paywalled. It describes the situation of a scientist who thinks that nature shows evidence of Read More ›

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 empirical evidence for this? No, but apparently it is the best just-so story he could devise. In a similar fashion Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker asserts that infanticide has biological roots. He claims that ancient humans were picky about which babies they would raise to maturity. According to Pinker, “A new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her current situation and only in Read More ›

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.” … The usual strategy of the Darwinian lions is to portray the ID foxes as not merely wrong but bad, for example as “liars” for not upholding the current orthodoxy. But, Fuller observes, that strategy can fail when the evidence does not really support the lions as much as they claim: “The dispassionate observer might well conclude that the lion’s extremely loud roar belies its Read More ›

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 sure that a magical stuffed rabbit played a role. He tells us, And the use of medical talismans has persisted. Dr. William Bartholome, a pediatrician and bioethicist at Kansas University Medical Center, wrote prolifically about his struggle with metastatic esophageal cancer — and his collection of 40 frogs. “Bill’s frogs were totems or talismans that he believed brought him luck,” said Martha Montello, his friend Read More ›

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, meaning and intellectual honesty. More. Weinstein’s main claim to fame is that he discovered that the progressive assault on science is serious and that inside every woke student is a little totalitarian screaming to get out. See also: Bret Weinstein’s shocking testimony at YouTube Sam Harris on taboo topics, Jordan Peterson, and getting sent to PC hell Jordan Peterson: Do the stitches hold? and You Read More ›

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 religious participation as a marker for that social integration and to avoid the bias of self-reported religious activity; the researchers measured religious involvement noted in obituaries. (Of course, they might also have induced a bit of bias on the report of grieving family members writing those obituaries) There is a clear link between attendance at religious services and social support, even the number of close Read More ›

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 of the podcast Waking Up. He describes his job as ‘someone who thinks in public’ and has established a reputation as one of the leading lights in both New Atheism and secular spirituality. We sat down ahead of the biggest live event of his career – his upcoming show at the O2 Arena with psychology professor Jordan Peterson and Centre for Social Cohesion founder Douglas Read More ›

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 likely to die at 110 than at 105. It’s a contradictory finding, because mortality ticks steadily upward as we get older at all previous ages. Hit that golden age, a temporal “island of stability” if you will, though, and your odds of surviving stay about the same. … A report in 2016 out of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine concluded that maximum human life Read More ›