Culture

From Maverick Philosopher: From an interview with Daniel Dennett in the pages of The Guardian (2017) … My understanding of postmodernism – and you’re a very prominent atheist – is that in the absence of a single meta-narrative, which is God, you had competing narratives… [Dennett:] Yes and one’s true and the others are false. One of those narratives is the truth and the others aren’t; it’s as simple as that. Maverick Philosopher observes, Is it really so simple? Dennett is suggesting that his naturalist narrative is not a mere narrative, but the true narrative. If so, then there is truth; there is a way things are in themselves apart from our stories and beliefs and hopes and desires. I Read More ›

From Jeff Lewis and Belinda Lewis, “The myth of declining violence: Liberal evolutionism and violent complexity” at : The publication of Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature popularized an emerging orthodoxy in political and social science – that is, that violence and warfare have been declining over the past century, particularly since the end of the Second World War. Invoking the scientific and political neutrality of their data and evidence, Pinker and other ‘declinists’ insist that powerful, liberal democratic states have subdued humans’ evolutionary disposition to violence. This article analyses the heuristic validity and political framework of these claims. The article examines, in particular, the declinists’ interpretation and use of demographic, archaeological, anthropological and historical evidence. The article argues Read More ›

From Anil Ananthaswamy and Kate Douglas at New Scientist: Chimpanzees are not a proxy for our ancestors – they have been evolving since our two family trees split between 7 and 10 million years ago – but their social structures can tell us something about the conditions that male dominance thrives in. Common chimpanzee groups are manifestly patriarchal. Males are vicious towards females, they take their food, forcibly copulate with females that are ovulating and even kill them merely for spending time away from the group. More. (paywall) As part of a denunciation of patriarchy in human society, this does not sound like it holds much promise but one must pay to find out more… From James Kushiner at Salvo, Read More ›

Recently, we noted a piece by astrophysicist Adam Becker at Aeon, asking whether “fetish for falsification and observation” holds back science. Essentially, multiverse cosmologists have been trying for some time to undermine basic principles of science such as the requirement for evidence and the capacity for falsification, in order to get their evidence-free theories accepted as science. Once they are accepted as official science on the basis that they somehow feel right, evidence against them won’t really matter much. Laszlo Bencze, who has studied Karl Popper’s work in some detail, writes to offer some thoughts: — I finally read the article referenced. It is filled with the same confusion about Popper’s philosophy of science as I have seen many times Read More ›

Sabine Hossenfelder reflects on British science writer Jim Baggott’s 2013 book Farewell to Reality at her blog, Back(re)action: I largely agree with Baggott’s assessment, though I am less critical of research on the foundations of quantum mechanics and I could quibble with his take on black hole evaporation, but it seems somewhat besides the point. I share Baggott’s worry that presenting unfounded speculations, like that we live in a multiverse, as newsworthy research undermines public trust in science. … Baggott is a gifted science writer whose explanations seem as effortless as I’m sure they’re not. He knows his stuff and isn’t afraid of clear words. And having noted this, it is not irrelevant to mention that Baggott is no longer Read More ›

John Horgan asks at Scientific American if science is hitting a wall: Economists show increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns The economists are concerned primarily with what I would call applied science, the kind that fuels economic growth and increases wealth, health and living standards. Advances in medicine, transportation, agriculture, communication, manufacturing and so on. But their findings resonate with my claim in The End of Science that “pure” science—the effort simply to understand rather than manipulate nature–is bumping into limits. And in fact I was invited to The Session because an organizer had read my gloomy tract, which was recently republished. I had lots of reactions to The Session. Here are a few: … In the realm of Read More ›

From Ratio Christi: Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler’s Ethic. is also the author of The Death of Humanity., From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler’s Ethic.

From Rush D. Holt, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), at Scientific American: In the past few years, we have engaged in more forceful and frequent advocacy, rephrasing our motto from “the voice for science” to “the force for science,” and after decades of slow decline in membership, our rolls have turned around dramatically. Our new members, who like our longtime members clearly value Science magazine, now say that they value even more our public advocacy and efforts to fully integrate science and engineering into society and government. In short, we are seeing around the world—in marches, in scientific society membership, in civic participation—scientists joining with each other and turning outward. More and Read More ›

From Giorgia Guglielmi, Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, T. V. Padma, Holly Else, Quirin Schiermeier & Barbara Casassus at Nature: More than 250 cities around the world — from Mexico City to London to Mumbai — are hosting events. That’s fewer than last year, when marches in more than 600 cities drew about 1 million people. Still, this year’s overall turnout should be close to that of 2017, because many cities will host related events over the entire weekend, says Valerie Grover, satellite director of the main March for Science organization, who is based in Madison, Wisconsin. This year’s events range from rallies to festivals, and include musical performances, teach-in sessions and expos hosted by March for Science’s partner organizations. That should Read More ›

From Shawna Williams at The Scientist: TS: Do you think last year’s march, or other activism associated with it, have yielded results? RH: Some. The biggest effect was that scientists reminded themselves and each other that this is appropriate to do, that it’s important to do. I think many of the marchers last year were pleasantly surprised at the buoyant effect of being with thousands of other like-minded people to talk about the beauty of science, the relevance of science, the important place of science in society. . . . Maybe scientists shouldn’t need a reminder that it’s appropriate to go public, and in fact there’s an obligation to go public, but I think scientists do need that reminder, and Read More ›

It is with a heavy heart that I let you all know that Terry Mirll, who was one of the first to write ID-oriented fiction, has passed.
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From Alex Berezow at ACSH: Do you see yourself as a worthless cockroach contributing to the collapse of human civilization? Probably not, but Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich thinks precisely that about you. Fifty years ago, he published arguably the worst book ever written, The Population Bomb, which declared that human overpopulation would cause mass starvation. Instead, the Green Revolution (led in part by ACSH co-founder Norman Borlaug) caused global food production to explode, and the world population more than doubled from 3.5 billion in 1968 to 7.6 billion today. … Now, at the age of 85, Dr. Ehrlich still hasn’t let reality change his mind. In fact, he’s doubled down on his apocalyptic prognostications. In an interview with The Guardian, Read More ›

From John Stossel at Townhall: We’ve been told conservatives don’t believe in science and that there’s a “Republican war on science.” But John Tierney, who’s written about science for The New York Times for 25 years and now writes for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, told me in my latest online video, “The real war on science is the one from the left.” Really? Conservatives are more likely to be creationists — denying evolution. “Right,” says Tierney. “But creationism doesn’t affect the way science is done.” More. If we are dealing in the present day (as opposed to a pretend past about how the human ability to raise the eyebrow leads to the human mind), creationism can indeed have no Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at ENST: Cardiff University philosopher Orestis Palermos was at the center of a stir last week for a claim he made, in an online lecture, that evolutionary biology is as much of a pseudoscience as creationism, because it relies very heavily on ad hoc explanations for data after they have been discovered, rather than making bold universal predictions beforehand that hold up. Critics have been saying this for decades, and it’s encouraging to know that others can see it too. When this happens it is always entertaining to watch the consternation of our fundamentalist Darwinist friends. In response they have, of course, flexed their muscles to shut him up, or at least hide the intro video. It Read More ›

From the editors of Nature: Scholars are anxious because extremists are scrutinizing the results of ancient-DNA studies and trying to use them for similar misleading ends. Ancient DNA, for example, offers evidence of large migrations that coincide with cultural changes in the archaeological record, including the emergence of Corded Ware. Some archaeologists have expressed fears that the extremists will wrongly present such conclusions as backing for Kossinna’s theories. Another problem for archaeologists and historians relates to the potential for abuse of the results of ancient-DNA studies looking at more recent times, such as the Migration Period around the fall of the Roman Empire or the era covered by the Viking sagas. They worry that DNA studies of groups described as Read More ›