Culture

Kirk Durston here: In a recent speech, former astronaut Julie Payette, now the Governor General of Canada, displayed her unquestioning belief that science alone is worthy of our total trust and mocked those who are “still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process!” … Contrary to her leap of faith that science has shown us how life began, real science has utterly failed to reproduce such an amazing feat. Maybe someday, highly intelligent scientists will figure out how to build a simple life form, which will underscore the need for intelligent design, but we have not reached that milestone yet, much less Read More ›

This isn’t an area where facts seem to matter much anyhow, at least not at universities. From geneticist Jenny Graves at Intellectual Takeout: In their new paper, the authors Gershoni and Pietrokovsk looked at how active the same genes are in men and women. They measured the RNA produced by 18,670 genes in 53 different tissues (45 common to both sexes) in 544 adult post mortem donors (357 men and 187 women). They found that about one third of these genes (more than 6,500) had very different activities in men and women. Some genes were active in men only or women only. Many genes were far more active in one sex or the other. A few of these genes showed Read More ›

From Rebekah Rubin at Smithsonian Magazine: In The Descent of Man, Darwin argued that evolution made man “superior” to woman. For Darwin, that superiority largely played out in the intellectual and artistic realm. He wrote: “If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music—comprising composition and performance, history science and philosophy … the two lists would not bear comparison.” Spencer echoed Darwin’s sentiments and went further, postulating that in order for the human race to flourish, women must devote their lives to reproduction. For the 44-year-old Blackwell, who had devoted her life to promoting women’s equality, Darwin and Spencer’s conclusions were unacceptable. By penning what would become the first published feminist critique Read More ›

Not in sub-Saharan Africa? Remains from Morocco dated to 315,000 years ago push back our species’ origins by 100,000 years — and suggest we didn’t evolve only in East Africa. … “Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a ‘Garden of Eden’ that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa,” says Jean-Jacques Hublin, an author of the study and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Now, “I would say the Garden of Eden in Africa is probably Africa — and it’s a big, big garden.” Hublin was one of the leaders of the decade-long excavation at the Moroccan site, called Jebel Irhoud. Ewen Callaway, Nature Read More ›

But she may have undermined the Liberal political party she obviously sympathizes with. Sorry for all the news from Canada but sometimes a smaller place can be a bellwether. Re “Canadian astronaut turned governor-general trashes all Canadians who doubt that life is a “random process,” Mark Bonokoski at The Toronto Sun: “Imagine if [former Prime Minister] Harper had appointed Julie Payette as Governor General, and she had spouted off the same speech in which she mocked religion and ridiculed the faith of believers?” Actually, Harper was never quite arrogant enough to do that. It’s a new development. And Payette is not just a feckless office-seeker spouting off and learning the hard way. She speaks in the name of the Queen. Read More ›

Good chance. While science boffins obsess about “creationism in the schools,” your local teachers’ union could be selling out to no-standards post-modernism. From Conrad Black at The National Post: In response to falling test results, teachers’ federation proposes ending testing The obfuscation of the teachers’ union publication continued: “Soon, a perceived crisis in Ontario education began to emerge when our students began scoring lower on mathematics standardized tests … First politicians placed the blame for these low test scores on educators.” What an outrageous act of scapegoating that was — what would deteriorating academic performance have to do with the quality and competence of teaching? “Money was poured into boosting the math proficiency of teachers … but the curriculum remained Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Scientists theorized that they could manipulate a protein one mutation at a time and predict its evolution. They sought to prove it. And failed. They do think, however, that they’ve found a fundamental truth underlying unpredictability in a biological system. Basic physical limitations make uncertainty the norm, they reported in a paper published online Oct. 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “While we got a surprising negative result, we were able to say why,” said Michael J. Harms, a professor in the UO Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and scientist in the Institute of Molecular Biology. “That is a positive. Our simple study provides confirmation of what many people in the field have observed Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: What readers most need to understand about Wikipedia is that the editors are almost all pseudonyms of volunteer non-authorities. Many have an axe to grind. They wield power over mass opinion not because they’re objective or knowledgeable but simply by virtue of being dedicated to Wikipedia, on call at a moment’s notice to “fix” any correction they don’t like. The sociological profile there, someone with that kind of free time on his hands, guarantees that the page will attract people unfriendly to an idea like the design hypothesis. Who’s been editing the ID entry lately? Check out the Revision history. The participants’ User pages can be interesting to read. The editors include, Read More ›

From Paul Kingsbury at LiveScience: Recent literature in the social sciences on paranormal cultures argues that despite the rise of a secular, post-religious society, paranormal discourses are becoming increasingly significant in people’s lives in the West. Because the paranormal refers to “events or phenomena… that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding,” researchers have long acknowledged that the paranormal intersects with “normal” everyday life. Recently, however, as a result of a paranormal influence in popular culture, the rise of new spiritualities and commodities associated with them — such as cauldrons, healing crystals and online psychic services — researchers have begun to question describing interest in the paranormal as subcultural or countercultural, rather than mainstream. More. Well, if it is Read More ›

No, it’s not just about ID. It’s happening all over. From Robert Knight at Townhall: As a Wikipedia editor, I’ve made many edits and updates over the years to the American Civil Rights Union’s Wikipedia page without interference. So, imagine my shock when I was alerted this past Monday that someone had made the page revert to a very old version with content deleted and outright errors inserted. I went online and corrected a couple of things, but my corrections were instantly undone. Then, it got worse. On Wednesday, another editor removed a lion’s share of the content describing the ACRU’s activities and issues. Gone were entire sections on election law, environmental regulation, gun laws and religious freedom. Better still: Read More ›

From Alex Berezow at American Council on Science and Health: Climate scientist Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford University has sued the National Academy of Sciences, which publishes the prestigious journal PNAS, for publishing an article that disagreed with him. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Jacobson was libeled and slandered. He is suing to get the journal to retract the article. For his hurt feelings and bruised ego, he also wants a big bag of money, $10 million to be precise. To understand this, one must factor in the growing influence of post-modernism in science: There are no facts, only feelings. So unsupported claims are not a problem but hurting someone’s feelings is a big problem, if not a crime. The Read More ›

From Paul Nelson at Evolution News & Views: A group of students at the University of the Algarve, in Faro, Portugal, wanted to have a one-day conference on ID at the university. They invited Professor Marcos Eberlin of Campinas State University in Brazil (the 2016 Thomson Medal winner) and me, to speak. The conference was scheduled for Monday, October 23, with university endorsement. Then, as soon as the conference was advertised, outside pressure began to stop it. On September 22, we received word that the event had been cancelled by the university. Score this as Cancellation Number One. … So they ended up, after a second Portuguese cancellation, at a hotel in Spain. I am so proud of the students who Read More ›

Where science means: Anything goes (with some targeted exceptions). From Denyse O’Leary at Evolution News & Views: Modern science, beginning in Europe in the 18th century, has been dominated by educated European men. But their dominance was not a principle of science. The principles were the laws and theorems that apply an internationally recognized thought pattern to nature. “Hidden figures” who sought and gained equality applied the same principles to the same effect. But for post-modernists, philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994) provided liberation: “Anything goes.” One outcome is that social justice activists have shifted away from helping marginalized people qualify in science toward questioning its principles, supposedly on behalf of the oppressed. We hear that objectivity is “cultural discrimination” (or sexist), Read More ›

Keep them mad. Maybe serious science is coming up for oxygen… just maybe. From Emma Marris at Nature: On 23 October, a group of current and former volunteers posted an open letter to the central March for Science organization in New York City, alleging that it is secretive, insensitive to the concerns of its volunteers, and unwilling to share power or information with organizers of its many affiliated ‘satellite’ groups around the world. The volunteers also claim that the organization sidelined and stonewalled experienced activists who wanted the movement to focus on how science can be used in ways that perpetuate racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. In a statement to Nature, the March for Science said that it Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: In Human Zoos, Dr. West explores the shameful legacy of pseudo-scientific racism that has trailed Darwinian theory from its inception down to today, with the emergence of the so-called alt-right. The film will premiere at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival on Saturday evening, November 11. It will release to the general public next year. More. The pseudo-scientific racism was  predictable from the get-go, once humans were proclaimed to be not special (we became subject to science-based reckonings as if we were animals). And once the Darwinian worldview was adopted by Big Cool Science, the racism became something those who wanted to get ahead just did not talk about. Call Darwinian racism, if you Read More ›