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From the Babylon Bee (still in Twitter jail)

This stuff is not our usual line of coverage. But in these strange times — when Woke American billionaires tell us all when we may and may not laugh — you might be missing the Bee’s sendup of some of the most asinine upperclassmen in Western world history. So here’s your fix. Read More ›

The Bee stings again: 7 ways Christianity ruined science

Babylon Bee: The scientific method was created by a devout Christian, which burdens scientists with restrictive fundamentalist rules: The scientific method limits our science. We're tired of fundamentalist Christians always imposing strict rules. Live a little, for goodness sake! Read More ›

Robo-Doctor? In China, it seems Robot Xiao-Yi has passed the written medical licensing exams

Robo-Doc will see you? Maybe, but not just now. This item popped up from the usual suspect tabloid paper sites while searching on AI and memristors. I have tracked down a couple of more reputable sources so, here goes from China Daily (which is also on the spot): >>A robot has passed the written test of China’s national medical licensing examination, an essential entrance exam for doctors, making it the first robot in the world to pass such an exam. Its developer iFlytek Co Ltd, a leading Chinese artificial intelligence company, said on Thursday that the robot scored 456 points, 96 points higher than the required marks. The artificial-intelligence-enabled robot can automatically capture and analyze patient information and make initial Read More ›

BA77 links on the consequences of mind = brain ideologies

While we’re on a roll on AI and its import at the hands of evolutionary materialistic scientism dressed in a lab coat, BA77 has linked a comic strip — see here (main site here; cf. twist on The Cave currently top of the heap) — that is at first funny then soberingly serious: As in, where do you think these issues fit in: And perhaps Engineer Derek Smith’s model has a few points to ponder as we think about the higher order, supervisory controller in the cybernetic loop: Food for thought. END PS: Could I put up for reflection the notion that the human soul is at the interface of spirit and body, including Brain and CNS?

Latemarch on the evolution of AI

Sometimes a comment is too good to leave there in the combox. So: LM, 2 in the AI intelligent agency thread: >>It brought to mind the evolution of AI. It all began with lightning (electrons) striking rocks (silicon) for billions of years (might a nearby warm pond be helpful?) until now we have the delicate motions of electrons thru silicon that we know of as computers. The software is the result of random noise in the bits and bytes of the operating system (we’re still working out how that originated. Any day now!) that were duplicated as a separate file and eventually, driven by natural selection, resulting in the wonderful programs we enjoy today. At the furious rate of evolution Read More ›

New Evidence Against the Existence of God: Antarctica, Arizona, Atlantic Ocean

Recently over on this thread started by Barry we have been discussing one of the tired atheist arguments against God’s existence: bad design.  The discussion has been primarily in the context of some of Carl Sagan’s remarks cited by john_a_designer, but Sagan is by no means unique in his failed efforts. Commenter rvb8 had the audacity to claim that the faulty “bad design” line of argumentation is in fact a “well argued point,” warning in the same breath that we mustn’t question Sagan because, well, Sagan was an important science guy. When pressed on the matter, rvb8 dug in his heels and reasserted that the bad design line of argumentation “is sound,” pointing out that God was tremendously wasteful. Now I’ve heard Read More ›

Astronomers: We’re sane but our kitchen talks to us

Beginning in the late ’90s, once or twice a year, astronomers operating the telescope at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia would pick up mysterious radio signals. These signals were known as perytons, described in a recent report as “millisecond-duration transients of terrestrial origin.” The researchers believed the perytons were linked to atmospheric activity such as lightning strikes, and they held this belief for around 17 years, until this year, when they installed a new receiver to monitor interference, The Guardian reports. The actual source of the perytons? A microwave. The receiver detected signals at 2.4 GHz within 5 kilometers of the telescope, which the researchers realized were being created by staffers heating up their lunches in the Read More ›

Do Fish Make Design Inferences?

KF says they do: Just from the suspiciously uniform but non-repetitive asymmetric pattern of surfaces and features in the sand castle — too many straight lines and arcs of circles or circles, rectangles, cuboids and the like — I would be suspicious. BTW, in lure fishing, too much uniformity is to be avoided, the fish get suspicious: straight lines, overly steady speeds and overly regular noises. Hence the famous Darter used in surf fishing, which is designed to erratically dart especially in a zone with currents and waves . . . BTW, a real bugbear to design and build. IOWs, to use your abbreviation, even smart fish make a design inference on known design patterns and don’t bite!

Jerry’s Question — Crash Course in Base Pairs and Complementary Strands

Our longtime commenter Jerry several months ago asked a question about DNA (regarding complementary strands). I presume he got an answer by now. At the time, I wanted to respond to his question with this video, but I just never got around to it! But the video would still be incredibly valuable to all our readers. If I showed this video to ID sympathizers, it’s rather easy to persuade them of ID. It’s only about 13 minutes long, but you’ll learn a lot about DNA, chemistry, and ID (indirectly if you know what I mean), and the history of Rosalind Franklin’s contribution. I love the narrator’s fast talking. Slow talking puts me to sleep! [youtube 8kK2zwjRV0M]