Category: Intelligent Design
Arizona education change: Parts of evolution theory termed “not proven.” Meltdown among Darwin’s faithful.
| May 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, science education |
From Catherine Offord at The Scientist: Arizona’s Department of Education is considering new school science standards that would replace or alter references to evolution. School officials behind the change have argued that the wording of the standards, which are available in draft form for public comment until May 28, should be adjusted to reflect uncertainty […]
Epigenetics: Does childhood vulnerability affect sperm miRNA levels?
| May 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Epigenetics, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: Exposure to early life trauma can lead to poor physical and mental health in some individuals, which can be passed on to their children. Studies in mice show that at least some of the effects of stress can be transmitted to offspring via environmentally-induced changes in sperm miRNA levels. … “The study raises […]
Retro: Futurist Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) on the future of space exploration. Which is where we are living now.
| May 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Astronomy, Culture, Exoplanets, Geo-strategic issues, Intelligent Design |
Suzan Mazur has republished her wide-ranging interview with the Renaissance man (in an age of specialization), first published in Omni in 1981, at Oscillations. The interview as a whole offers insights on how space exploration was viewed back then (for example, habitable planets were not top of mind): Suzan Mazur: Since every last mineral can […]
Researcher asks, if ecology caused the human brain to grow so large, what about the role of language?
| May 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
Further to the claim that ecology, not social challenges drove the huge increase in human brain size, Ashley Yeager offers some alternative views at The Scientist: “González-Forero and Gardner are on the right track,” David Geary of the University of Missouri in Columbia tells New Scientist. But he questions whether the model accurately calculated just how […]
Quote of the Day
| May 24, 2018 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
“The Enlightenment undermined itself through hubris and hatred for tradition, and Nietzsche danced upon the ruins. ” Nathanael Blake
Human evolution researchers: Social challenges decreased brain size
| May 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind |
From evolutionary biologist Mauricio Gonzalez Forero at The Conversation: Most animals have brains in proportion to their body size – species with larger bodies often have larger brains. But the human brain is almost six times bigger than expected for our bodies. This is puzzling, as the brain is very costly – burning 20% of […]
At Psychology Today: Opponent asks, does ID have a valid point about agency?
| May 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Psychology, Science |
It goes downhill from there. If I were a Darwinian, I would be embarrassed by this stuff. From Jeremy E Sherman at Psychology Today: I’m an atheist with a PhD. in evolutionary theory. I spend much of my time encouraging a new relationship with religion and spirituality modeled on our relationship with fiction. For example, […]
Endangered giant Chinese salamander is at least five different “species”
| May 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, extinction, Intelligent Design, speciation |
From ScienceDaily: With individuals weighing in at more than 140 pounds, the critically endangered Chinese giant salamander is well known as the world’s largest amphibian. But researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on May 21 now find that those giant salamanders aren’t one species, but five, and possibly as many as eight. The bad […]
At Science: Hawking’s last work attempted to stick a pin in eternal inflation of the cosmos
| May 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Multiverse |
In Adrian Cho’s interpretation at Science: When Stephen Hawking died on 14 March, the famed theoretical physicist had a few papers still in the works. Today, the Journal of High Energy Physics published his last work in cosmology—the science of how the universe sprang into being and evolved. (Other papers on black holes are still […]
Assisting others at birth not unique to humans, trumpets newspaper. Bonobos do it too.
| May 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Mind |
From Mollie Cahillane at the Daily Mail: Chimps have midwives too: Incredible footage shows female bonobos protecting mothers during labor and assisting in the delivery – Scientists saw three captive bonobos give birth in France and the Netherlands – The mother did not isolate herself from the group and other females helped her – Bonobos […]
Rob Sheldon: Mainstreaming epigenetics sheds light on unsavory history of Darwinism
| May 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Epigenetics, Intelligent Design |
In response to our recent item on the mainstreaming of epigenetics, physicist Rob Sheldon writes to say, in connection with the recent studies of the generational epigenetic effects following mass starvation, — It is, of course, refreshing to see epigenetics now making the mainstream publications. What has me in stitches, however, is all the things […]
David Berlinski with Mark Levin: The link between evolution, science and progressivism
| May 22, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science |
Berlinski, an agnostic mathematician, is author of The Devil’s Delusion, a riposte to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. See also: Darwinian biologist Jerry Coyne takes on skeptical mathematician David Berlinski
Artificial intelligence pioneer laments current AI limitations, promises machines with free will and morality
| May 22, 2018 | Posted by News under Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design |
From Kevin Hartnett at the Atlantic, interviewing, for Quanta Magazine, Judea Pearl, author (along with Dana Mackenzie) of The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect In his new book, Pearl, now 81, elaborates a vision for how truly intelligent machines would think. The key, he argues, is to replace reasoning by […]
Does the beginning of the universe require a cause?
| May 22, 2018 | Posted by News under Big Bang, Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics |
A philosophical question to wake you up. A reader directs our attention to a 2015 piece by cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin at Inference Review (2015): THE ANSWER to the question, “Did the universe have a beginning?” is, “It probably did.” We have no viable models of an eternal universe. The BGV theorem gives us reason to […]
Pigeons much smarter than monkeys in some tests
| May 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Mind |
Discussing the current push to give animals human-like rights, Maggie Koerth-Baker tells us at Five Thirty Eight: Animals don’t stack up the way you’d expect. “[Pigeons have] knocked our socks off in our own lab and other people’s labs in terms of what they can do,” said Edward Wasserman, a professor of experimental psychology at […]
Researchers: Cambrian explosion was not an explosion after all
| May 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Cambrian explosion, Intelligent Design |
From Harry Pettit at the Daily Mail: The ‘Cambrian explosion’ is one of the most significant events in the planet’s 4.5-billion-year history and ultimately led to the arrival of complex animals like humans. New research shows the event – which took place between 500 and 540 million years ago – was a much more gradual […]
Can fuzzballs explain away the Big Bang? And the origin of time?
| May 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Physics |
From Sophie Hebden at FQXI: A radical theory replaces the cosmic crunchers with fuzzy quantum spheres, potentially solving the black-hole information paradox and explaining away the Big Bang and the origin of time. … If the core of a black hole isn’t confusing enough, things get worse when you consider its surface—or “event horizon”—which marks […]
Science vs. Scientists Part 2: Crucial Cancer Theory Dismissed for Half Century
| May 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, science education |
David Nguyen outlines the history of the Warburg effect at Think Tank Learning: See also: Science News Fact Check: Did Craig Venter create life? With David Nguyen
Did the dying Stephen Hawking strengthen the case for God by reintroducing fine-tuning?
| May 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Philosophy, Religion |
In his final paper, with Hertog, scaling back the multiverse? From Philip Goff at the Guardian: But if all of the universes have exactly the same laws – as in Hawking and Hertog’s proposal – the problem returns, as we now need an explanation of why the single set of laws that govern the entire […]
At CSICOP: Why millennials and liberals turn to astrology
| May 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
From Stuart Vyse at CSICOP: One of the most noteworthy aspects of belief in astrology is that it is more often embraced by liberals, which places it in the company of the anti-GMO and anti-vaccination movements (Vyse 2015). A 2009 Pew Research Center study found that people who described themselves as liberal were almost twice […]
