Researchers: “This suggests that the basis for the human brain’s evolution are genetic mechanisms that are probably a lot more complex than previously thought, as it was supposed that the answer was in those two per cent of the genetic DNA. Our results indicate that what has been significant for the brain’s development is instead perhaps hidden in the overlooked 98 per cent, which appears to be important. This is a surprising finding.”
Intelligent Design
At Cosmos Magazine: Why viruses are considered non-living
It doesn’t help settle the ongoing debate that there is no single definition of life. Or that giant viruses like the mimivirus blur the line. Or that viruses share some genetics with host cells. Also, we often hear about the “strategies” of viruses. Which raises the question: If information had a physical form, would it be like viruses?
Oldest human-like footprints are 2.5 million years older than the ones attributed to “Lucy”
Re footprints in Crete: “The tracks are almost 2.5 million years older than the tracks attributed to Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) from Laetoli in Tanzania,” says study co-author Uwe Kirscher, an expert on paleogeography at the University of Tübingen, in a statement. [Crete?!]
New findings on the devolution of tuskless elephants
Why were two-thirds of the tuskless babies females? “They also suspected that the relevant gene was dominant – meaning that a female needs only one altered gene to become tuskless — and that when passed to male embryos, it may short-circuit their development.”
Only at Salon: The human neck is an evolution mistake
It is, on the whole, a mistake to get human evolution news from a glitzmag. Engineer Walter Myers III offers some alternative thoughts.
Crab trapped in amber at 99 million years ago is remarkably similar to modern crabs
But by now we know enough to expect that, don’t we?
At YouTube: Jonathan Wells on Human Evolution, Darwinism, and Media Coverage of Fossils
In under six minutes. Iconic uber-fossil Lucy is among the topics discussed.
At Mind Matters News: What can mapping the whole brain tell us about ourselves ?
Researchers attempting to map the brain must contend with massive complexity at every level, as a report in Nature shows. The proposed whole brain map will shed light on many of these situations. If it doesn’t shed light on some of them, we are probably looking at a new frontier.
Here’s a lay-friendly explanation of the critical role “junk DNA” plays in mammalian development
Odd, isn’t it, that ancient invading viruses would turn out to be critical for survival.
Here’s more on Canceled prof Dorian Abbot’s talk on climate and exoplanets — Thursday
Abbot: “Whether a planet could be habitable is determined primarily by the planet’s climate. This lecture will address insights we’ve gained from studying Earth’s climate and how those have been used to make predictions about which exoplanets might be habitable, and how astronomical observations indicate the possibility of new climatic regimes not found on modern Earth…” [The Woke are, of course, welcome to scream, assault passersby, and torch cars and buildings in the comfort of their own Zoom meeting at the same time.]
Laszlo Bencze responds to the view that evil is the absence of good
Bencze: I have found that all people, even diehard progressives,agree that there are some things that are prohibited. They might balk at homophobia. Surely that can’t be permitted? … So, if not all things are permitted, then, logically speaking, god must exist. In this way the existence of evil points to god.
Egnor vs. Dillahunty: 11. Is evil in the world simply the absence of good?
Egnor: “The Thomistic understanding of evil is that it’s an absence of good. It’s not a thing that exist independently in itself. It’s a deficit of goodness. God’s creation necessarily fall short of goodness because if he created something perfectly good, He would just be creating himself. “
Science as a set-up
My 2015 book “In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design” includes a couple of chapters dealing with the “compensation” argument (anything can happen in an open system without violating the second law of thermodynamics), a chapter on the big bang, which includes the differential equation modeling the expansion of the universe that shows Read More…
At Mind Matters News: There is no such thing as a fossil mind
If our behavior is said to stem from our prehuman past, not from our present circumstances, evolutionary psychology is a discipline without a subject.
John West on the tragedy of Francis Collins’s model of science and faith
If Collins stands for “theistic evolution,” reading about it has made some of us feel better about atheistic evolution. At least the atheistic evolutionists don’t pretend that they think human beings have intrinsic value. You know where you are with them.