Intelligent Design
“If’n I Drop, I’m Gonna Be in Motion”
In a recent post I took umbrage with a writer who said : “If determinism is also true, that does not mean that free will is false.” Well, yes, it kinda does, because those two things — determined and free — are mutually exclusive. The whole thing put he in mind of a scene from one of my favorite movies, Raising Arizona. Enjoy.
We actually don’t know the precise value of the Hubble Constant
Does the war on cancer reveal limits to random mutation?
Attempting to define stupidity
Cultural evolution theories “challenged” by multiple dwelling cave
Jerry Coyne has another reason to be mad at Templeton
The junk science of the abortion lobby
Pediatric neurosurgeon Michael Egnor : Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults: “Much of pro-abortion advocacy is science denial—the deliberate misrepresentation of science to advance an ideological agenda. Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University, wrote a misleading essay on that theme in the New York Times, “Science won’t end this debate” (January 22, 2019).” Michael Egnor, “More.” at Mind Matters See also: The Governor Of Virginia: Killing Babies Is OK By Me (Barry Arrington) and Does brain stimulation research challenge free will? (Michael Egnor) Follow UD News at Twitter!
The centriole as just another instance of random accumulation in cells
The Governor of Virginia: Killing Babies is OK by Me
Yesterday two stories out of Virginia went viral. In the first the Democrat sponsor of an “abortion” bill confirmed that she intends to allow the babies to be killed up to the moment of birth. See here. You can read the text of the bill in this article. Under the proposal a baby could be killed up to the moment of birth if a doctor says it would help the woman’s MENTAL health. Depressed that you are about to have a baby? Well, let’s kill it. The second story is about the Virginia governor’s foray into apologetics for killing little babies. (When I first wrote this I almost wrote “infanticide.” I am not going to use that word anymore. It Read More ›
Raining carrots: Falsifiability does not, by itself, make for good science
You wouldn’t think crocs had a complex history but they do
Evolutionary biology’s favorite fish evolve according to an existing genetic program
Paul Davies and the “struggle to define life”
Knock Me Over With a Feather; Jerry Coyne is Being Honest About the Meaninglessness of Subjective Morality
Writing at his blog: With few exceptions, most scientists and philosophers think that morality is at bottom based on human preferences. And though we may agree on many of those preferences (e.g., we should do what maximizes “well being”), you can’t show using data that one set of preferences is objectively better than another. (You can show, though, that the empirical consequences of one set of preferences differ from those of another set.) The examples I use involve abortion and animal rights. If you’re religious and see babies as having souls, how can you convince those folks that elective abortion is better than banning abortion? Likewise, how do you weigh human well being versus animal well being? I am a Read More ›