Intelligent Design

From Denyse O’Leary at Salvo: s there a “crisis” in cosmology, as science writer Dennis Overbye tells us at the New York Times? Or does cosmology merely face “challenges,” as we read at Scientific American? Either way, the tale grows strange. We have so much more data now, but it does not provide the evidence many expected. For example, the ardent faith placed in string theory—the hypothesis that the particles of conventional physics are actually vibrating, one-dimensional “strings”—has proven fruitless for decades. But what if evidence, or its absence, actually matters? Peter Woit, a Columbia University mathematician, is a brave academic. He is an atheist who has long critiqued fashionable string theory (Not Even Wrong, 2007) and the multiverse it Read More ›

From ENV: Kin selectionists think that natural selection favors genes of related individuals. The idea, also called inclusive fitness, purports to explain self-sacrifice in animals and humans — why worker ants serve the queen without reproducing themselves, and why humans put themselves in danger for their families. Some of their genes, presumably, will be passed on through their kin. Kin selection theory was given a mathematical formulation by W. H. Hamilton in 1964, to the relief of many Darwinians eager to find an explanation for altruism. It was promoted by E.O. Wilson, father of sociobiology (which led to evolutionary psychology), Richard Dawkins, father of Selfish Gene theory, Jerry Coyne, and many other Darwinians. But when E.O. Wilson jumped ship in Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: The origin of animals was one of the most important events in the history of Earth. Beautifully preserved fossil embryos suggest that our oldest ancestors might have existed a little more than half a billion years ago. … However, using a recently developed relaxed molecular clock method called RelTime, a team of scientists at Oakland (Michigan) and Temple (Philadelphia) dated the origin of animals at approximately 1.2 billion years ago reviving the debate on the age of the animals. Puzzled by the results of the American team, researchers from the University of Bristol and Queen Mary University of London decided to take a closer look at RelTime and found that it failed to relax the clock. Their findings Read More ›

From Toni Airaksinen at the College Fix: Feminist researcher invents ‘intersectional quantum physics’ to fight ‘oppression’ of Newton: ‘Binary and absolute differences’ are ‘exploitative’ A feminist academic affiliated with the University of Arizona has invented a new theory of “intersectional quantum physics,” and told the world about it in a journal published by Duke University Press. Whitney Stark argues in support of “combining intersectionality and quantum physics” to better understand “marginalized people” and to create “safer spaces” for them, in the latest issue of The Minnesota Review. More. Paper. (pay wall) The abstract reads In this semimanifesto, I approach how understandings of quantum physics and cyborgian bodies can (or always already do) ally with feminist anti-oppression practices long in use. Read More ›

Bill Whittle, an “an American conservative blogger, political commentator, director, screenwriter, editor, pilot, author and the voice of The Common Sense Resistance” offers some entertaining thoughts on the gap between Bill Nye and science as an intellectual enterprise: See also: The war on reality will be waged street by street and Marchin’, marchin’ for Science (Hint: the problems are back at your desk, not out in the streets)

Such as global warming causing glaciers to shrink even though the local temperatures have NOT warmed.  Robert Tracinski explains here. BTW, medieval inquisitors called those who did not accept their views “heretics” or “infidels.”  The religion of environmentalism also has heretics and infidels, but they are called “deniers.”

From ScienceDaily: A new study examining the muscular system of bonobos provides firsthand evidence that the rare great ape species may be more closely linked, anatomically, to human ancestors than common chimpanzees. … Scientists believe that modern human and common chimpanzee/bonobo lineages split about 8 million years ago with the two great ape species splitting about 2 million years ago. As common chimpanzees and bonobos evolved after their split, they developed different traits and physical characteristics, even though they remained geographically relatively close, with their main division being the Congo River. Because of this, researchers have been curious as to what those differences are and how they compare to humans. By studying the muscles of bonobos (which indicates how they Read More ›

Perfect. From Quirin Schiermeier at Nature: Monument to peer review unveiled in Moscow: Cornerstone of modern science immortalized in concrete. Last year, the director of the HSE’s Institute of Education, Isak Froumin, had asked his faculty for ideas about how to turn a useless block of concrete outside the university into something attractive and meaningful. More. Unfortunately, the way things are going, peer review is more likely to be the tombstone of science than the cornerstone and one can only hope that the debate about the problem is as vigorous in Moscow as here. Keep up to date with Retraction Watch See also: Breaking: National Academy of Sciences notices research integrity problem Hat tip:Pos-Darwinista

From Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet: Here are five suggestions for reclaiming our right to think for ourselves: … 2. Stop giving to your alma mater just because you graduated there. It may not be the U you knew any longer. Some problems over the years originated in excellent intentions such as helping as many people attend college as possible. But we all tend to make an underlying assumption: that any given student would thrive in the world of ideas if only he were offered an opportunity. Money was poured into universities by private and government sources but much of it has resulted in administrative bloat, sometimes marketing nebulous “studies” programs that will not prepare a student for life in say, Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: By using highly advanced brain imaging technology to observe modern humans crafting ancient tools, a neuroarchaeologist has found evidence that human-like ways of thinking may have emerged as early as 1.8 million years ago. … “This is a significant result because it’s commonly thought our most modern forms of cognition only appeared very recently in terms of human evolutionary history,” said Shelby S. Putt, a postdoctoral researcher with The Stone Age Institute at Indiana University, who is first author on the study. “But these results suggest the transition from apelike to humanlike ways of thinking and behaving arose surprisingly early.” … “The fact that these more advanced forms of cognition were required to create Acheulean hand axes — Read More ›

Or so one would assume. From Sarah Zhang at the Atlantic: In “The Energy Expansions of Evolution,” an extraordinary new essay in Nature Ecology and Evolution, Olivia Judson sets out a theory of successive energy revolutions that purports to explain how our planet came to have such a diversity of environments that support such a rich array of life, from the cyanobacteria to daisies to humans. Judson divides the history of the life on Earth into five energetic epochs, a novel schema that you will not find in geology or biology textbooks. In order, the energetic epochs are: geochemical energy, sunlight, oxygen, flesh, and fire. Each epoch represents the unlocking of a new source of energy, coinciding with new organisms Read More ›

From astrophysicist Adam Frank at NPR: Sharf has no problem with the creative misreading that allows Buddhist Modernism to share space with scientific worldviews. “My concern,” he told Tricycle, “is not with the selectivity of those who read Buddhism as a rationalist and scientific religion — it is perfectly understandable given the world in which we live. It is really not a question of misreading. It is a question of what gets lost in the process.” Part of the problem for Sharf and others is that by focusing only on the domains of inner experience (i.e. mindfulness via contemplative practice), Buddhist Modernism loses aspects of its function that were central to its history. “Look at how suspicious many Western Buddhists Read More ›

Sure he was. But, see, he bought the “Science” brand. From Jon Cassidy at the American Spectator: Darwinism led to Social Darwinism. As the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has written, after 1859, “subsequent arguments for slavery, colonialism, racial differences, class struggles, and sex roles would go forth primarily under the banner of science.” Most of those arguments have been banished, but were they ever less scientific than Darwin’s own work? After all, Darwin didn’t use the scientific method, either, and worried that his work was “grievously hypothetical.” When you’re working outside of falsifiable propositions, what qualifies a work as science rather than speculation? More. See also: Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but then the brain got away Follow UD News Read More ›

From Matt Ridley/Donna Laframboise at Science New/The Times: The latest university prank is embarrassing to academia and hilarious for the rest of us. Yes. The conceptual penis. And before that: This happened last year, too, when Professor Mark Carey published an even more absurd paper arguing that “a critical but overlooked aspect of the human dimensions of glaciers and global change research is the relationship between gender and glaciers” and introducing “feminist glaciology”. In that case, however, the professor continues to insist, against all evidence, that he was serious. Science magazine gave him a lengthy, softball interview to justify his work after it was laughed at on the internet. I still think he’s a joker in deep cover.More. Yeah. We Read More ›

When some of us were young, our parents would scold us for wasting our time with, like, SuperGirl. But our own Jon Bartlett explains, I have been very pleased with the way that Marvel’s TV show “Agents of Shield” has been at promoting an ID-friendly worldview. Last year I noted that their super-scientists explicitly promoted the idea of “Intelligent Design” (using that terminology) in examining biological phenomena. This season, Agents of Shield addresses moral questions about virtual vs. physical worlds. A common idea in pop culture is the idea that, as computers get bigger, eventually we can just plug our minds into a large computer and live forever. Well, Agents of Shield decided to play with that idea, and look Read More ›