Media

From O’Leary for News at MercatorNet: Social media are no more dangerous than life generally. But they require different interpretation skills from what we need for face-to-face contact. So do books, telephone, radio, and TV. And the current angst isn’t a new phenomenon. It normally follows the introduction of new communications technologies. One example is the anxiety that resulted from printing, especially of Bibles. The anxiety was not baseless; widespread literacy was one driver of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. But would suppressing the printing press have been any help? Was controlling it much of a help? The seething anger already existed and would lead to wars in any event. Literacy helped many people understand their problems in terms of Read More ›

Exhibit A: “If we made contact with aliens, how would religions react?” From Brandon Ambrosino at BBC: The discovery of life on another planet might seem incompatible with faith in a deity. Yet many theologians are already open to the existence of extraterrestrials, argues the writer Brandon Ambrosino. In 2014, Nasa awarded $1.1M to the Center for Theological Inquiry, an ecumenical research institute in New Jersey, to study “the societal implications of astrobiology”. Yes, we noticed that a few weeks back. And we are baffled as to why. Is there any religion on the planet that states as a dogmatic certainty that aliens do not exist? Those people might be worth a quote. Instead, we read This is not just Read More ›

This item at Evolution News & Views is worth pondering: A journalist working for a national newspaper chain has fabricated a claim about the Texas science standards, and now he and his editor are refusing to correct the record. In late September, three Texas newspapers owned by Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. (CNHI) published an article by reporter John Austin claiming that a science standard adopted by Texas in 2009 authorizes the teaching of “non-scientific explanations.” That claim is false. Austin asserted that conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education in 2009 “inserted language into the high school biology curriculum allowing teachers to introduce non-scientific explanations for such questions as why some creatures suddenly appeared in the fossil record about Read More ›

Yes, they are still grousing about that. And, from a distance, they sound surreal. From Dan Jones at New Scientist: In November, Donald Trump defied the pollsters to be elected the 45th US president. A few months earlier, UK voters decided to end their country’s 43-year membership of the European Union. Throughout Europe populist movements are prospering. In every case, opponents have cried foul: these campaigns, they argue, win support by distorting or flagrantly disregarding the truth. But wait. Doesn’t the losing side always say that, in every case? Vote for Doofus instead of Duffus and you’ll soon be hearing from the Duffites that Doofus won by “distorting or flagrantly disregarding the truth.” Much of the electorate is older now Read More ›

No embargoes: From Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch: This Thursday, dozens of news outlets will publish stories on the same new study in the journal Science. On Friday, many of those same news outlets will all report on a study in the medical journal the Lancet. These newspapers and magazines will largely talk to the same sources, and many of their stories will be nearly identical. The reason for this synchrony is embargoes — agreements between reporters and sources that the former can have access to information from the latter, but not publish anything until a time the source has determined in advance. Nearly all of the major scientific journals use them and send the studies out to journalists five Read More ›

From Denyse O’Leary (O’Leary for News) at MercatorNet: Anyone not committed to Darwinian survival of the fittest cannot be ‘alt right’. I wrote the piece because I had been following the alt right (human biodiversity studies, etc.) for a while on account of a curious incident: An alt right group was promoting a book, Troublesome Inheritance, by a retiring science writer. Their promos landed in my box. They understood the book to be a defense of classic Darwinian racism. At the time I was mainly interested in the way in which popular science media treated Inheritance respectfully but very cautiously. The science writers are all supposed to be pro-Darwin, you see, but anti-racist. It is not clear that the two concepts Read More ›

This issue is directly relevant to the ID controversy, but also to much more of what has gone wrong with our civilisation and the utter, stark peril we now face because we ignored warning signs for decades: This has to be decoded a bit, as it is of course in the usual context of our being concerned over sawdust in the other fellow’s eyes while there is a plank in our own.  In an overnight comment, I gave a few clues: >> –> Ask yourself, are ALL the moneybags on one side? (E.g. Koch vs Soros. [And no, I am not endorsing or opposing any parties or individuals, I am pointing out balancing facts given the known tendencies of pundits Read More ›

More info at Evolution News & Views: In a New Documentary, Origin, Paul Nelson and Ann Gauger Confront the Enigma of Chemical Evolution Materialist accounts of origins face a dual challenge — biological evolution and chemical evolution. The latter describes the problem of generating life from nonlife in the hostile environment of the early Earth. To call that problem overwhelming, given the resources of matter and energy alone — in other words, blind churning — doesn’t begin to do it justice. It doesn’t even begin to begin. OriginDVD-Cover__44959.1473718956.1280.1280.jpgThat’s the takeaway from an effective new documentary from Illustra Media, Origin: Design, Chance and the First Life on Earth, featuring Discovery Institute biologist Ann Gauger and philosopher of biology Paul Nelson. Stephen Read More ›

Collectively, they are, um, dumb. After a while, one gets plumb tired of it. From Graham Lawton at New Scientist: IT COST more than $13 billion and took 14 years, but eventually, as expected, God showed up. The joy and relief were immense. That was in 2012, and the evidence has only become stronger. Disbelief is no longer an option. God is real. Not the God of course, but Her particle, aka the Higgs boson. If only proving the existence of God were that simple. Gallons of ink and blood have been spilled over this question but have largely got us nowhere. Belief in a god or several gods is a leap of faith. So is disbelief. The only coherent Read More ›

From at CTV: Researchers are coming forward with examples of junk science distributed by an international company that now has ties to respectable Canadian journals. OMICS Group Inc., an online publishing firm headquartered in India, has been accused of duping academics and publishing bogus research with little to no vetting by experts in the field. A CTV News/Toronto Star investigation found that OMICS purchased two Canadian companies, Andrew John Publishing and Pulsus Group, which have been publishing a number of respected medical journals in fields like cardiology, pathology and optometry. OMICS purchased two Canadian companies, Andrew John Publishing and Pulsus Group. Many scientists, doctors and editors said they were outraged and concerned that a company like OMICS can now essentially Read More ›

From Charles Seife at Scientific American: The deal was this: NPR, along with a select group of media outlets, would get a briefing about an upcoming announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a day before anyone else. But in exchange for the scoop, NPR would have to abandon its reportorial independence. The FDA would dictate whom NPR’s reporter could and couldn’t interview. The government wouldn’t budge on that, and the situation only accidentally came to light. But practically the eintre Who’s Who of big U.S. media science journalism showed up to cover the “story.” This kind of deal offered by the FDA—known as a close-hold embargo—is an increasingly important tool used by scientific and government agencies to control Read More ›

But that is ridiculous. No, we don’t mean New Scientist-type ridiculous. We mean serious ridiculous. Stuff we can’t just ignore. New Scientists, get back to your script! You’re supposed to be explaining why Darwinism prevents a plague of disembodied space brains from taking over the world and why information is physical. Whatever happened to the days when we could raise money just by fronting all the nonsense you people put forward? It’s fundraising season! Look. We’ll even give the New Scientist employees a bonus if they can come up with another completely risible idea. But now look at how far they may have strayed beyond the selfish gene: From Kevin Laland, For more than 150 years it has been one Read More ›

My (O’Leary for News‘) review of Timothy Garton Ash’s Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World, here: 1. The United States has created a global “First Amendment” space for the internet, in the sense that Americans tend to assume that the default position is freedom rather than control. “For the hours you are online, you have virtually emigrated to the United States”. Recent loss of US control means loss of this default position, which is likely to be keenly felt elsewhere. 2. “When it comes to enabling or restricting global freedom of expression, some corporations have more power than most states. Were each user of Facebook to be counted as an inhabitant, Facebook would have a larger population than Read More ›

From Yahoo: WASHINGTON, June 15, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — “Allowing the FCC to rule the Internet like a public utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act will do nothing but produce a broadband shortage,” said George Gilder, bestselling technology author and Discovery Institute senior fellow. “This just creates new incentives for broadband providers to divert investment into advertising and content platforms or other countries,” Gilder added. By a 2-1 vote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld the net neutrality rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. More. This much I know is true: Bureaucrats can administer a shortage of goods and services just as easily as a surplus but businesses in free Read More ›

From Douglas Axe, author of Undeniable, in response to Atul Gawande (“Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense”), who was complaining about lack of public confidence in science. At Evolution News & Views: Maybe the better way to restore public confidence is to abandon the condescending mindset and embrace a much more radically inclusive view of science. Maybe the moms Gawande referred to — the ones who jumped to the conclusion that vaccines were dangerous — aren’t all that different from professional scientists who jump to the conclusion that public dissent is dangerous. Gawande gave five handy tips for writing people off as pseudoscientists, but instead of alienating people by dismissing them Read More ›