Category: Naturalism
Researcher: A “chemical brain” will solve the hard problem of consciousness
| September 16, 2018 | Posted by News under Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Origin Of Life |
Because silicon can’t, says chemist: WHEN Lee Cronin was 9 he was given a Sinclair ZX81 computer and a chemistry set. Unlike most children, Cronin imagined how great it would be if the two things could be combined to make a programmable chemical computer. Now 45 and the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of […]
Gaia theory is now Gaia 2.0
| September 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Naturalism, Religion |
Yes, everything is going high tech now, it seems. Intro of topic For around half a century, the ‘Gaia’ hypothesis has provided a unique way of understanding how life has persisted on Earth. It champions the idea that living organisms and their inorganic surroundings evolved together as a single, self-regulating system that has kept the […]
“Perhaps physics has slipped into a post-empirical era…”
| September 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Philosophy, Physics |
Science writer David Appell suggests this, in all seriousness, in his review of Sabine Hossenfelder’s Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, at Physics World: Hossenfelder confronts physicists to ask them why their ideas aren’t working. Michael Krämer, who heads the new-physics group at the LHC and works on supersymmetry, tells her that he is “honestly […]
Nathan Lents is still wrong about sinuses but is still writing about them
| September 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Naturalism |
He is the author of a “bad design” book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes: Earlier this year writers for Evolution News posted responses to Dr. Lents, who teaches at John Jay College and wrote a recent book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to […]
Rob Sheldon comments on the “dirtiest fight in physics”
| September 11, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Naturalism, Physics, Science |
Recently, we noted the dirtiest fight in physics, over the nature of the universe. Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts: A great story on the level of confusion in the world of astronomy and particle physics. My own view is: they’re both wrong. Dark Matter WIMP proponents postulate an invisible particle that […]
The world naturalism prevents us from seeing
| September 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Big Bang, Culture, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Naturalism |
Biola physics prof John Bloom offers some thoughts: For example, since the 1930s we have a growing body of data which show that the universe is expanding in a way which implies that everything in it came from a single point and an enormous burst of energy. Thus, it convincingly looks like our universe had […]
Does the sheer size of the universe prove that nature is all there is?
| September 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Physics |
Frank Turek takes on the size of the universe: Many atheists think that the universe has a lot of “wasted space” and this is in some way evidence against theism. Note: “Naturalism” means the claim that nature is all there is, often called “materialism,” Hat tip: Ken Francis See also: What is “dualism” and why is […]
Astonishing conclusion: Chimpanzees can’t speak because they don’t have the mental status
| September 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, language, Naturalism |
Can you believe a typical science site coming to a conclusion that is so evidence-based? We all know that parrots can talk. Some people may have even seen elephants, seals, or whales mimicking speech sounds. So why can’t our closest primate relatives speak like us? Our new research suggests they have the right vocal anatomy […]
Mortarboard mob “disappears” respected mathematician
| September 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Evolutionary psychology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Peer review, Science |
He and Gunter Bechly should talk. Recently, Barry Arrington noted the story out of Brown University, where a paper got “disappeared” for making the point — that would seem so obvious to anyone who spends much time with teen girls as to hardly merit a paper — that sexual attitudes can be contagious. Ted Hill […]
Could AI understand the universe better than we do?
| September 5, 2018 | Posted by News under Artificial Intelligence, Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism |
Better than we ever could? Recently, we discussed well-known chemist and atheist proponent Peter Atkins’s claim that science, not philosophy, answers the Big Questions: One class consists of invented questions that are often based on unwarranted extrapolations of human experience. They typically include questions of purpose and worries about the annihilation of the self, such […]
Sam Harris, atheists, and charitable giving
| September 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Atheism, Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism |
Researcher: Across the board, in every category, accounting for every variable, no matter how you slice the pie, the single biggest factor behind charitable giving is . . . religious faith.
Professor: Maths should be a movement against “objects, truths, and knowledge”
| August 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Education, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism, science education |
Same ”Mathematx” prof, same bilge, more publicity, but no action: A U.S. professor who teaches future public school teachers will “argue for a movement against objects, truths, and knowledge” in a keynote to the Mathematics Education and Society conference this coming January, says her talk description. “The relationship between humans, mathematics, and the planet has […]
The fight over the universe has turned ugly, with accusations of “cheating”
| August 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Naturalism |
We are told: “Wherever you look in the cosmos, things don’t seem to add up.” And now physicists like Sabine Hossenfelder are accused of cheating: Ethan Siegel, astrophysicist-blogger behind Forbes’ Starts With a Bang! blog, responded with a post titled “There’s A Debate Raging Over Whether Dark Matter Is Real, But One Side Is Cheating.” […]
Revealing in-thread exchanges on the imposition of evo mat scientism/ naturalism (and on the tactics to deflect attention from that)
The imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism (aka naturalism) is one of the key issues driving the march of folly in our civilisation. It is also very difficult to discuss as there are some very powerful rhetorical deflectors at work. Sometimes, then, the best thing we can do is to clip from one of UD’s exchanges […]
And now black holes can be ghosts…
| August 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Naturalism, Philosophy, Physics, Science |
From previous universe: In Penrose and similarly-inclined physicists’ history of space and time (which they call conformal cyclic cosmology, or CCC), universes bubble up, expand and die in sequence, with black holes from each leaving traces in the universes that follow. And in a new paper released Aug. 6 in the preprint journal arXiv—apparent evidence […]
How Roger Penrose proposes that the universe can be eternal
| August 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Physics |
For all practical purposes. From the author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, at her blog BackRe(Action) According to Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, the universe goes through an infinite series of “aeons,” each of which starts with a phase resembling a big bang, then forming galactic structures as usual, then cooling down as […]
Fake news on the ID controversy still includes babies with tails
| August 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Intelligent Design, Media, Naturalism |
Last year, David Klinghoffer offered some thoughts on fake news about controversies in evolution in popular media that bear repeating: The supposedly objective investigative news site ProPublica hit all of them — codes, creationism, Kitzmiller v. Dover — in a recent article, going after then-Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos, who had mentioned “critical thinking” in […]
You think the SJW war on engineering is a joke…
| August 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Engineering, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism |
And that is your mistake. A look at how social justice warriors have penetrated the soft underbelly of engineering: Engineering education has been infiltrated by a “phalanx of social justice warriors” who are steadily corrupting the field, according to a Michigan State University professor. “They have sought out the soft underbelly of engineering, where phrases […]
The war on math and science spreads to engineering
| August 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Engineering, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Naturalism |
It’s a good thing that we don’t need bridges and buildings to be stable: Professional engineers are expressing befuddlement over unsubstantiated scholarly accusations that the field’s licensure exam is biased against women. Women are 11.6% less likely to pass. The agency that administers the exam—the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES)—also pushed […]
At the heart of the “sciencey” urban elite world, a reversion to witchcraft
| August 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Religion |
Making nonsense meaningful: In such a large and diverse city, it is no surprise that the Craft is fairly accessible, if you know where to look. Nearly 80 covens and pagan organizations operate in the New York Metropolitan area, according to the pagan networking site The Witches’ Voice. Exact numbers of witches in the city […]
