Naturalism

Yes. From astrophysicist Caleb Sharf at Nautilus: Alien life could be so advanced it becomes indistinguishable from physics. After all, if the cosmos holds other life, and if some of that life has evolved beyond our own waypoints of complexity and technology, we should be considering some very extreme possibilities. Today’s futurists and believers in a machine “singularity” predict that life and its technological baggage might end up so beyond our ken that we wouldn’t even realize we were staring at it. That’s quite a claim, yet it would neatly explain why we have yet to see advanced intelligence in the cosmos around us, despite the sheer number of planets it could have arisen on—the so-called Fermi Paradox. … In Read More ›

From Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: Back in 2013 one could read lots of claims in the media that “Hard evidence for the multiverse” had been found, based on “effects of quantum entanglement between our horizon patch and others”. These claims were discussed on this blog (with a response from the authors here). A new paper by Will Kinney has now been published in JCAP, including the following conclusion about such claims: It is worthwhile to discuss in general the “concrete predictions” originally claimed by the authors of refs. [1,2], since several key claims do not survive even cursory scrutiny. For example, the discontinuity in the effective potential claimed to be correlated with voids and the CMB cold spot Read More ›

From Ann Reid, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education, at Huffington Post: Dear NCSE members and friends of science, I’m writing in a profound state of shock, as I’m sure you’ll understand. You are no doubt in the same state. For the National Center for Science Education, of course, the election of someone who thinks climate change is a hoax and whose running mate once denounced evolution from the floor of the House of Representatives, is frightening and deeply depressing. Okay. Next time, try reading something other than your own media releases or dying mainstream media about what is going on around you. Note: In another context, one might have told Reid to read mainstream media. But on these Read More ›

Dan Rather? Yes, at Scientific American: The political press treats science as a niche issue. But I would argue that it is central to America’s military and economic might, that it shapes the health and welfare of our citizenry, and that our governmental support of the pure pursuit of knowledge through basic research is one of the defining symbols of American excellence. Science bolsters our global stature by its institutionalized respect for the truth, its evidence-based decision-making, and its willingness to accept differing opinions when the facts dictate them. Wow. Like, wow. Dan Rather perpetrated one of the biggest scandals in the history of modern American journalism when he knowingly accepted documents that were probable fakes (Rathergate), damaging his network, Read More ›

From Andrea Gawrylewski at Scientific American: Richard Dawkins, we are informed, wants all prominent scientists to move to New Zealand: The two largest nations in the English-speaking world have just suffered catastrophes at the hands of voters—in both cases the uneducated, anti-intellectual portion of voters. Science in both countries will be hit extremely hard: In the one case, by the xenophobically inspired severing of painstakingly built-up relationships with European partners; in the other case by the election of an unqualified, narcissistic, misogynistic sick joke as president. In neither case is the disaster going to be short-lived: in America because of the nonretirement rule of the Supreme Court; in Britain because Brexit is irreversible. No, we are not making this up Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: At UMC Utrecht, a brain implant has been placed in a patient enabling her to operate a speech computer with her mind. The researchers and the patient worked intensively to get the settings right. She can now communicate at home with her family and caregivers via the implant. That a patient can use this technique at home is unique in the world. This research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. … The patient operates the speech computer by moving her fingers in her mind. This changes the brain signal under the electrodes. That change is converted into a mouse click. On a screen in front of her she can see the alphabet, plus some additional Read More ›

John Searle gives a nice talk at Google about real intelligence vs. machine intelligence. The conversation is interesting for a number of reasons, including some historical background of Searle’s famous “Chinese Room Argument.”
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From physicist Rob Sheldon, our physics colour commentator, on what’s wrong with the latest new theory of consciousness. That’s the one by Anil Seth that walloped through here quite recently, namely, Researcher: Never mind the “hard problem of consciousness”: The real one is… “Our experiences of being and having a body are ‘controlled hallucinations’ of a very distinctive kind” Sheldon: The key point in this article is in this sentence: But there is an alternative, which I like to call the real problem: how to account for the various properties of consciousness in terms of biological mechanisms; without pretending it doesn’t exist (easy problem) and without worrying too much about explaining its existence in the first place (hard problem). Restating it, Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views, in connection with the documentary Revolutionary, about biochemist and design theorist Michael Behe, recounts: As one paleontologist recounts here, after his own mind was opened to the cogency of design arguments, he met ID scientists and scholars and was surprised to find they bore little resemblance to what he expected based on media caricatures. The shy (as he describes himself), self-effacing, yet stubborn Dr. Behe may also come as a revelation to those who don’t know him but assume he must be a cartoon “creationist.” Revolutionary is unlike other ID films I’m familiar with in the way it offers personal stories. One of the most startling concerns University of Idaho microbiologist Scott Read More ›

A recent article tries to tackle some important and often-missed points of social psychology. [Unbridled skepticism] has given rise to a belief that what we think about ourselves and our lives together cannot be held with any confidence until objective, scientific insight into these problems is obtained. The result of taking such a stance on our knowledge in this realm is that we become thoroughly unsure of the only seat of experience available to us: ourselves. Doubt penetrates to the deepest level such that we begin to wonder if we are merely mirages, and the scientific method is seen as the sole means of reassurance that this is not the case. In consequence, the prospect of making genuine discoveries, ones Read More ›

He kindly writes to say, — Some days ago I was watching a TV documentary movie where a team of archeologists were investigating the ruins of a Roman villa, unearthed in England. At one point, one of them unearthed a small, colored cubic rock. The archeologists knew that crystals would not form naturally in that soil. So he enthusiastically shouted: “Wow, here is a piece of the villa’s floor!”. In archeology, a cubic rock is sufficient to infer design, without hesitation, with no need of probabilistic calculations, rather in a somewhat direct intuitive way! Compare the archeology scenario to what happens in biology: here evolutionists — before systems far more complex, specified and organized than cubic stones — work hard Read More ›

From at ScienceDaily: Scientific discoveries often arise from noticing the unexpected. Such was the case when researchers, studying a tiny device that has become increasingly important in disease diagnostics and drug discovery, observed the surprising way it funneled thousands of water droplets into an orderly single file, squeezing them drop by drop, out the tip of the device. Instead of occurring randomly, the droplets followed a predictable pattern. These observations led the researchers to deduce mathematical rules and understand why such rules exist. … “Beyond the immediate relevance to microfluidics, we believe our findings could one day be applied to forming nanocrystals into precise shapes,” Tang said. Researchers do not yet have a way to exert the sort of steady Read More ›

To be held at Hughes Hall, Cambridge University. Full details are here: Book here. Note: It doesn’t cost a lot but tickets are limited. Conference Description Since Darwin, biology has been dominated by a bottom-up, materialistic framework in which living things are ultimately derived from undirected physical processes — at the origin of life itself — and then change via random variations sifted by natural selection (or drift) throughout three billion years of organismal evolution. Within the past three decades, however, the sufficiency of this materialist framework has been strongly challenged by unexpected evidence. What if information, and not physical or material causes, provides the key to understanding biology? What are the principles governing the origin and transmission of biological information? Read More ›

Awarded to Drs. Frasier Stoddart, Ben Feringa, and Jean-Pierre Sauvage. From Akshat Rathi at Quartz: Stoddart’s inspiration came from nature. All life is powered by tiny biological machines that nature has had billions of years to perfect. The most fundamental processes of life, such as translating genetic code to make proteins or ensuring that cellular waste is recycled, require the use of molecular machines, which are 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, and function only on chemical energy. “Stoddart wanted to use chemistry to make similar-sized machines that would do our bidding. Like traditional machines, these would need parts, motors and a source of energy, but doing so on a molecular level is far more complicated.” More. Notice how Read More ›

From Debra Heine at Townhall: A child genius in Pennsylvania is studying to be an astrophysicist so he can become the person who finally proves the existence of God. Nine-year-old William Maillis graduated from high school in May and is now attending a community college as he develops his theories as to how the universe was created. … William’s parents, Peter and Nancy Maillis, also have a daughter, 29, and son, 26. “[William] was our 17-year-surprise,” the elder Maillis said. He told People that he realized William was advanced when he “started accurately identifying numbers at 6 months old and speaking in complete sentences at just 7 months old.” Priceless: William’s parent’s are allowing him to decide for himself what Read More ›