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Category

Neuroscience

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 6, 2020
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
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A neuroscientist on why we can build human-like brains, thanks to the accidental cosmos

Denyse O'Leary
November 6, 2020
Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
To be clear, the basis for Brenner’s confidence is not advances in computer science or neuroscience as such. The basis is that human intelligence originated by accident (“blind fancies”). He is entitled to that opinion but he hasn’t offered evidence for thinking that it is science. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 29, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
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Why, as a neurosurgeon, Michael Egnor believes in free will

Denyse O'Leary
October 29, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
Egnor: "An intellectual seizure would be a seizure that caused abstract thought, such as logic, or reasoning, or mathematics. People never have, for example, mathematics seizures—seizures in which they involuntarily do calculus or arithmetic. This observation, which is as true today as it was in Penfield’s time nearly a century ago, begs for explanation." He offers an argument for the immaterial powers of the mind. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 26, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience
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Michael Egnor addresses an objection to free will raised here at Uncommon Descent

Denyse O'Leary
October 26, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience
Egnor: [fMRI isn't decisive.] But fMRI is worthless in the neuroscience of free will. To understand why, note that fMRI has very poor temporal resolution. fMRI measures changes in blood flow in the brain in response to activity of neurons, and these changes lag neuronal activity by at least several seconds. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 17, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
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Mike Egnor on why Coyne and Hossenfelder are wrong to deny free will

Denyse O'Leary
October 17, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
Egnor: Now let’s get to the neuroscience. Neuroscience has a lot to contribute to the debate over free will and all of it supports the reality of free will. There isn’t a shred of neuroscientific evidence that contradicts the reality of free will. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 29, 2020
Categorized
Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
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Debunking another claim that an alleged “pillar” of human exceptionalism has “fallen”

Denyse O'Leary
September 29, 2020
Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
Stripped of the rhetoric about supposedly fallen “pillars of human exceptionalism,” the researchers found a neuronal response in carrion crows that “might be a broad marker” for consciousness. Well, sure, it might. But before we get carried away, the consciousness we should know the most about is human consciousness, which remains almost a complete mystery to us, despite much research. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 13, 2020
Categorized
Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
Tagged
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If spiders are as intelligent as many vertebrates …

Denyse O'Leary
August 13, 2020
Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience

… and it appears that they are, what is the role of the brain in mediating intelligence? Spiders have rather different brains from vertebrates; much simpler, for one thing: Ronald R. Hoy, Cornell University professor of neurobiology and behavior, considers the spider “one of the smartest of all invertebrates.” But while its behavior is comparable to that of many vertebrates, its anatomy is not: “Dr. Hoy and his colleagues wanted to study jumping spiders because they are very different from most of their kind. They do not wait in a sticky web for lunch to fall into a trap. They search out prey, stalk it and pounce. “They’ve essentially become cats,” Dr. Hoy said. And they do all this with Read More ›

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 4, 2020
Categorized
Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
Tagged
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Brain connectivity is equal in 130 mammals, including humans

Denyse O'Leary
August 4, 2020
Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience
Researcher:"Our study revealed a universal law: Conservation of Brain Connectivity. This law denotes that the efficiency of information transfer in the brain's neural network is equal in all mammals, including humans.” So what makes humans unique isn’t brain connectivity. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
July 24, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
Tagged
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Researchers: Neurons are programmed for long life, not like other cells

Denyse O'Leary
July 24, 2020
Intelligent Design, Neuroscience
From UCal Riverside: The study, published in the journal Neuron, identifies a mechanism the researchers say is triggered at neuron birth to intrinsically decrease a general form of cell death — or “apoptosis” — specifically in neurons. Read More ›