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The modern synthesis (schoolbook Darwinism) must be replaced, says philosopher of science Günther Witzany. Modern synthesis The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis is the name given to the school of thought which is now broadly accepted by evolutionary scientists around the world. Formal amalgamation of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Gregor Mendel’s genetics and August Weismann’s germ plasm theory was key to the Modern Synthesis, but other advances in population genetics and palaeontology were also important. From an interview with Suzan Mazur, author of The Origin of Life Circus, at Huffington Post: Over the last half dozen years, philosopher of science and language, Günther Witzany, working from his private practice in Austria, has organized and/or co-organized two major conferences, Read More ›

Further to New Scientist asks What if we could talk to animals? No one with horse sense should be surprised by this: Horses share some surprisingly similar facial expressions to humans and chimps, according to new University of Sussex research. Mammal communication researchers have shown that, like humans, horses use muscles underlying various facial features – including their nostrils, lips and eyes – to alter their facial expressions in a variety of social situations. The findings, published in PLOS ONE today (05 August 2015), suggest evolutionary parallels in different species in how the face is used for communication. The study builds on previous research showing that cues from the face are important for horses to communicate, by developing an objective Read More ›

What if … We learn to talk to animals? That’s one of the big ideas that could, they say,  transform what it means to be human: Actually, we can talk to animals. We do. They don’t say anything back though. Probably never will. One needs to sign in/buy something to read the subsequent classic New Scientist piffle. But do note this (free): Steven Wise, a lawyer at the Florida-based Nonhuman Rights Project, which brought the lawsuit, argues that if chimps are declared legal persons, they should be granted rights to protect their fundamental interests. “That would certainly include bodily liberty and likely bodily integrity as well,” he says. We could no longer keep chimps in captivity, never mind subject them Read More ›

If they do: Astronomers are constantly uncovering the “most distant,” “most massive” or “most energetic” objects in our universe, but today, researchers have announced the discovery of a truly monstrous structure consisting of a ring of galaxies around 5 billion light-years across. … Astronomers believe these GRBs (and therefore the galaxies they inhabit) are somehow associated as all 9 are located at a similar distance from Earth. According to its discoverers, there’s a 1 in 20,000 probability of the GRBs being in this distribution by chance – in other words, they are very likely associated with the same structure, a structure that, according to cosmological models, should not exist. Where have we heard this before? Copernicus, you are not going Read More ›

Details here: A few months ago I painted this portrait of noted evolutionary biologist and writer Richard Dawkins. I shipped the portrait to England on May 15th, 2015, destined for Cambridge, UK CB3. It was shipped from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. It hasn’t been seen since. If you have any information on the whereabouts of this very special portrait, please contact me at heather “at” heatherhorton “dot” com. Thank-you very much… We have no idea where the portrait is. Except Canada Post, absent a tracking number, is a black hole. To judge from the portrait, if Dawkins believed in God, it could be a Sunday School poster. Follow UD News at Twitter!

BBC writer undermines own argument here: First, when talking about evolution, author Chris Baraniuk chooses to defend precisely the theory of evolution that is most under fire just now, in serious intellectual terms: Darwinism Darwin’s theory of evolution says that each new organism is subtly different from its parents, and these differences can sometimes help the offspring or impede it. As organisms compete for food and mates, those with the advantageous traits produce more offspring, while those with unhelpful traits may not produce any. So within a given population, advantageous traits become common and unhelpful ones disappear. The problem is, in a constantly changing environment, “helpful” and “unhelpful” might not mean anything for long. So the theory amounts to “the Read More ›

Handy links to ID-related articles from ARN A friend writes to advise us of this handy source, Access Research Network. For example, just a snippet from August to date: New book – “HUMANS: The fascinating story of how early Homo sapiens became modern humans” My God, Your God? Spectacular Discovery Reveals Power Grid in Muscle Cells; Design Implications Are Profound Evolution News and Views New book – “Who Designed the Designer?” Ignatius Press Sometimes, NASA’s promotion is fun but shameless Uncommon Descent The mystery of particle generations Symmetry Magazine Largely brain absent man functions normally Evolution News and Views The Healthy Man Who Was Missing a Brain Real Clear Science Giant Mystery Ring of Galaxies Should Not Exist Discovery Scientists Read More ›

We understand; they need the money. But get this: NASA ‘on the Cusp’ of Being Able to Answer if We’re Alone in the Universe Chairman says Obama’s funding level “would slow the rate” of missions like the Pluto flyby. More. Are we alone? It’s not an honest question because NASA would never accept a positive answer, as in: Yes we are alone. And we will never be sure if any answer is available either. That’s fine, and no one here says they shouldn’t be funded. But could they spare us this stupidity? Maybe we are not always the fools they take us for. Don’t let Mars fool you. Those exoplanets teem with life! But surely we can’t conjure an entire Read More ›

Here: n 2007, a 44-year-old happily married man with a white-collar job and two children visited a hospital in Marseille, France complaining of mild weakness in his left leg. Some time later, he concluded his hospital episode with his leg weakness cured, but with another, intriguing diagnosis in tow: he was missing most of his brain. A disconcerting notion to most, the condition didn’t seem to trouble the man much at all. Sure, his IQ tested a tad below average, but his medical history and neurological development were otherwise normal. Because metaphysical naturalism is just plain wrong. The situation is not even as rare as supposed; just not diagnosed in the past. See : Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but Read More ›

Here’s a classic pop sci article that could have been written, as George Orwell predicted (1949), by a machine: From ScienceDaily: From an early age, human infants are able to produce vocalizations in a wide range of emotional states and situations — an ability felt to be one of the factors required for the development of language. Researchers have found that wild bonobos (our closest living relatives) are able to vocalize in a similar manner. Their findings challenge how we think about the evolution of communication and potentially move the dividing line between humans and other apes. … Author Zanna Clay said that the findings show that “more research needs to be done on our great ape relatives before we Read More ›

Here’s a public access primer on psycho terms to lose. (In case you know someone who is going into debt for this stuff and must learn them in order to pass.) Maybe we are getting somewhere? Including: (1) A gene for. The news media is awash in reports of identifying “genes for” a myriad of phenotypes, including personality traits, mental illnesses, homosexuality, and political attitudes (Sapolsky, 1997). For example, in 2010, The Telegraph (2010) trumpeted the headline, “‘Liberal gene’ discovered by scientists.” Nevertheless, because genes code for proteins, there are no “genes for” phenotypes per se, including behavioral phenotypes (Falk, 2014). Moreover, genome-wide association studies of major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, suggest that there are probably Read More ›

From evolutionary psychologist that Harvard “Our brains are shaped for fitness, not for truth”guy: here: A truly ethical bioethics should not bog down research in red tape, moratoria, or threats of prosecution based on nebulous but sweeping principles such as “dignity,” “sacredness,” or “social justice.” Nor should it thwart research that has likely benefits now or in the near future by sowing panic about speculative harms in the distant future. These include perverse analogies with nuclear weapons and Nazi atrocities, science-fiction dystopias like “Brave New World’’ and “Gattaca,’’ and freak-show scenarios like armies of cloned Hitlers, people selling their eyeballs on eBay, or warehouses of zombies to supply people with spare organs. Of course, individuals must be protected from identifiable Read More ›

But that’s a big improvement, says Retraction Watch: Here: One hundred forty-seven journals (74%) responded to a request for information. Of these, 95 (65%) had a retraction policy. Of journals with a retraction policy, 94% had a policy that allows the editors to retract articles without authors’ consent. Why it isn’t simple: Retracting scientific papers can pose ethical and legal challenges for journal editors and publishers [1, 2]. The easiest cases occur when the authors all agree that the paper should be retracted due to serious error or misconduct. In harder cases, the authors do not all agree that a paper should be retracted. For example, one author may oppose retraction, believing that a serious flaw identified in the paper Read More ›

The way Darwinism got on it. Including tax-funded textbooks in compulsory public schools and all the rest. At Evolution News & Views, Kirk Durston writes, Science is also advancing our understanding of just how fantastically improbable the origin of life is. Evolutionary biologist, Eugene Koonin, looking at the possibility that life arose through the popular “RNA-world” scenario, calculates that the probability of just RNA replication and translation is 1 chance in 10 with 1,017 zeros after it. Koonin’s solution is to propose an infinite multiverse. With an infinite number of possible universes, the emergence of life will becomes inevitable, no matter how improbable. So the multiverse has become atheism’s “god of the gaps” but some scientists point out that multiverse Read More ›

nucleus of comet Churi/ESA By Rosetta’s Philae: From ScienceDaily: Organic molecules never previously observed in comets, a relatively varied structure on the surface but a fairly homogeneous interior, organic compounds forming agglomerates rather than being dispersed in the ice: these are just some of first results provided by Philae on the surface of comet Churi. These in situ findings, which contain a wealth of completely new information, reveal several differences in comparison with previous observations of comets and current models. … Twenty-five minutes after Philae’s initial contact with the cometary nucleus, COSAC (Cometary Sampling and Composition experiment) carried out a first chemical analysis in sniffing mode, that is, by examining particles that passively enter the instrument. These particles probably came Read More ›