News

Further to Junk DNA hires a PR firm (by the time you can’t tell the difference between Darwin’s elite followers and his trolls, you know something is happening): Rob Sheldon writes to say, There may be some very good reasons for onions to have large genomes. Let’s start with an analogy. My son says the computer game “Starcraft” will play on just about any old piece of computer hardware in the house. However, he tells me, when you go to download the game from the website, it takes up 15 GBytes of space. Evidently, in order to be compatible with older hardware, it has to use less CPU power–since the older machines were not as powerful. Much if not most Read More ›

Fights back. Well, that seems to be what’s happening. Further to: New York Times science writer defends junk DNA (Old concepts die hard, especially when they are value-laden as “junk DNA” has been—it has been a key argument for Darwinism), one of the conundrums on which the junk DNA folk rely heavily is the “onion test” (why does the onion have such a large genome?). Without waiting to answer the question, the junk DNA folk assume that that’s because most of it is junk. But let’s face it, when even Francis Collins, the original Christian Nobelist for Darwin, is abandoning ship, they really need to double down on that junk. From Evolution News & Views: What’s so striking about Zimmer’s Read More ›

It’s why we pay taxes for this stuff: I had occasion to read a rather lengthy essay this week by the Washington Post’s science reporter, Joel Achenbach, which left me feeling not only annoyed but somewhat insulted. Titled, “Why science is so hard to believe” the article didn’t spend much time talking about specific theories under debate, but rather chose to focus on all of you out there in the hoi polloi and why you have such a difficult time sitting down quietly and listening to your betters. I invite you to go through it yourself because there’s a lot of material to cover. But I would point out just one example of the overriding theme which is present throughout Read More ›

… why are there atheist chaplains at U.S. colleges now? New York Times: LOS ANGELES — When Bart Campolo broke with the church almost five years ago, he immediately began to feel something missing. It wasn’t so much that the pastor’s son no longer believed in God; he’d never been that much of a believer anyway. What he missed, Campolo said, was what the church had represented to him: a place where like-minded people could gather for fellowship, to pursue moral justice, to help one another and to try to live good lives. So the onetime United Methodist youth minister, who worked for decades with the poor in inner-city neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, figured he’d try to keep doing Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: th three decades of data from more than 475,000 participants, a new study on narcissism from the University at Buffalo School of Management reveals that men, on average, are more narcissistic than women. Forthcoming in the journal Psychological Bulletin, the study compiled 31 years of narcissism research and found that men consistently scored higher in narcissism across multiple generations and regardless of age. “Narcissism is associated with various interpersonal dysfunctions, including an inability to maintain healthy long-term relationships, unethical behavior and aggression,” says lead author Emily Grijalva, PhD, assistant professor of organization and human resources in the UB School of Management. “At the same time, narcissism is shown to boost self-esteem, emotional stability and the tendency to emerge Read More ›

News writer O’Leary’s night job The Internet can help the grass roots grow—or lay down astroturf. False climates of opinion can be built up through new media. Jihadi brides: Don’t overlook how new media market cruelty as well as porn Some women were captivated by beheading videos. Librarian: The Internet doesn’t harm the good student, but it make the poor student worse http://www.mercatornet.com/connecting/view/15720 Students confuse “available” with “helpful” When the bookstore closes, do the lights go out on culture? In one case, the atmosphere suddenly electrified. Are libraries just too unCool to survive in an Internet age? We can’t discard what libraries do. The Silicon Rift Valley—the deep social divides Silicon Valley itself is, overall, a highly unequal society. Follow Read More ›

Worries Carl Zimmer, a “No junk DNA” scenario could help creationists: It’s no coincidence, researchers like Gregory argue, that bona fide creationists have used recent changes in the thinking about junk DNA to try to turn back the clock to the days before Darwin. Zimmer is responding to the recent realization that there is very little junk DNA, and is apparently refurbishing and remarketing the concept, invoking of course the Sacred Name of Darwin: The human genome contains around 20,000 genes, that is, the stretches of DNA that encode proteins. But these genes account for only about 1.2 percent of the total genome. The other 98.8 percent is known as noncoding DNA. Gregory believes that while some noncoding DNA is Read More ›

Chris Fields, for perhaps obvious reasons an independent researcher, offers a thesis that attempts to grapple with the nature of information in cosmology, as discussed at the Physics arXiv Blog: In fact, Fields argues that it is the interaction between the cosmic microwave background and all large objects in the universe that causes them to decohere giving them specific positions which astronomers observe. But there is an important consequence from having a specific position—there must be some information associated with this location in 3D space. If a location is unknown, then the amount of information must be small. But if it is known with precision, the information content is much higher. And given that there are some 10^25 stars in Read More ›

For decades, the creationist movement was primarily situated in the United States. Then, in the 1970s, American creationists found their ideas welcomed abroad, first in Australia and New Zealand, then in Korea, India, South Africa, Brazil, and elsewhere—including Europe, where creationism plays an expanding role in public debates about science policy and school curricula. In this, the first comprehensive history of creationism in Europe, leading historians, philosophers, and scientists narrate the rise of—and response to—scientific creationism, creation science, intelligent design, and organized antievolutionism in countries and religions throughout Europe. Providing a unique map of creationism in Europe, the authors chart the surprising history of creationist activities and strategies there. Over the past forty years, creationism has spread swiftly among European Read More ›

Further to: Darwin trolls: Meet a genuinely anti-science group… (The (Islamist) authors of the document also urged women to refrain from “exploring science”): Here’s real anti-science, if anyone is interested: From Reuters: Islamic State fighters have looted and bulldozed the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, the Iraqi government said, in their latest assault on some of the world’s greatest archaeological and cultural treasures. A tribal source from the nearby city of Mosul told Reuters the radical Sunni Islamists, who dismiss Iraq’s pre-Islamic heritage as idolatrous, had pillaged the 3,000-year-old site on the banks of the Tigris River. The assault against Nimrud came just a week after the release of a video showing Islamic State forces smashing museum statues and carvings Read More ›

Here. And plenty of comments here (Not YouTube .) He seems to have managed not to put his foot in it this time, but perhaps he had help. Whether his thesis is relevant or believable is a separate question. News blogging light until later this afternoon. See also: Darwin’s followers are going to have to limit access to public records New Mexico museum edition: Such requests create needless contentions about the use of public money Follow UD News at Twitter!

Further to Media’s methane-based life: No it is NOT just sensationalism, it is cheerleading for a worldview (one that permits, even encourages, fiction to stand in for fact): At Forbes, philosopher of science Henry Miller identifies a similar pattern at National Public Radio, which receives federal funds: Among the most egregious transgressions of fair, professional journalism was a series of programs called “The DNA Files” which set up a false moral equivalence by juxtaposing the views of Princeton University Professor Lee Silver against those of Margaret Mellon, long-time NGO-dweller, troglodyte and antagonist of any and all applications of biotechnology. This pairing was a paradigm of NPR’s notion of “balance”: a mainstream, non-ideological academic versus an intransigent, anti-industry, anti-technology, uneducable activist. Read More ›

Further to: Darwin event at museum scuttled when some engineers ask for equal time for ID, here is a story from the Albuquerque Journal: Museum plunged into evolution, religion debate Advocates of “intelligent design” say the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science preferred to cancel Darwin Days events rather than provide an opportunity to present an alternative theory of evolution. Not so, said Mary Ann Hatchitt, communications director for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, which oversees the state’s museums. “There was nothing to cancel because there were no Darwin Days events planned or scheduled” for 2015, she said. A public records request told a different story: The emails provided via the IPRA request and shared with Read More ›

Here at Retraction Watch: Psychology has been home to some of the most infamous cases of fraud in recent years, and while it’s just a few bad apples who are spoiling the bunch, the field itself has seen an overall increase in retractions, according to a new paper by Jürgen Margraf appearing in Psychologische Rundschau and titled “Zur Lage der Psychologie.” That increase, Margraf found, is not entirely due to its most well-known fraudsters. More. On the other hand, maybe it’s nothing. 😉 See also: If peer review is working, why all the retractions? Follow UD News at Twitter!

Here. Sheldon, an eight year-old sulfate tortoise, and Dolly, a three year-old American Pit Bull Terrier, were both rescued from HSNT and are now best friends! Their owner says they love to play chase like in this video and that Dolly even tries to get Sheldon to play with her favorite ball, though so far he’s had no interest. Look how speedy Sheldon is! These two are great examples of just how amazing rescued animals are and how friendship doesn’t see species! From the News desk’s perspective, the tortoise does seem to be playing (hostility seems absent), but we doubt he’ll “get” the idea of whacking a ball around soon. At one time, it was generally assumed that reptiles were Read More ›