If the atheists were Christians, they might pray for a good witness in death, but they have no one to pray to and no meaningful witness. It doesn’t really matter whether or not they conform to the consensus; the human mind is an illusion, you see.
News
Another “altruistic chimps” story that doesn’t demonstrate what is claimed
As a social species, chimpanzees do not readily break up a harmonious group. The chimp partners who spat water were thereby revealing that they were not harmonious group members. No chimpanzee was giving her own reward to another.
Profs start to worry about illiberal campuses – when it hits them
And now, when it comes to free speech, the profs will have to either put up or shut up – for their entire careers.
Robert Bellah hits the “evolution of religion” circuit
Calling Sunday School “holy play” isn’t “a little bit cuckoo,” as Bella claims. It’s a discreet way of saying it’s all nonsense. Otherwise, they’d call it catechism. Or, if Protestants …
Why atheists do end up kicking cats
The responses to my original question, “Are atheists immoral”?, while interesting, did not solve the critical question, and here’s why.
200 million-year-old eel, discovered alive, predates current eel fossils
Yet another way, way earlier than thought complex animal.
Lotteries shocka!!: It ISN’T chance that someone gets multiverse-level lucky.
Because lotteries are taxes on imbeciles, they are more tolerant of corruption than you might think.
Natural selection simply must produce complex specified information, because chance can’t do it.
We’ll be back here at origin of life in 1, 2, and 20 years. Same station, Same show. Same theme. Some new cast members.
Connaisseur’s guide to pop science: If it mentions “space wormholes,” it’s not serious
But everything is possible in string theory.
Beavers illustrate complex specified information, they don’t author it.
Would beavers be better off if they could handle abstraction? Well, a leading cause of death in beavers is getting hit by a tree they felled. This cause of death is preventable – but mainly by developing theories about treefall – that is, abstraction. Which they can’t do.
National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins faces a problem more challenging than the human genome: Race bias
Social signals are potent, and among the most potent are “Who You Know” and “Who You Owe.” Trouble is, these signals tend to travel exclusive channels. Subtle checklists lurk at every turn. And quantitative research methods often do not identify key signals like “Do WE need him to succeed?” Insightful qualitative analysis is the next step.
Mike Behe on a new journal paper admitting that Darwinian evolution can’t do complex systems
I don’t mean to be unkind, but I think that the idea seems reasonable only to the extent that it is vague and undeveloped; when examined critically it quickly loses plausibility. The first thing to note about the paper is that it contains absolutely no calculations to support the feasibility of the model. This is inexcusable.
NASA is working overtime and over budget to protect us all … from space aliens?
Ian Sample explains, “Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report,” Indeed, “Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists.”
US Prez hopeful Perry is not useful to ID?
Says political theorist John West here: Earlier this summer, Perry’s education commissioner recommended for use supplementary science curricula that fail to offer any critical analysis of Darwinian claims, contrary to the state’s own science standards. At the same time, Perry’s education commissioner allowed his staff to spike the one proposed curriculum that did try to Read More…
Why does time have a direction, great minds wonder
On a great cruise. Here’s a conference that investigates the nature of time: his conference will bring together leading researchers across a wide range of fields within physics and cosmology, as well as from computer science, complex systems, biology, philosophy, and psychology. The participants will discuss a number of interrelated foundational questions related to the Read More…