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Pay no attention to the coffee room logo. It really happened, as follows, related in New Statesman: The story of the search for gravitational waves is ostensibly a grandiose tale, involving billions of light-years of space, decades of preparation, and multimillion-dollar instruments: interferometers that stretch for kilometres but must be sensitive to billionths of a billionth of one metre. In Levin’s hands, however, the story shrinks to a human scale. She has delivered a compelling and haunting account of the flawed and flailing souls who were pulled together by the hope of finding gravitational waves but who, like the black holes they were trying to detect, destroyed each other in the process. The first casualty is Joseph Weber, the pioneer of Read More ›

Sarah Scoles at the Smithsonian Magazine on the multiverse: Astronomers are arguing about whether they can trust this untested—and potentially untestable—idea Detailing the objections of those who want evidence, she then explains, Other scientists say that the definitions of “evidence” and “proof” need an upgrade. Richard Dawid of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy believes scientists could support their hypotheses, like the multiverse—without actually finding physical support. He laid out his ideas in a book called String Theory and the Scientific Method. Inside is a kind of rubric, called “Non-Empirical Theory Assessment,” that is like a science-fair judging sheet for professional physicists. If a theory fulfills three criteria, it is probably true. First, if scientists have tried, and failed, to Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: The researchers discovered a traveling spike generator that appears to move across the hippocampus — a part of the brain mainly associated with memory — and change direction, while generating brain waves. The generator itself, however, produces no electrical signal. “In epilepsy, we’ve thought the focus of seizures is fixed and, in severe cases, that part of the brain is surgically removed,” said Dominique Durand, Elmer Lincoln Lindseth Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Case School of Engineering and leader of the study. “But if the focus, or source, of seizures moves — as we’ve described — that’s problematic.” … The team is also trying to understand what these non-synaptic events do and whether they are relevant to processing Read More ›

When Nature is giving you the advice, … you know there’s a problem and you better listen. There is no handbook that describes what to do in these situations. If you decide to be a whistle-blower, you must realize that it will be stressful. And because it is so stressful, you want to ensure that any investigations that are carried out will be robust. Every case needs to be considered on an individual basis, but I hope that sharing my recommendations will help others who find themselves in a similar position. But then, inexplicably: Avoid public disclosure. In my view, it is not appropriate to make public statements about such cases until they are resolved. It would have been much Read More ›

So says Sam Kriss at Wired: Neil deGrasse Tyson is, supposedly, an educator and a populariser of science; it’s his job to excite people about the mysteries of the universe, communicate information, and correct popular misconceptions. This is a noble, arduous, and thankless job, which might be why he doesn’t do it.More. We think Tyson should have stuck to a winning formula. He seems to be everywhere saying everything. The multiverse, the computer sim, the Inquisition vs. Bruno, global warming… See also: Tyson bombshell: Universe likely just computer sim … See what we mean? Follow UD News at Twitter!

BioLogos? They’re Christians for Darwin, or evolution or something, but for sure not for ID or anything. At Hump of the Camel, Jon Garvey, a retired British physician and theologian, notes that BioLogos writers accuse ID folk of heretical or bad theology by thinking of God as a designer. But, he says, their own theological leanings are much further from classical Christian orthodoxy than anything written by ID folk: But I felt I had to comment on a recent thread on BioLogos, in which the argument is made that Intelligent Design implies that God is merely one amongst a number of possible designers, whereas God is, in fact, not to be compared with any other agent. … I would not Read More ›

From Michael Denton,’s Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, Admittedly, there are still many prominent figures such as Michael Ruse, Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins who strictly adhere to a pan-adaptational framework and to the notion that all macroevolutionary phenomena, from the origin of life to the origin of man, can be generally accounted for by the same mechanism, cumulative selection, that works at the microevolutionary level. But despite these dyed-in-the-wool Darwinists, there is now a growing chorus of dissent within mainstream evolutionary biology! A significant number of researchers, particularly in the new field of evo-devo, now argue that macroevolution requires an explanatory framework different from that of microevolution—thus confirming the underlying leitmotif of Evolution, a Theory in Read More ›

Kevin Loria tells us at Business Insider: Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks there’s a ‘very high’ chance the universe is just a simulation … So at this year’s 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History, which addressed the question of whether the universe is a simulation, the answers from some panelists may be more comforting than the responses from others. Physicist Lisa Randall, for example, said that she thought the odds that the universe isn’t “real” are so low as to be “effectively zero. But on the other hand, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was hosting the debate, said that he thinks the likelihood of the universe being a simulation “may be very high.” … “And Read More ›

Readers may recall “No I in me and no sense in Sam Harris” wherein Waynesburg University (Pennsylvania) biology prof Wayne Rossiter, comments on the conundrum that Harris thinks dispensing with the idea that one exists is the key to deeper knowing of the nature of reality. But, Rossiter, not to worry, some can go Harris, a Darwin fan, one better: Evolution shows our perceptions are not real Anyway, seriously, Harris is getting slammed for Islamophobia, and Jerry Coyne offers, First, Sam asks hard questions, and people don’t like to think about hard questions. Should we ever lie? Is torture ever justifiable? Is it even possible to even imagine a first strike against Islamic enemies? Is it possible that religion can Read More ›

From David Snoke’s notes on the annual meeting of the Christian Scientific Society Robin Collins gave a great overview of the topic of fine tuning in cosmology, and raised the argument (subject of new work he is doing) that the cosmos is fine tuned not only for the existence of life or observers, but for the existence of scientific discovery. This is along the lines of Gonzalez and Richards’ The Privileged Planet from a few years ago, but with new and more rigorous arguments. More. Doubtless, a book is forthcoming… ? It tells us something about the times we live in that, whatever the evidence suggests, the people most likely to resist such a view would actually benefit from its Read More ›

But can’t, for psychological reasons. First, why the divorce? From Philip Ball at Nautilus: [Ernst] Mayr made perhaps the most concerted attempt by any biologist to draw clear disciplinary boundaries around his subject, smartly isolating it from other fields of science. In doing so, he supplies one of the clearest demonstrations of the folly of that endeavor. His characterization of physics as rigid, notes Ball, was “thoroughly flawed, as a passing familiarity with quantum theory, chaos, and complexity would reveal.” Of course, that defect deepens the mystery of why his view dominated, largely unchallenged. Most people with even a passing interest in science are aware of quantum effects. Again, from Ball, But Mayr’s argument gets more interesting—if not actually more Read More ›

From Amanda Gefter at Quanta: The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality It’s an interview with cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman on the basic theme “Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be.” More. If Hoffman is correct, evolution makes science hopeless. Some people have said that for years, but we didn’t think they’d be getting their evidence from Darwin’s crowd itself. See also: Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but then the brain got away and Would we give up naturalism to solve the hard problem of consciousness? Follow UD News at Twitter!

Following on: Bill Nye open to jail time for climate change skeptics, from The Federalist: But Nye isn’t just speculating about putting people in jail. He is referring to a specific attempt to use the model of those old tobacco lawsuits to prosecute any company that has ever funded research or advocacy skeptical of claims about global warming. This campaign was started last year and has taken its newest steps recently with a meeting of state attorneys general who vowed to launch “investigations into whether fossil fuel companies misled investors and the public on the impact of climate change.” The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands—whom you would think would have enough to deal with at home straightening out Read More ›

DNA proves it, say researchers. From ScienceDaily: New research examining the DNA of North American mammoths challenges the way we categorize a species. Several species of mammoth are thought to have roamed across the North American continent. The new study results show that while mammoths clearly evolved differences in their physical appearance to deal with different environments, it did not prohibit them from cross-breeding and producing healthy offspring. Paper. (public access) – Dan Fisher et al. Mammuthus Population Dynamics in Late Pleistocene North America: Divergence, Phylogeography and Introgression. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, April 2016 DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2016.00042 … A species can be defined as a group of similar animals that can successfully breed and produce fertile offspring. By using differences Read More ›

From Adam Marcus at Stat News: What do Henry Kissinger and Martin Scorsese have in common? Fun fact: Both evidently review scientific manuscripts for money. … The EditPub site (which seemed on Thursday to be no longer up and running), is almost entirely in Chinese, but its homepage bills it as a “service center for scientific research.” Its existence came to light earlier this month after the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology retracted a 2015 article by a group from Dalian University in China. According to the journal, EditPub had “compromised” the peer review process in a way that the journal has so far refused to make public. The retraction is but the latest in some 300 similar instances of Read More ›