Category: Science
Stanford Prison Experiment findings a “sham” – but how much of social psychology is legitimate anyway?
| June 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Psychology, Science |
From Ben Blum at Medium: Whether you learned about Philip Zimbardo’s famous “Stanford Prison Experiment” [1973] in an introductory psych class or just absorbed it from the cultural ether, you’ve probably heard the basic story. Zimbardo, a young Stanford psychology professor, built a mock jail in the basement of Jordan Hall and stocked it with […]
Science writer: New York Times is cool with pseudoscience
| June 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Media, Science |
From Alex Berezow at American Council for Science and Health: Scientists have a common saying about models: “Garbage in, garbage out.” That means if you put bad data into a model, you can fully expect for the model to spit out bad conclusions. The same is true for organizations. If a newspaper hires improperly educated, […]
Frank Turek: Why does the Bible not talk about dinosaurs?
| June 17, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
While we are talking about the Bible anyway… What would our ancestors have made of news of the dinosaurs? The dinosaurs made no impact on human life to which a religious teacher could point, then or now. The animals discussed in the Bible are known to the hearers; their habits are familiar and therefore useful […]
Einstein’s racist remarks… so does that make E = mc^2 a tool of hate?
| June 17, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
Or does he get a pass because he is pop culture squared? Or (hold your breath) does progressivism make people stupid as well as unpleasant? From Philip Ball at the Guardian: The row over racist remarks made by Einstein says more about the pedestals we put great scientists on than the man himself Was Albert […]
From Chemistry World: Forensic science is “in crisis”
| June 16, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Forensics, Intelligent Design, Science |
Further to Why we should trust “science,” whatever that is, from a long form article by Rebecca Trager at Chemistry World: Concerns about forensic science have lurked for some time. Major science advisory bodies in the US and UK had warned about deficiencies in the field that require action. In 2013, the US National Institute […]
Another academic freedom meltdown in science, this time re GMOs
| June 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Ecology, Genetics, Intelligent Design, Science |
From Alex Berezow at American Council on Science and Health: Pro-GMO Professor Fired for Endorsing Glyphosate David Zaruk is an expert in European Union regulations and risk communication. He writes a blog, titled The Risk-Monger, which largely examines regulatory issues involving biotechnology, such as GMOs and glyphosate. For nearly a decade, he also was an […]
Older vintages: From New Scientist (1996) on the dubious idea of something from nothing
| June 11, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Media, Science |
From David Darling at New Scientist: But, as far as I am concerned, the fact that the Universe was an incredibly weird place 10-43 seconds after “time zero” is no big deal. What is a big deal—the biggest deal of all—is how you get something out of nothing. Don’t let the cosmologists try to kid you […]
A peek at the future of science, SJW-style
| June 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Philosophy, Science |
Abstract: This article addresses questions in human geography and the geographies of sexuality by drawing upon one year of embedded in situ observations of dogs and their human companions at three public dog parks in Portland, Oregon. The purpose of this research is to uncover emerging themes in human and canine interactive behavioral patterns in […]
You can’t be an honest atheist and a progressive at the same time.
| June 6, 2018 | Posted by News under Atheism, Culture, Intellectual freedom, Philosophy, Science |
From Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet: … She worries about the fact that some prominent atheists are attracted to the intellectual dark web, “an alliance of heretics” making “an end run around the mainstream conversation” (New York Times). The dark web includes figures like Jordan B. Peterson, Steven Pinker, and Bret Weinstein,) who want to discuss […]
An unusually clear description of how scientism functions as a religion
| June 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science |
From Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish: “Why do you hate science?” That’s the question leftists have taken to asking non-leftists. Leftists claim to love science, insofar as anyone can love a method for testing a hypothesis, and accuse their enemies of hating it. How can anyone love or hate an indifferent set of techniques? And […]
The Eight Commandments of Carl Sagan – updated
| June 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science |
Ross Pomeroy, writing at RealClearScience, tells us that his holy book is Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World (1997). He offers eight commandments of Sagan (1934–1996) with supporting comments from him, including Thou shalt demand evidence for claims to knowledge. “If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be […]
AI pros boycott new Nature AI journal. Why?
| May 31, 2018 | Posted by News under Artificial Intelligence, Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
From Matthew Hutson at Science: Computer science was born of a rebellious, hacker culture, a spirit that lives on in the publishing culture of artificial intelligence (AI). The burgeoning field is increasingly turning to conference publications and free, open-review websites while shunning traditional outlets—sentiments dramatically expressed in a growing boycott of a high-profile AI journal. […]
Can acknowledgment of design in nature be a part of science?
| May 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Philosophy, Science |
Recently, Joshua Gidney linked to a piece by philosopher Robin Collins on why design in nature is not part of science. Really, it’s a misleading question that enables academics to huff and puff casuistries, while ducking the key question, as follows: If the evidence clearly points to design in nature (fine-tuning, irreducible complexity, etc.), must […]
Study of causes of science skepticism sails right by the most obvious cause
| May 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
From psychologist Bastiaan T. Rutjens at Aeon: What makes people distrust science? Surprisingly, not politics Moving beyond domain-specific skepticism, what did we observe about a general trust in science, and the willingness to support science more broadly? The results were quite clear: trust in science was by far the lowest among the religious. In particular, […]
Skeptic asks, why do people who abandon religion embrace superstition?
| May 29, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
From Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet: Belief in God is declining and belief in ghosts and witches is rising. … It is a robust, longstanding phenomenon that liberals/progressives (especially millennials), including the “sciencey” ones, show more interest in occult ideas than others do. Is that counterintuitive, as many imply, or are we missing something? Vyse offers […]
Sociologist Steve Fuller’s new book on post-truth in science
| May 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Books of interest, Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science |
Sociologist Steve Fuller, who has written competently about ID, has a new book out. From the publisher: ‘Steve Fuller takes the concept of post-truth to a new level of analysis, explaining the history of “meta” thinking about truth, the institutional structuring of truth through “rules of the game”, and the forms of knowledge that go […]
Design Disquisitions: Quote of the Month-Robin Collins on Why ID isn’t Science
| May 28, 2018 | Posted by Joshua G under Back to Basics of ID, Fine tuning, Food for thought, ID, Philosophy, Science |
It’s been a while sorry, but here’s my latest: Quote of the Month: Robin Collins on why ID isn’t a part of science
At PLOS: Why ideas are cheap and theories are hard. With special reference to panspermia
| May 26, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science |
From Mike Klymkowsky at PLOS blogs: So where do (scientific) theories come from? Initially they are guesses about how the world works, as stated by Richard Feynman and the non-scientific nature of vague “theories”. Guesses that have evolved based on testing, confirmation, and where wrong – replacement with more and more accurate, logically well constructed […]
Synthese: A call for papers on disagreement in science, October 18 deadline
| May 26, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Philosophy, Science |
At PhilEvents: Recent epistemology has seen an explosion of interest in disagreement and other related questions in social epistemology. While much progress has been made on abstract and general epistemological issues relating to disagreement, there has been surprisingly little discussion of how, if at all, these lessons can be applied to disagreement within science in […]
At Psychology Today: Opponent asks, does ID have a valid point about agency?
| May 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Psychology, Science |
It goes downhill from there. If I were a Darwinian, I would be embarrassed by this stuff. From Jeremy E Sherman at Psychology Today: I’m an atheist with a PhD. in evolutionary theory. I spend much of my time encouraging a new relationship with religion and spirituality modeled on our relationship with fiction. For example, […]
