Here’s what merely increased: Vast complexity (a kill cancer code turns out to be embedded in every cell) has continued to be found, dating from a from a much earlier period than earlier supposed (fossilized bird lung tissue much like bird lung tissue today). And all far beyond the reach of normal probability. When
We don’t expect to hear much honest discussion yet but we do expect the gap to yawn wider.
Here’s what’s new: Darwinism is becoming less of an issue today because the social justice warriors are attacking the Darwinians now on the very concept of sex, as Darwinian Jerry Coyne and others have had cause to know. Individuals well known to us through their writings have also been SJWs’ direct targets ((Francisco Ayala, Larry Krauss, and Neil deGrasse Tyson come to mind).
It almost doesn’t matter much any more whether the stories are true or not. But that makes sense. If Darwinism is the single best idea anyone ever had and our brains are shaped for fitness, not truth, then the Darwinians are simply weaker animals than the social justice warriors.
In general, the SJW assault is, at a much more basic level, a repudiation of concepts like facts, evidence, and knowledge. In a society where people find that superstition enhances their lives, it’s not clear just yet what will become of the popular esteem for science overall or what that will mean, just for example, for us.
Here’s what’s pretty old by now: The social sciences got hoaxed again but in this atmosphere it doesn’t really matter. “Mis-gendering” dogs can be an issue if someone feels triggered or whatever.
Media and politicians will continue to depend on social science to provide easy factoids in pursuit of audience and power.
Here’s why it’s all happening the way it is: Underlying it all is the coffee mug problem: Is nature all there is? In that case, either you and your coffee mug are both conscious or neither of you are. Neither option yields a rational universe for science to study. But few seem to want to consider non-materialist options so the situation can only get worse and nuttier.
Here’s what hasn’t changed: Nothing whatever is happening that confirms naturalist atheism. The on/off switch for consciousness has not been found, free will has not been explained away, the quick fix for the random origin and development of life was never located, and legacy media are mostly clueless and incurious…
Well, Happy New Year! It’s going to be quite a show! – O’Leary for News
See also: Was 2018 kind of a quiet year for science? For example, Stephen Hawking (76) died. (Okay, but at his age, his obit was mostly written.) As Sabine Hossenfelder often points out, particle physics is in bad shape (“belly-up”) That became clearer in 2018 but who else wants to discuss it?