No one should give any credence to computer simulations who is not familiar with what they are and what they can do. In my work in aerospace R&D I was recently alerted to a severe problem in a computer simulation. The original simulation said that a mechanical part was half as strong as empirical testing said it was. I triple-checked all the material properties of the part in question, and ran two simulations based on the original model. Both simulations were clearly in error. I then noticed something. The solid finite elements were modeled with four-node tetrahedrons, not ten-node, second-order tetras that would provide the requisite degrees of freedom to make the model work correctly. I realize that what I Read More ›

Did anyone happen to notice that two paradigms underlying human evolution have crumbled? Meanwhile, here’s life as a chimp. Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista

The following is a one-shot guest post by regular UD commenter, Gregory. I offer this because I know that Gregory’s been talking about Intelligent Design for years, and because it was my intention to give him the chance to make his case for the social sciences’ relevance to the ID discussion. As before, my posting this shouldn’t be taken as endorsement – in fact I’m very skeptical of the direction of Gregory’s project for a number of reasons, which I may or may not mention later in comments. But he was civil and sincere enough, and I thought the regulars at UD would find his thoughts interesting, whether to consider or point out the flaws.