In “Idle Chatter: This Is Your Brain on Art – Can neuroscience explain art? (The Smart Set , March 17, 2011), Morgan Meis recounts V. S. Ramachandran’s neuroscience theories that, he says, explains a lot about art: Ramachandran identifies what he calls nine laws of aesthetics. Let’s look at one of them — law number two, which he calls Peak Shift — to get a sense of what neuroscience brings to aesthetics. Peak Shift refers to a generally elevated response to exaggerated stimuli among many animals. Ramachandran refers to a study in which seagull chicks were made to beg for food (just as they do from their mothers) simply by waving a beak-like stick in front of their nests. Later, Read More ›

Here, der Spiegel gives Richard Dawkins the floor (03/02/2011), as his book, The Greatest Show on Earth is published in German:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has religion not been very successful in an evolutionary sense?Dawkins: The thought that human societies gained strength from religious memes in their competition with others is true to a certain extent. But it is more like an ecological struggle: It reminds me of the replacement of the red by the gray squirrel in Britain. That is not a natural selection process at all, it is an ecological succession. So when a tribe has a war-like god, when the young men are brought up with the thought that their destiny is to go out and fight as warriors and that a martyr’s death brings you straight to heaven, you see a set of powerful, mutually reinforcing memes at work. If the rival tribe has a peaceful god who believes in turning the other cheek, that might not prevail.

– “Interview with Scientist Richard Dawkins: ‘Religion? Reality Has a Grander Magic of its Own'”

It’s hard to tell exactly what Dawkins is trying to say here, but curiously, “a peaceful god who believes in turning the other cheek” was exactly what the early Christians preached and they went from being a persecuted people in the Roman empire to running the show in the course of about two and a half centuries. But your mileage may vary.

We also learn, Read More ›

From “No Two of Us Are Alike — Even Identical Twins: Pinpointing Genetic Determinants of Schizophrenia”, (ScienceDaily, March 28, 2011) we learn

Singh looked at about one million markers of identical twins (and their two parents) where only one twin had schizophrenia. “The most informative feature of schizophrenia is that it sometimes runs in the family. So, for example, the risk of developing schizophrenia is much higher if your brother, sister, mother or father have the disease,” says Singh, noting in the general population about one percent have schizophrenia. “We started with the belief that monozygotic twins are genetically identical, so if one member of identical twins has schizophrenia, then the risk for the other twin should be 100 percent, if it’s all due to genes. However, studies over the years have shown that the risk of the disease in both twins is only 50 percent.” That means either the twins are genetically not identical or the familial disease involves non-genetic (random) effects. 

Singh and his team have now demonstrated that the monozygotic twins are not genetically identical.

The part I find curious is, Read More ›

Jonathan Wells will publish The Myth of Junk DNA early in May, and offers answers to some questions posed by Denyse O’Leary:

So, for those who dropped science after Grade Ten, what is junk/non-coding DNA?

“Non-coding” in this context means “non-protein-coding.” An important function of our DNA is to specific the sequences of      subunits (amino acids) in the proteins that (along with other types of molecules) make up our bodies. When molecular  biologists discovered in the 1970s that about 98% of our DNA does not code for proteins, some biologists called non-protein-  coding DNA “junk.”

Why was it called “junk” in the first place? And why does all this remind me of one of those auction program episodes where  someone is storing leftover carpet nails in what turns out to be a Ming dynasty vase? My mom loves those.

According to Charles Darwin’s theory, all living things are descendants of common ancestors that have been modified solely  by unguided natural processes that include variation and selection. In the modern version of his theory—neo-Darwinism— genes control embryo development, variations are due to differences in genes, and new variations originate in genetic mutations. In the 1950s, neo-Darwinists equated genes with DNA sequences (Francis Crick called DNA “the secret of life”) and assumed that their biological significance lay in the proteins they encoded. The 98% of our DNA that does not code for proteins was attributed to molecular accidents that have accumulated in the course of evolution.

“The amount of DNA in organisms,” neo-Darwinist Richard Dawkins wrote in 1976, “is more than is strictly necessary for building them: A large fraction of the DNA is never translated into protein. From the point of view of the individual organism this seems paradoxical. If the ‘purpose’ of DNA is to supervise the building of bodies, it is surprising to find a large quantity of DNA which does no such thing. Biologists are racking their brains trying to think what useful task this apparently surplus DNA is doing. But from the point of view of the selfish genes themselves, there is no paradox. The true ‘purpose’ of DNA is to survive, no more and no less. The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite, or at best a harmless but useless passenger, hitching a ride in the survival machines created by the other DNA.” (The Selfish Gene, p. 47)

Since the 1980s, however, and especially after completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, biologists have discovered many functions for non-protein-coding DNA. If the Ming vase is a living cell and the leftover carpet nails are “junk DNA,” it turns out that the nails are not only made of gold, but they also make an essential contribution to the beauty of the vase.

Interestingly, in the “nail dump is Ming vase” story, no one insists that nobody ever thought it was just another piece of junk. They almost always say, “Yes, we thought so but had no idea …”  So what’s behind the failure to admit an error in this case?  Read More ›

Amazing what people have tried to get out of it. In “Darwinism and the Quest to Cheat Death”(ABC Religion and Ethics | 28 Mar 2011), British pundit John Gray tells us Like so many others, then and later, Sidgwick looked to science for salvation from science. If science had brought about the disenchantment of the world, only science could re-enchant it.The result of scientific inquiry seemed to be that humankind was alone. Evolution would bring about the extinction of the species and eventually, as the sun cooled and the planet ceased to be habitable, life itself would die out. It was a desolate prospect, but one that could be accepted if science could also show that human personality would survive Read More ›

John Taylor Gatto, a veteran teacher who is “against school ” discusses an old book about education and its hair-curling ideas: It was from James Bryant Conant – president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century – that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High Read More ›

In this article in The Scientist, “Imprinting Diversity”, Cristina Luiggi interviews Joachim Messing about ways in which genomic imprinting may be a strong driver of diversity: Sexual reproduction yields offspring with two copies of the same gene, one from each parent; but in an epigenetic phenomenon known as genomic imprinting, only one copy of certain genes is turned on or off, depending on which parent contributed it. Imprinted genes are stamped by patterns of DNA methylation or histone modification during gamete formation, and their activation or inactivation is then passed on to offspring. Previously, approximately 100 genes were thought to be imprinted in mammals. But Rutgers University molecular biologist and F1000 Member Joachim Messing, discusses a recent paper that found Read More ›

This is a FYI post. As I’m given to say: another day, another bad day for Darwinism. Years ago, it became apparent that with whole gene analysis (WGA), either the case for, or against Darwinism, and vice-versa, would happen. Population genetics looks at very small part of the genome, a limitation that is obviated through WGA. And, so, ‘new discoveries’ are happening. In this particular case, it has to do with angiosperms (flowering plants). What they’ve found is that new features appear early on in its phylogeny, and then, only later, is there great speciation, or diversification. This is pretty much OPPOSITE of Darwinian expectations. Darwin would presumably argue that through diversification of species, little-bit by little-bit, some new feature Read More ›

Here’s the story: Horizontal gene transfer between bacteria and animals Julie C. Dunning HotoppTrends in Genetics, Volume 27, Issue 4, 157-163, 18 February 2011 Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved. 10.1016/j.tig.2011.01.005 Julie C. Dunning Hotopp Summary Horizontal gene transfer is increasingly described between bacteria and animals. Such transfers that are vertically inherited have the potential to influence the evolution of animals. One classic example is the transfer of DNA from mitochondria and chloroplasts to the nucleus after the acquisition of these organelles by eukaryotes. Even today, many of the described instances of bacteria-to-animal transfer occur as part of intimate relationships such as those of endosymbionts and their invertebrate hosts, particularly insects and nematodes, while numerous transfers are also Read More ›

Here.

Week July 18th to 22nd inclusive.

Presenters will include:

Prof Steve Fuller, Warwick University
Prof Guillermo Gonzales, Grove City College, Pennsylvania, USA
Dr David Galloway, Vice President Royal College of Surgeons, Glasgow
John Langlois, Barrister
Dr Alastair Noble, Director, Centre for Intelligent Design, Glasgow.
Prof Chris Shaw, Queens University, Belfast.
Dr Jonathan Wells, Discovery Institute, Seattle, USA
David Williams, Lawyer

Other Tutors to be advised.

Bursaries / Scholarships are available as appropriate.

In the first instance visit our web site for more details:-

http://www.c4id.org.uk/

Some thoughts:

Read More ›

It would be very nice if there was a magic scanner that automatically gave you a readout of the total amount of complex specified information (CSI) in a system when you pointed it at that system, wouldn’t it? Of course, you’d want one that could calculate the CSI of any complex system – be it a bacterial flagellum, an ATP synthase enzyme, a Bach fugue, or the faces on Mt. Rushmore – by following some general algorithm. It would make CSI so much more scientifically rigorous, wouldn’t it? Or would it?

This essay is intended as a follow-up to the recent thread, On the calculation of CSI by Mathgrrl. It is meant to address some concerns about whether CSI is sufficiently objective to qualify as a bona fide scientific concept.

But first, some definitions. In The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems (The Foundation for Thought and Ethics, Dallas, 2008), Intelligent Design advocates William Dembski and Jonathan Wells define complex specified information (or CSI) as follows (p. 311):

Information that is both complex and specified. Synonymous with SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY.

Dembski and Wells then define specified complexity on page 320 as follows:

An event or object exhibits specified complexity provided that (1) the pattern to which it conforms is a highly improbable event (i.e. has high PROBABILISTIC COMPLEXITY) and (2) the pattern itself is easily described (i.e. has low DESCRIPTIVE COMPLEXITY).

In this post, I’m going to examine seven demands which Intelligent Design critics have made with regard to complex specified information (CSI):
Read More ›

Moshe Averick,the ID community Reb and author of Nonsense of the Highest Order, writes to say,

In a post on his blog Why Evolution is True, Dr. Jerry Coyne took some potshots at Rabbi Adam Jacobs and myself about an article by Jacobs on the Huffington Post “A reasonable argument for God’s existence”When all was said and done, Dr. Coyne summed up his “slam dunk” case for a naturalistic origin of life: Read More ›

No biologist has been responsible for more – and for more drastic – modifications of the average person’s worldview than Charles Darwin” (“These words were spoken by Harvard professor Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), veteran evolutionary biologist, when on September 23, 1999, he received the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Dr, Mayr made the point that although most groundbreaking scientists, such as Albert Einstein, had a marked influence within their own fields of science, they made little impact on the way the average person apprehends the world, whereas Darwin changed the very fabric of our worldview.

And so this book. …

Which shows why Darwinism didn’t and shouldn’t have changed the Hindu worldview.

Unless Hindus want to buy into the Evolutionary Agony Aunt, and Darwinian brand marketing, and the Big Bazooms theory of evolution. Why not let it be a late Western neurosis?

by Leif A Jensen, Rethinking Darwin: A Vedic Study of Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust: Germany, 2010), p. 1

Hey, just readin’ is all. And repeat after me,   Read More ›

“Philosophers are finding fresh meanings in truth, beauty and goodness”, John Cottingham tells us (The Times, June 17, 2006):

ARE VALUES (for example moral values) grounded in something real and objective or are they just a way of talking about whatever we may personally happen to approve of? There has been a remarkable shift in philosophical views about this since I was an undergraduate. Back in the Sixties, when we were all still under the shadow of logical positivism, moral beliefs (“value judgments”, as we often pejoratively called them) were dismissed as subjective — mere expressions of emotion, mere grunts of approval or disapproval. Notions such as goodness were no more than pseudo-properties, masking our personal desires and preferences. Later on, with the rise of postmodernism, even truth became suspect, and was downgraded to no more than an honorific label that a given culture bestows on its favoured assertions.

But it is very striking how the popularity of these subjectivist creeds has faded in more recent times. Relativistic views of truth turned out to be self- defeating; while in ethics, subjectivism ran into a host of logical difficulties and is now on the wane, eclipsed by a growing number of neo-objectivist theories. To everyone’s surprise, the increasing consensus among philosophers today is that some kind of objectivism of truth and of value is correct.

I won’t belabour the way in which this will help design; rather I offer a reflection, based on a true incident, on the – as Cottingham thinks, fading – notion that right and wrong are mere preferences, and that truth is merely propaganda: Read More ›

… invest the money in something really safe, and then get out. Lines from the real world of lots of skill and lots of chance: The vast sums of money shuttled among the accounts of these young professionals — and the shocking aggressiveness and recklessness with which they played — deepened the divide between the young online players and the older guard who earned their millions when poker was still a game played by men sitting around a table. Since the rise of online poker in the early 2000s, every principle of the game, every lesson learned over hundreds of thousands of hours of play, every simple credo uttered in some old Western gambling movie — all those tersely stated, Read More ›