Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Rob Sheldon on origin of life as a “theoretically fertile dead end”

Sheldon: What hinders the field presently is an unstated reliance on materialism and its attendant mechanism, when information is manifestly non-material. What we need to make progress in OoL are matter-free tools for manipulating information: understanding its flow, its gradients, and its concentration. Read More ›

Physicist: The whole universe may be a neural network

Vanchurin: “I see no reason why this process should be confined to a particular length scale and so the claim is that everything that we see around us (e.g. particles, atoms, cells, observers, etc.) is the outcome of natural selection.” It doesn’t take very long for Darwinism to become indistinguishable from magic. Read More ›

Climate History–We’re in an Ice Age!

This press release from Phys.Org has an image that is worth, as they say, “a thousand words.” ( See here. ) The color-coded temperature divides on the right-hand side of the chart should not deceive you. Instead, simply move your eyes to the left. You’ll notice that we’re looking at a continuous plot of temperature, for the most part (except for the gap in the Pleistocene Era) and which continues on into the Holocene (present era). So, then, look at how the left side of the chart is characterized: Hothouse, Warmhouse, Coolhouse, and Icehouse. Now notice that our present temperatures fall in the ICEHOUSE portion of this 60 million year history of earth’s temperatures. Shouldn’t this chart alone be enough …

Today is 9-11-01 + 19 years, let us never forget

Let the WTC Cross, found standing amidst the rubble, serve as a testimony of hope and redemption from that day to our own: Video: Memorial service, live streamed 8:40 AM Eastern: As we face our own existential struggle today in the face of a Red Guards colour insurgency that appeals to our pain and shame but only threatens to revert to ideological, oligarchic tyranny . . . a reminder: . . . let us reflect on that cross and the faith once for all delivered unto the saints it symbolises. For, we are again at kairos as a civilisation. END PS: As an aid to reflection, I post a clip from Bernard lewis’ 1990 essay on the roots of Muslim Read More ›

The smog is beginning to clear around hydroxychloroquine

Revealing the way politics has invaded science all the way down, according to Norman Doidge. There’s a good chance that, even though most people don’t directly say it, the reputation of “science” will never recover from this episode. People will disbelieve politely but thoroughly. Read More ›

At Retraction Watch: “Transparently absurd” paper at Elsevier

Retraction Watch: Erm, about that concerning peer review process. Elsevier also was the publisher of the equally risible book chapter claiming that COVID-19 came to earth on a meteorite. Read More ›

At Aeon: As a discipline, origin of life is “World’s most theoretically fertile dead end”

The author, a science writer, keeps orbiting the topic of moving beyond Darwin. Her survey of the scene suggests that researchers are moving beyond Darwin in a variety of different directions. Not clear how they will all meet up… Read More ›

Forrest Mims honored in dedication of new electronics book

Readers may recall that Forrest M. Mims III, despite his gifts in electronics and citizen science, was denied a column in Scientific American because he was not a Darwinist or a supporter of live baby dismemberment. Read More ›