Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

If traits can jump between the branches of the tree of life, classical Darwinism is dead

Researchers: For instance, consider the symbiotic fungi that help plants source minerals from the soil. And then there are truly unusual acquired metabolisms, like sea slugs that steal chloroplasts from their food so they can photosynthesize. Read More ›

When universities no longer think intellectual freedom is important

Classic: After a few of the many students who had attended Azerrad’s talk complained about it, President Taylor and his administration initially censored the publication not only of the video of Azerrad’s presentation but also of the videos of the other eight conference presentations as well, as Howland recounted for City Journal. Read More ›

BREAKING: Leaked US Supreme Court Draft that would overturn the rulings that have led to 63+ million abortion deaths in the US since 1973

This, seems worth pondering on the state of the US’s ongoing 4th generation civil war as a civilisation level issue: A draft Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe v. Wade has been leaked to the press in one of the greatest scandals to ever hit the nation’s highest court and a possible attempt to intimidate one or more justices to reverse their vote or to ignite a liberal brushfire to pack the Supreme Court before Democrats lose Congress in November. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the possible draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito reads, making the case that where the Constitution is silent, the American people govern themselves Read More ›

Sabine Hossenfelder asks, did the W-boson break the Standard Model?

Hossenfelder: Is it correct? I don’t know. It could be. But in all honesty, I am very skeptical that this result will hold up. More likely, they have underestimated the error and their result is actually compatible with the other measurements. Read More ›

FOR REFERENCE: Globular Cluster M55 as illustrating apparent aging of our galaxy (& cosmos)

It seems helpful to illustrate cosmological scale apparent aging as stars depart main sequence: An idealised, Hertzsprung-Russell chart for Hydrogen-rich balls prone to become fusion furnaces is: Here is a comparative plot (for open clusters), constructing a “clock” by projected pattern as a cluster ages, in effect seeing what is left as a candle burns down: This can be taken as illustrative of how our cosmos shows entropy-associated aging on the grand scale. Further illustrative, here is a NASA-derived cosmological timeline model, integrated with fine tuning: Speaking of fine tuning, Barnes et al summarise: All of this ties to core thermodynamics: Food for thought. END