02.24.09
Posted in Evolution at 3:04 pm by nemo
Evolution Debate Starts Again In River City
By Jeff Hess @ February 23, 2009 5:11 PM A leading scholar on the history of the evolution and intelligent design brings his unique view on the subject to Jacksonville.
The evolution versus intelligent design debate comes back to Jacksonville.
Florida State professor Dr. Michael Ruse has made a career studying the history of evolution.
“In particularly in recent years, I have been very much interested in the relationship between science and religion,” Ruse said that his studies have focused on the history of the evolution debate.
He is the main guest at a round table discussion about the two subjects tonight. He said he knows that State Senator Steven Wise is pushing a new intelligent design bill in the state legislature and thinks now is a great time to be talking about the two subjects.
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Posted in Science at 3:02 pm by nemo
Materials Science Mystery Of ‘Hidden Order’ Solved: How A New Phase Arises And Why
ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2009) — “One of the most important problems in materials science solved,” reports Professor Peter Oppeneer of Uppsala University. Together with three colleagues, he has managed to explain the hitherto unsolved riddle in materials science known as ‘the hidden order’ – how a new phase arises and why.
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Posted in Evolution at 2:59 pm by nemo
Tree Lizard’s Quick Release Escape System Makes Jumpers Turn Somersaults
ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2009) — If you’ve ever tried capturing a lizard, you’ll know how difficult it is. But if you do manage to corner one, many have the ultimate emergency quick release system for escape. They simply drop their tails, leaving the twitching body part to distract the predator as they scamper to safety. According to Gary Gillis from Mount Holyoke College, USA, up to 50% of some lizard populations seem to have traded some part of their tails in exchange for escape.
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 2:54 pm by nemo
Published on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 by Inter Press Service
No Quick Fix for Malnutrition and Hunger
by Kristin Palitza
ROME – Almost five million children under the age of five die of malnutrition every year in the developing world. Food aid – which mainly contains nutrient-poor carbohydrates – does little to address the absence of a diverse diet that would prevent the condition.
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 2:51 pm by nemo
Doomed by the Myths of Free Trade
How the Economy was Lost
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under.
America’s 20th century economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. America’s economic success was based on protectionism, which was ensured by the union victory in the Civil War, and on British indebtedness, which destroyed the British pound as world reserve currency. Following World War II, the US dollar took the role as reserve currency, a privilege that allows the US to pay its international bills in its own currency.
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Posted in global warming at 2:45 pm by nemo
Biofuels: Promise or Threat?
February 24, 2009 By Rachel Smolker
and Brian Tokar
In the coming weeks, the Obama administration is expected to release its plans to address the dual problems of global climate disruption and excessive dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, in the background, the debate among environmentalists over biofuels and their contribution to future energy needs continues to intensify. Many mainstream greens actively support biofuels as a central element in an anticipated future mix of energy sources, but voices from the global South are often far more critical. They insist that fuels such as biodiesel, bioethanol and proposed “second generation” fuels be termed “agrofuels,” viewing their widespread use as a potential boon for global agribusiness corporations, with potentially devastating consequences for land-based peoples. This view is now gaining widespread support from groups in the US and Europe.
Last week, the Sierra Club and Worldwatch Institute attempted to sidestep these concerns with their new report, titled “Smart Choices for Biofuels”. They appear to have never even asked the more fundamental question “Are Biofuels a Smart Choice?” To this question, a growing number of environmental and human rights organizations are responding with a clear and resounding “no.”
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Posted in you've got mail at 2:39 pm by nemo
sciftp
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/223/1?etoc (link free for 4 weeks)
Abuse Leaves Its Mark on the Brain
By Constance Holden
23 February 2009
Child abuse doesn’t just cause emotional problems; it also causes long-lasting changes the brain. A new study shows that in men who were abused as children, a gene involved in stress control is affected even decades later, following a pattern also seen in stressed baby rats.
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Posted in you've got mail at 2:37 pm by nemo
RG mail
The Oligarchs’ Escape Plan – at the Treasury’s Expense
by Professor Michael Hudson
Global Research (February 17 2009)
The financial “wealth creation” game is over. Economies emerged from
World War II relatively free of debt, but the sixty-year global run-up
has run its course. Finance capitalism is in a state of collapse, and
marginal palliatives cannot revive it. The US economy cannot “inflate
its way out of debt”, because this would collapse the dollar and end its
dreams of global empire by forcing foreign countries to go their own
way. There is too little manufacturing to make the economy more
“competitive”, given its high housing costs, transportation, debt and
tax overhead. A quarter to a third of US real estate has fallen into
Negative Equity, so no banks will lend to them. The economy has hit a
debt wall and is falling into Negative Equity, where it may remain for
as far as the eye can see until there is a debt write-down.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12328
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Posted in you've got mail at 2:30 pm by nemo
So Climate Change Is Real, Now What?
By Todd Neff, Daily Climate. Posted February 19, 2009.
With the human role in climate change largely settled, there’s now a need to shift from discovery to mitigation, solutions and policy. Tools
If the study of climate change were a Hollywood movie, it would have ended almost two years ago. The leaders of an epic struggle to prove humans are warming the planet accomplish their mission and win a Nobel Peace Prize. Cue up triumphant brass, cut to credits, fade to black.
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Posted in you've got mail at 2:27 pm by nemo
Bill McKibben: Why I’ll Get Arrested To Stop the Burning of Coal (and You Should, Too)
By Bill McKibben, Yale Environment 360. Posted February 24, 2009.
On March 2 leading environmentalists and our country’s top scientist, James Hansen, will put the heat on DC — join them.
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02.23.09
Posted in Evolution, The Eonic Effect at 10:45 pm by nemo
Another comment from my review of Coyne’s book. You can read this earlier comment to which it refers: The eonic effect, falsifying Darwinism
People are sometimes non-plussed by the eonic effect and my depiction because they expected a Big Theory when all that is presented is a simple exception to Darwinian assumptions, a falsifying exception.
We just look at a fragmentary sequence, and see how Darwinian evolution hits a stone wall, and flunks history. Darwin’s theory just doesn’t apply to history, as we can see from the totally different dynamics visible in the eonic effect.
There was one good comment here: the one showing confusion over the first ‘beat’ of the eonic sequence of three transitions in the eonic effect, i.e. the period of pre-Dynastic Egypt/Sumer. I think I explained everything you need for understanding that.
Keep in mind that the material on the eonic effect is not The NEXT GREAT THEORY but a simple pattern of non-random evolution in the emergence of civilization. It is left ragged, incomplete, and open to modification and debate, and can indeed be confusing in the first step. However, once you get used to it, it is a pretty devastating pattern of coherence. Study it! Get some idea of what you are missing.
The ‘first beat’ question is confusing, but not a serious objection. The data for Sumer/Egypt is sound. But that is the fate of a relative beginning in a fragment sequence that is probabably part of a larger sequence. The first beat is really a complex combination of two transitions, or two beats, one earlier ca. 5500 BCE. We even know where we will probably find it: to the north of sumer in the Hassuna/Halaaf sectors.
So the objection was perfectly good (I am surprised noone has raised it before) but is answerable. The eonic effect is an exercise in looking at a complex data set at close range, to realize that the real evolutionary dynamics that produced man occured in eyeblink time: in the case of the Axial Age entire civilizations remorph in a matter of centuries, then the effect wanes and goes back to semi-steady state. That means figuring out how man evolved in deep time is almost hopeless. The crucial periods might be totally beyond our reconstruction, if they occurred in the fashion of the Axial example.
In any case the eonic effect shows us we are outclassed by evolutionary dynamics. We need to be wary of not making a bad situation worse by inflicting violent junk theories like Darwin’s on the complexities of human culture.
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Posted in you've got mail at 9:47 pm by nemo
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/23/china-co2-emissions-climate
West blamed for rapid increase in China’s CO2
* Exports to Europe and US behind 15% of emissions
* Campaigners suggest new criteria for climate deal
The full extent of the west’s responsibility for Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases has been revealed by a new study. The report shows that half of the recent rise in China’s carbon dioxide pollution is caused by the manufacturing of goods for other countries – particularly developed nations such as the UK.
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Posted in Booknotes, Evolution, New Age at 8:21 pm by nemo
In the library today, bit of an India day, looked at: Hinduism: A Short History (Oneworld Short Guides) (Paperback)
by Klaus K. Klostermaier
Our discussion here before on the Aryan Invasion Theory vs Out Of India Theory, and other posts, has tried to show an open mind on the issue of the Out Of India hypothesis (since I tend to fall by default into the old-fashioned AIT camp). I want to get this one straight, but it appears to be not so easy.
It is hard to make headway here. So, looking through Klostermaier’s book I find much that is problematical: this book is solidly in the OIT camp, but all at once something seems awry here: the composition of the Rig Veda pegged at 4000 BCE forces me into a double take.
I simply can’t accept without a specialist review, or several, the idea that Vedic Sanskrit with its clear resemblance to Homeric Greek sources so early, several millennia earlier. Surely something is wrong here.
Languages change a lot in a thousand years, the change from 4000 BCE to the period of the Upanishads would have been very great indeed.
Book Two, for today:
Human Devolution
A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory
Michael Cremo
I haven’t read much of this! The information at Amazon is useful. Cremo is of course ‘notorious’ and the Darwin community would go ballistic on anything he did.
This book is so packed with data that it is hard to evaluate in a short look.
But the details apart, and the probable failure of most explicit ‘devolution’ theories, the fact remains that the project of an evolutionary theory can’t be completed unless we can resolve the unseen aspect of man’s total anatomy.
Perhaps more on this book some other time. It tends to generate a sense of hopelessness, despite the cornucopia of interesting tidbits (which make it worth looking at, a Vedic perspective on Darwinism being of public interest for the record).
You could do all this much better without the Hindu wrapper using the Schopenhauer framework.
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 7:13 pm by nemo
How Rich Countries Got Rich . . . and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (Paperback)
by Erik Reinert
Speaking of economics…
Here’s book worth reading on the issue of economics (which I am in the process of reading), with some surprising insights into economic history, and a few pointers on the way you can get sold on economic reasoning of a particular brand, and not realize its limitations. The author has some astounding references to economists we have never heard of from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, along with a distinctly jaundiced view of mainstream econo theory, especially that of Ricardo, and even Adam Smith.
The suggestion that we have witnessed in neo-liberalism and communism a play of right and left Ricardians is striking, a thought to make one pop out of one’s cultural conditioning on economics. Moral: the discipline of economics is a hard one, and there is much bad money in circulation.
In this refreshingly revisionist history, Erik S. Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism, and strategic investment—rather than through free trade. Yet when our leaders lecture poor countries on the right path to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the fact that our economies were founded on protectionism long before they could afford the luxury of free trade. How Rich Countries Got Rich… will challenge economic orthodoxy and open up the debate on why self-regulating markets are not the best answer to our hopes of worldwide prosperity.
About the Author
Erik S. Reinert, editor of Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective, is Professor of Technology Governance and Development Strategies at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and president of The Other Canon Foundation in Norway.
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Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy, Evolution at 6:59 pm by nemo
Are Markets Moral?
by Michael Shermer
With stocks tumbling, it’s time to think about how our brains shape the economy.
I don’t wish to be a partypooper all the time, but, despite the engaging enthusiasm and earnest aspiration to science in this article by Shermer (whose book I lambasted here a while back), I find the whole thesis problematic.
One of the oddities of modern science, or the culture of scientism, and I would be hard put to call economics a ‘science’, is the way ‘smart people’ of high intelligence are enthusiastically drawn into bad theories, there to excel, yet amount to nothing because they can grok on complexities, but not see bad theories for what they are. Like bugs to bright light these ‘high IQ’-ies are drawn, blinded in their brilliance to the bogus nature of the results. I refer to economic and evolutionary theories, mostly, on this point.
In any case, this issue is important for economics, especially in dire times, because the physics imitations of economists result in complex theories the layman can’t evaluate, but which for those who pursue the matter in a broader context are found to be pure junk. Applying calculus to marginal economics is a good example. Those intelligent to master these fields too often take them uncritically. This is no laughing matter now that neo-liberal economics, with its typical math whizzes like Milton Friedman, are found to get a last laugh from those who see through these concoctions. And perhaps the joke is not so funny.
There would be a lot to say here. But jumping to the end of a quote from Shermer’s essay….
Any theory of economics must begin with a sound theory of human nature. Evolutionary economics redefines the borders of our nature, showing just how driven we are by ancient programs designed for another time and another place. But we also evolved the adaptation of adaptability, and it is here where we see how and why humans behave as we do in such social institutions as markets: We cooperate for the same reason we copulate—because it feels good. On a deeper evolutionary level, the reason cooperating feels good is because it is good for us, individually and as a species. Trust and cooperation leads to a viable free market of exchange, and free markets lead to greater trust and cooperation.
…I would say that we have no sound theory of human nature, no sound theory of evolution, and no sound theory of economics, therefore the brave efforts to unite the three in a grand explanation….
I can’t go on. It almost cruel to call these ‘high IQ’-ies idiots. I must put down my pen (stop typing).
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Posted in History, selections, World History and The Eonic Effect at 5:24 pm by nemo
After the Amazon review flap it might help to start over and highlight some of the key points of World History And The Eonic Effect, to how they revolve around one simple question, and objective: a non-random pattern in world history, and its demonstration. That’s it.
1.1.1 In Search Of History: Using The Text
Historical research has greatly expanded our knowledge of world history, and the result is an unexpected discovery: that of a process of universal history in the action of a mysterious dynamic generating a non-random pattern. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in selections, World History and The Eonic Effect at 4:56 pm by nemo
This post contains a comment from my Amazon blog in response to another one-star review of World History And The Eonic Effect. This time I think I nailed the reviewer. These short one-star jobs are strong evidence that, even with a copy of the book, supposedly, the reviewer has not really read the book. They see that the book is critical of Darwinism, then fly off the handle in a rage.
I am not sure, of course, in this case, but in general must be entirely suspicious that in a week when I reviewed Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True critically retaliation comes. The Darwin groupies come out in force.
The whole Amazon review system is at risk on this kind of issue.
These tactics are effective censorship, by the way, and only someone like me who is able to survive the onslaught of sophmoric Darwin fanatics will dare to write a book critical of Darwin. You can see how, with the exception of ID writers, the old-fashioned Darwin critic has become very rare.
You may disagree with World History And The Eonic Effect, but to call it crazy is off the mark. The sheer complexity of the book, and its extreme care to be wary of theories of any kind, from a Kantian perspective, makes the charge of anti-science totally egregious.
The charge of ‘incomprehensible gibberish’ is surely false. I had the third edition evaluated by several people on just those grounds (because of a second edition claim of difficulty) and the verdict was that the book was technical and required careful study, but that is was not incomprehensible.
For a professor to make that charge is not fair. A book on Biochemistry is incomprehensible gibberish, if you have never studied it.
The days of ‘dumbed Darwinism’ are over. The evolution question needs to be looked at in its real complexity.
This book is about how the science of history is subject to paradox, and asks why science can never produce that science of history.
That is not the tactics of a quack.
I fear that it is Darwin that is the quack and these reviewers feel threatened and fly into a rage. In any case it is a most unprofessional review from a professor of chemistry.
Who’s the real quack? Darwin?
1:37 PM PST, February 23, 2009
I notice today another one star review of World History And The Eonic Effect. See below. It gets a bit tiresome. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in atheism at 3:59 pm by nemo
Comments at The Four Horsemen on YouTube
There was/is something wrong in the New Atheists’ strategy. It is hard to put one’s finger on it sometimes. Actually, there is nothing wrong in an atheist movement in a secular society, especially if its hidden agenda is a protest against religious violence.
But this movement, partly because of Dawkins, slipped into a false form of oversimplification and scientism, with a completely false Darwinian metaphysics alleged to foundationalize this atheism.
The whole game founders right there and puts a more intelligent brand of atheism at risk.
James said,
February 23, 2009 at 3:34 pm
This seems like a strange occasion to be drinking martinis (Dawkins and Dennett).
nemo said,
February 23, 2009 at 3:45 pm ·
They seem oblivious to the shallowness of their critique of religion, although Harris, not letting on, seems to have some other game up his sleeve. That’s not the same as criticizing their atheism, which is neither here nor there.
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Posted in religion at 3:40 pm by nemo
Submission in advance
20 years after the fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie, Islamism has the West more firmly in its grip than ever before. By Thierry Chervel
The cultural pages of Europe’s newspapers continue to avoid the subject even now. But the confrontation with Islam and Islamism – one of today’s central political issues – is essentially a cultural matter. The fatwa functions as an act of censorship and has left a deep imprint on the West. Communism also used to manipulate public opinion this side of the Iron Curtain, with the aid of its secret services and corruption. But Islamism, although a far more informal system, exerts a much more effective influence over the minds of Western cultural and media leaders. The fear is rationalised with the word “respect.” Playing with the symbols, discourse and constraints of Christianity has long been taken for granted in Western culture. But playing with the symbols of Islam has been out of bounds since the fatwa, ostensibly out of “respect.”
A gigantic taboo zone has been created, repeatedly reiterated and expanded with the well-intentioned collaboration of Western intellectuals. Tariq Ramadan, for example, the moderate Islamist from Geneva, won his first spurs by preventing a production of Voltaire’s “Mahomet.” Sweetly smiling women in head scarves distributed leaflets in Geneva in protest against the play. The city withdrew its support from the production. “They call it censorship, but I see it as tact,” said Ramadan in gratitude.
There have been countless cases of submission in advance since the fatwa.
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Posted in Science & Religion at 3:24 pm by nemo
The Four Horsemen HD – Now on YouTube
Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett
From Dawkins site
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DKhc1pcDFM (Uploaded for YouTube’s new “HD” setting!)
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Posted in Evolution at 3:21 pm by nemo
Two hundred years of Darwin, but not in Greece
By Lauren O’Hara
HE MAY have been born exactly 200 years ago and it may be 150 years since his groundbreaking book Origin of the Species was published but Darwin still draws crowds and controversy. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 3:18 pm by nemo
A Neanderthal in the family: working with ancient DNA
Prof. Svante Pääbo gave one of the plenary lectures at AAAS, describing his work decoding the Neanderthal genome and providing a glimpse of what it can tell us about our own evolution. Ars was there to hear him speak.
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Posted in Evolution at 3:13 pm by nemo
Stickleback fish becomes an unlikely star of evolutionary science
By SANDI DOUGHTON
The Seattle Times
Stickleback fish becomes an unlikely star of evolutionary science
In his voluminous writings, Charles Darwin made only brief mention of a little fish called the stickleback.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 2:57 pm by nemo
Evolution debate persists because it’s not science
By Raymond H. Kocot
Charles Darwin’s general theory of evolution, lifeless molecules-to-man evolution, has perverted the noble science of biology since his best-seller, “Origin of Species,” was first published in 1859. Most of Great Britain’s fundamentalist Bible believers eagerly accepted Darwin’s theory in the wake of a series of famous scientific discoveries by creationists, Copernicus, J. Kepler, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton. Acceptance of evolution and Darwin’s natural selection appeared to be a scientific replacement for their supernatural creator.
The naturalistic worldview claimed evolution by natural selection as the foundation of its belief, i.e., that everything in the universe is the result of a natural process. In addition to naturalism, materialism and atheism claimed then and now that Darwin’s theory made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Being on the side of a supposed scientific process made evolutionists feel intellectually superior to people who believed the Bible’s creation story.
But did you ever wonder why Darwinism’s general theory of evolution, sometimes called macroevolution, has been debated for over 150 years without resolution? The surprising answer is Darwin’s macroevolution theory is not a legitimate science. The National Academy of Sciences clearly defined science in its 1998 guidebook for science teachers. The definition begins with [stating that] science is a particular way of knowing about the world, and ends with, “Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not part of science.” In other words, a legitimate scientific theory (a hypothesis or idea) must be observable in real time and must be testable, yielding reproducible results. That is the core of the scientific method that has brought man out of the Dark Ages.
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Posted in General at 2:53 pm by nemo
Ocean Less Effective At Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emitted By Human Activity
ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2009) — In the Southern Indian Ocean, climate change is leading to stronger winds, which mix waters, bringing CO2 up from the ocean depths to the surface. This is the conclusion of researchers who have studied the latest field measurements carried out by CNRS’s INSU, IPEV and IPSL. As a result, the Southern Ocean can no longer absorb as much atmospheric CO2 as before. Its role as a ‘carbon sink’ has been weakened, and it may now be ten times less efficient than previously estimated. The same trend can be observed at high latitudes in the North Atlantic.
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Posted in global warming at 2:46 pm by nemo
Peak energy: promise or peril?
The notion that we’re running out of fossil fuel is gaining support in some unexpected quarters. But is peak energy good or bad news for the climate? Kurt Kleiner reports.
Will we continue to use fossil fuels to the detriment of our planet and the human population? Or can we clean up our act in time to avoid calamitous change? That’s the dilemma the world currently faces, yet in spite of efforts to transition to alterative energy sources, projections show that annual fossil fuel demand is likely to increase 45 per cent by 2030.
But those projections make an important assumption — that there will be enough oil, coal and natural gas to meet the demand. That’s a view that is increasingly being challenged by researchers, who are now looking at what declining fossil fuel supplies might mean for the Earth’s climate. Although some say that a peak in energy production could allow us to avoid the most serious consequences of climate change, others fear that we will still suffer disastrous impacts and run out of energy to boot.
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Posted in In the News at 2:42 pm by nemo
Published on Monday, February 23, 2009 by TruthDig.com
A Choice Between Peace and Peril
by Chris Hedges
Bibi Netanyahu’s assumption of power in Israel sets the stage for a huge campaign by the Israeli government, and its well-oiled lobby groups in Washington, to push us into a war with Iran.
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Posted in environment at 2:39 pm by nemo
Published on Monday, February 23, 2009 by Reuters
Police Warn of G20 Protests in ‘Summer of Rage’
by Michael Holden
LONDON – Police said on Monday they feared a “summer of rage” with mass protests over the economic crisis that could mar Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s G20 summit in London in April.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown pauses during his monthly news conference at 10 Downing Street in London, February 18 2009. (REUTERS/Kieran Doherty)Anti-globalisation protesters, environmental activists and anti-war demonstrators are all planning events before and during the meeting of world leaders.
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Posted in global warming at 2:35 pm by nemo
Published on Monday, February 23, 2009 by the Washington Post
Climate Fears Are Driving ‘Ecomigration’ Across Globe
by Shankar Vedantam
There were about 25 million ecomigrants in the world a little more than a decade ago, said Norman Myers, a respected British environmental researcher at Oxford University. That number is now “a good deal higher,” he added. “It’s plain that sea-level rise in the wake of climate change will inundate the homelands of huge numbers of people.”
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