08.28.09
Posted in Evolution at 5:40 pm by nemo
Freedom Evolves?
Biologists are caught up in a set of very simple fallacies which they seem incapable of acknowledging and which point directly to the limits of Darwinism, and the intractable nature of the evolution debate.
Freedom evolves? The discrete freedom sequence One of the striking features of Darwinian thinking lies in the rote application of selectionist and adaptational thinking to all circumstances and situations, the series of ‘Just So Stories’ that purport, without direct observation, to explain complex features of organisms seen in nature. With human evolution this becomes an increasingly strained activity, amounting to little more than the fiat of methodological naturalism. A good example is the inevitable conclusion, as in Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, that free will evolves by natural selection, as an adaptation! Not a shred of evidence is offered for this incoherent deduction from speculative selectionism. As we close in on the eonic effect we can actually produce a counter-example, the so-called discrete freedom sequence, showing a macroevolutionary component to the emergence of freedom, in the process defining human evolution in terms of the idea of freedom taken together with causality as a chord of two opposites.
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Posted in links at 5:25 pm by nemo
Some links from last week:
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 5:03 pm by nemo
THE ALTENBERG 16: AN EXPOSÉ OF THE EVOLUTION INDUSTRY
Print Edition Of Suzan Mazur Book Launched
Announcement from Scoop Media Publishing
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Posted in Evolution at 5:00 pm by nemo
How to do ID: (1) Find a shark. (2) Jump it.
Ad hominem against O’Leary is pointless here: Her point is well-taken. Dawkins’ claims for a computer program to demonstrate evolution is a fraud, one that is constantly covered over with the bullshit routine visible in this post from Panda’s Thumb.
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Posted in you've got mail at 4:51 pm by nemo
From Evolution Conspiracy: Top 5 Flaws in the Fossil Record
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Posted in History, Kant, Philosophy at 2:26 pm by nemo
From Evolving Thoughts: The use of history by philosophers
One thing is clear: scientists, and Darwinists, have abused the study of history. Scientists because they obsessively deny freedom in thinking history is reducible to physical laws, and Darwinists because their false view of evolution is the source of endlessly denied endlessly applied Social Darinism.
The use of history by philosophers should be a question about the philosophy of history, and there the philosopher Kant proposes the clearest outline of that: Kant’s Challenge: http://history-and-evolution.com/whee/chap4_4.htm
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Posted in Comment at 2:04 pm by nemo
Comment on Confusions of Secularism
James said,
August 28, 2009 at 9:25 am ·“I identify secularism as a public philosophy of community life without God. Religion becomes private. This secularism accompanies the theory of secularization which holds that human beings are actively outgrowing religion.”
Uh oh, that is a bad thing. You should try to gather an army so you can restart the Thirty Years War. I’m sure you can find many willing volunteers in the Bible Belt.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:49 pm by nemo
[UPDATE 8-28]From mousy to blonde – in 8,000 years
by Telegraph.com.uk
from Dawkins site
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6101031/From-mousy-to-blonde—in-8000-years.html
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Posted in In the News at 1:47 pm by nemo
by Inayat Bunglawala – guadian.co.uk
from Dawkins site
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/27/islamophobia-committee
Last month I wrote on Cif about a worrying incident in Loughton, Essex, in which Noor Ramjanally – a local Muslim figure involved in organising the Friday jumu’ah prayer sessions in the town’s Murray Hall community centre – was the victim of an arson attack on his home. The attack had come very soon after Ramjanally had been sent a threatening letter from suspected far-right activists telling him to stop the prayer sessions and warning that “We know which school your kid goes to and which car you drive.”
Today the Guardian reports that earlier this week Ramjanally was abducted at knife-point by two men and driven to nearby Epping Forest where he was once again threatened and told to stop holding the Islamic prayer meetings.
The local police have issued a statement saying: “The police are treating the incidents as ‘hate crime’ and a possible motivation would appear to be a link to the use of the Murray Hall, Loughton by the Muslim community for Friday prayers.”
Superintendent Simon Williams of Essex police said: “We are treating these offences with the utmost seriousness and are putting considerable resources into the investigation.
“While that investigation continues we will be working with the whole population of Loughton to ensure that all members of the community are free to practise their religion and beliefs safely and freely.”
The British National party – which has four councillors in the area – has been busy in recent weeks in stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment in Loughton.
…
Continue reading
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/27/islamophobia-committee
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Posted in General at 1:45 pm by nemo
How deadly are cosmic rays?
Radiation could directly or indirectly wipe out species, expert says
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Posted in atheism at 1:43 pm by nemo
Fratricide: New Atheists vs. Framing Atheists
As of late there has been a lot of spittle passed between two camps in the Darwin-sphere. Things are getting really nasty, as so often happens among atheist factions.
On one side are the new atheists: Coyne, Harris, Dawkins, Dennett, Myers.
On the other side are the … well for want of a better word — the “framing” atheists: Ruse, Mooney, Kirshenbaum, Nisbet, Scott.
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Posted in General at 1:32 pm by nemo
Gene Associated With Language, Speech And Reading Disorders Identified
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2009) — A new candidate gene for Specific Language Impairment has been identified by a research team directed by Mabel Rice at the University of Kansas, in collaboration with Shelley Smith, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Javier Gayán of Neocodex, Seville, Spain.
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Posted in global warming at 1:31 pm by nemo
Small Fluctuations In Solar Activity, Large Influence On Climate
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2009) — Subtle connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe
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Posted in In the News at 1:29 pm by nemo
‘Plasmobot’: Scientists To Design First Robot Using Mould
ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2009) — Scientists at the University of the West of England are to design the first ever biological robot using mould.
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Posted in global warming at 1:26 pm by nemo
History can no longer guide farmers, investors: U.N.
GENEVA (Reuters) – Climate change has made history an inaccurate guide for farmers as well as energy investors who must rely on probabilities and scenarios to make decisions, the head of a United Nations agency said on Wednesday.
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Posted in you've got mail at 1:23 pm by nemo
Published on Friday, August 28, 2009 by Reuters
Activists Seek Tough UN Climate Pact in 100 Days
by Alister Doyle
OSLO, Aug 28 – Activists launched what they called the world’s biggest campaign to combat global warming on Friday, urging governments to agree a tough U.N. climate pact at talks in Copenhagen starting in 100 days’ time.
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Posted in you've got mail at 1:21 pm by nemo
Published on Friday, August 28, 2009 by The Associated Press
Growth of Ocean ‘Garbage Patch’ Alarms Experts
Three-week Pacific voyage highlights ‘shocking’ amount of plastic debris
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Posted in you've got mail at 1:16 pm by nemo
Published on Thursday, August 27, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
We Don’t Want to Rule the World
by Mark Weisbrot
Americans are famous for not paying much attention to the rest of the world, and it is often said that foreign wars are the way that we learn geography. But most often it is not the people who have little direct experience outside their own country that are the problem, but rather the experts.
The latest polling data is making this clear once again, as a majority of Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan, but the Obama administration is escalating the war, and his military commanders may ask for even more troops than the increase to 68,000 that the adminstration is planning by the end of this year.
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Posted in global warming at 1:12 pm by nemo
Published on Friday, August 28, 2009 by The Independent/UK
Annual Cost of Climate Change ‘Will Be £190bn’
UN has underestimated financial burden of global warming, study finds
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Posted in Evolution at 1:07 pm by nemo
gnxp
Experiments in monkeys show how mothers can avoid passing on mitochondrial DNA mutations to their offspring
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090826/full/news.2009.860.html
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Posted in you've got mail at 1:06 pm by nemo
gnxp
Two scientists suggest that depression is not a malfunction, but a mental adaptation that brings certain cognitive advantages
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=depressions-evolutionary&print=true
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Posted in General at 1:04 pm by nemo
gnxp
Palaeontologists aim to clamp down on illegal trade
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090825/full/4601067b.html
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Posted in you've got mail at 1:00 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0825/p09s01-coop.html
Christian Science Monitor August 25, 2009
Why Israel will thwart Obama on settlements
A former chairman of the American Israel Political Action Committee once boasted, “We got [ Illinois Republican Senator] Chuck Percy when he crossed us on the Palestinians.” President Obama will face a similar threat if he defies Israel’s expansionist instincts.
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:58 pm by nemo
RG mail
National Security Archive Update August 25, 2009
THE CIA TORTURE REPORT: WHAT WERE THEY HIDING?
A Side-by-side Comparison of the Bush and Obama Administration Releases
THE TORTURE ARCHIVE: 83,000 Pages Now Online, Full-text and Indexed :
http://www.nsarchive.org/torture_archive
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:56 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/26prison.html?_r=1
New York Times August 26, 2009
Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations
Any prosecution that focuses on low-level interrogators who broke the rules could appear unfair, since most of the brutal treatment was authorized from the White House on down.
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