EVERYONE knows that the dinosaurs were exterminated when an asteroid hit what is now Mexico about 65m years ago. The crater is there. It is 180km (110 miles) in diameter. It was formed in a 100m-megatonne explosion by an object about 10km across. The ejecta from the impact are found all over the world. The potassium-argon radioactive dating method shows the crater was created within a gnat’s whisker of the extinction. Calculations suggest that the “nuclear winter” from the impact would have lasted years. Plants would have stopped photosynthesising. Animals would have starved to death. Case closed.
Well, it now seems possible that everyone was wrong. The Chicxulub crater, as it is known, may have been a mere aperitif. According to Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University, the main course was served later. Dr Chatterjee has found a bigger crater—much bigger—in India. His is 500km across. The explosion that caused it may have been 100 times the size of the one that created Chicxulub. He calls it Shiva, after the Indian deity of destruction.
Dr Chatterjee presented his latest findings on Shiva to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon, on October 18th. He makes a compelling case, identifying an underwater mountain called Bombay High, off the coast of Mumbai, that formed right at the time of the dinosaur extinction. This mountain measures five kilometres from sea bed to peak, and is surrounded by Shiva’s crater rim. Dr Chatterjee’s analysis shows that it formed from a sudden upwelling of magma that destroyed the Earth’s crust in the area and pushed the mountain upwards in a hurry. He argues that no force other than the rebound from an impact could have produced this kind of vertical uplift so quickly. And the blow that caused it would surely have been powerful enough to smash ecosystems around the world.
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from dawkins site
Today’s the day, at least in the US, when 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, edited by my mate Russell Blackford and Udo Schüklenk, goes on sale in the US.
The More They Know Darwin, The Less They Want Darwin-Only Indoctrination
According to an international poll released by the British Council, the majority of Americans — 60% — support teaching alternatives to evolution in the science classroom. The percentage is the same for Britons, despite the fact that both countries have been inundated with pro-Darwin media coverage in this super-mega Darwin Year.
Globalization: Diseases Spreading From Humans To Animals, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2009) — Globalisation and industrialisation are causing diseases to spread from humans to animals
Ocean Acidification May Contribute To Global Shellfish Decline
ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2009) — Relatively minor increases in ocean acidity brought about by high levels of carbon dioxide have significant detrimental effects on the growth, development, and survival of hard clams, bay scallops, and Eastern oysters,
Secrets In A Seed: Clues Into The Evolution Of The First Flowers
ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2009) — Approximately 120-130 million years ago, one of the most significant events in the history of the Earth occurred: the first flowering plants, or angiosperms, arose. In the late 1800s, Darwin referred to their development as an “abominable mystery.” To this day, scientists are still challenged by this “mystery” of how angiosperms originated, rapidly diversified, and rose to dominance.
Arctic Lake Sediments Show Warming, Unique Ecological Changes In Recent Decades
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2009) — An analysis of sediment cores indicates that biological and chemical changes occurring at a remote Arctic lake are unprecedented over the past 200,000 years and likely are the result of human-caused climate change
Published on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by The Missoulian (Montana) Long-Time Environmental Activist: ‘It’s About the Confrontation’
Earth First! Co-Founder Reflects on Technology, Protests, Environmental Battles Ahead in New Book
gnxp
Tests can help physicians figure out what drug therapy will work best for their patients. But a large majority don’t know how to use such analysis
gnxp
People who have both Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes have slower rates of memory loss than people who just have Alzheimer’s, French researchers said on Tuesday
Tax the Rich
How to Reduce Unemployment, Rebuild the Middle Class and Free Ourselves From Wall Street
By MOSHE ADLER
Ten percent of Americans are unemployed, and many doubt that President Obama’s stimulus will create enough jobs to reduce this rate significantly. But given the structure of our labor force, more jobs is not necessarily what we need anyway. Our workforce includes 13.5 million people who don’t belong in it at all. Permitting them not to work would free up jobs and raise the wages of millions of workers who belong in the middle class. It would also free all of us of our dependence on Wall Street.
RG mail
by Paul Craig Roberts
vdare.com (October 05 2009)
“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living
labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks”. – Karl Marx {1}
If Karl Marx and V I Lenin were alive today, they would be leading
contenders for the Nobel Prize in economics.
October 28, 2009
Anxious Crowds Meet Ad Hoc Swine Flu Police
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
LOS ANGELES — The top public health official in Los Angeles County stood at a swine flu vaccination site in Compton, Calif., on Tuesday and gently told elderly residents that they really ought to go home.
“I explained to people 65 or older, ‘The reason we are doing this is for children,’ ” said the official, Jonathan E. Fielding, the director of the county’s Department of Public Health. “I told them: ‘They are at very high risk for this flu, and you’re at low risk. I am sure you wouldn’t want to get a shot that left a kid who is at risk in harm’s way.’ ”
RG mail
Reining in the financial industry’s power and greed will be a long,
hard-fought war. But it is one that must be fought.
by Dean Baker
michaelmoore.com (October 19 2009)
sciftp
dated 31 October 2009 | issue 2175
A new television series takes apart all those so-called “scientists” who peddle the myth that our intelligence is determined by our genes, writes John Parrington Read the rest of this entry »
Faith No More
What I’ve learned from debating religious people around the world.
By Christopher Hitchens
We discussed the New Atheist debates over religon and with religionists here ad infinitum a year or two ago, and were often critical of Hitchens. Read the rest of this entry »
There is, or was, an old post here, which seems to have been mislaid. Here is a cached version truncated from google: scroll down Zizek and Hegelian brain damage
This was a frontal attack on Marxist theory and its Hegelian confusions. The perspective was intended to be ‘ultra far left’, a concoction to preempt the usual conservative hype critiquing Marx.
I have to suspect that Zizek read this post and that it touched a nerve, because it shows defiant and aggressive, yet nettled, defense of the old-fashioned Marxist ideology, yes, ideology, of which I was critical, along with some indications of Hegel. Read the rest of this entry »
Stephen P. Smith said,
October 27, 2009 at 1:38 pm ·
Whose “will” is this that holds such vitality? The search for self almost never ends!
The fans of Darwinism cannot accept such a will, doing so is to admit to vitality and open the door to philosophical vetting.
Good point. I should point out that while I am a great admirer of Schopenhauer, that does not necessarily mean I accept his metaphysics of the will. However, he perspective shows deep insight, since it is a distant echo not just of Plato but of the Indian Samkhya.
I am very critical of design arguments. But I am also critical of NS arguments, so the question arises, how can we resolve the question in nature? My partial answer is Kantian, the idea of natural teleology.
In general it is interesting to look at the design arguments that arise in people who never embraced them, and, in fact, could be said to have tried to avoid them. Schopenhauer is one case.
Another might be Samkhya, and in the version of J.G. Bennett (cf. his The Dramatic Universe) we see that all reality is a blend of three factors, being, function, and will. (He was influenced by Schopenhauer). This means that in manifestation of material things the factor of ‘will’ is also present. In general, in such formulations the question of design, i.e. will, as a hybrid of mechanical and non-mechanical elements arises at all levels of nature, suggesting the failure of attempts at reductionism (seeing everything as function)>
James said,
October 26, 2009 at 4:20 pm ·
I’m not really commenting on the issue of “design” as such. The main issue is the attempt by ID proponents to apply engineering terms to biological organisms in order to establish the rationality of some sort of designer and then claiming that the designer is really an artist to circumvent the problem of imperfect design. This isn’t really a problem if the “designer” is something like Schopenhauer’s “Will.”
Very good point. The abuse of the design argument by the ID group deserves a reminder of the perspective of Schopenhauer, a writer many fans of Darwinism might find helpful
There’s a reason why we find it easier to “get” modern art than avant-garde music, and it’s not just about our natural conservatism and love of Mozart
I often (usually in vain) suggest a study of the eonic effect in relation to many subjects, among them the questions of music and art. We see a strong correlation of artistic genuis and the eonic sequence, strong but never exclusive.
With music we see the exact correlation of modern classical music with the modern transition and divide, followed by a fairly swift falling off by the period of Schonberg. Remarkable.
It doesn’t occur to people that the clustering of genius is a macro-historical dynamical question.
With art we see something a little different: just as the transition is waning the revolution called modern art begins, as if to extend the life of the creative period.
Actually, it is a long study. Who knows, quite. But the questions of fine art and music are different and the eonic effect reflects that.
A Mozart is almost a novelty of world history. But fine art is already a species characteristic, existing in every generation since the Paleolithic. Thus the relative transformation of fine art during the eonic sequence is therefore less visible.
With complex forms of art with which man is less adept, e.g. the summit of literary art seen first in Greek tragedy or music at the level of the classical period we can see that outside of the eonic sequence they don’t occur. And as the transition of the modern period wanes, so does music, the question of tragedy being openended, since we have not even defined our terms.
But, obviously, noone is going to replicate Shakespeare any time soon.
Fine art, while it might slump for a while after the decline of the ‘modernist’ period is not likely to go latent. Every generation can reconceive fine art.
What will happen with music remains obscure.
As to tragedy: you are free to refute this judgment: sit down and write a blank verse tragedy that is really tragic (which is what?), and….
Ayn Rand never got into an argument she couldn’t win. Except, perhaps, with herself.
This confused nonsense shows the way in which people can be mesmerized by false intellects.
The damage done by Ayn Rand has been immense, and yet hordes of people are confused by her.
Ayn Rand is a warning to people with high IQ’s: the statistic amounts to ver little but it can focus on a one-dimensional reality and turn into something biased and deadly.
