History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
DNA Sequence of Extinct Ancient Cattle Uncovered
ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2010) — Researchers, based in Ireland and Britain, have found the complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequence of ancient wild cattle using a sample from a 6,700 year-old bone.
‘Pompeii-Like’ Excavations Tell Us More About Toba Super-Eruption
ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2010) — Newly discovered archaeological sites in southern and northern India have revealed how people lived before and after the colossal Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago
Giant Plankton-Eating Fishes Roamed Prehistoric Seas, Fossil Evidence Shows
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) — Giant plankton-eating fishes roamed the prehistoric seas for over 100 million years before they were wiped out in the same event that killed off the dinosaurs, new fossil evidence has shown.
Babies, Even When Premature, ‘See’ With Their Hands
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) — Even premature babies at 33 weeks post-conceptional age, about 2 months before term (40 gestational weeks), are capable of recognizing and distinguishing two objects of different shapes (a prism and a cylinder) with their right or left hands. This is the first demonstration of fully efficient manual perception in preterm human infants.
via email from Chaos listserve:
Climate Change, Feedback & Chaos theory
RG mail
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=can-greener-gadgets-save-us-from-e-2010-02-28
Observations – February 28, 2010
Can greener gadgets save us from e-waste?
Cross-discipline Effort Tracks Evolution of Human Uniqueness and Modern Behavior
A panel of scientists challenges what it is to be distinctly human and retraces the evolutionary steps that bipedal apes made to attain human traits
By David Despain
Two new books:
Sam Harris:The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Nomad
Harris’ book looks dubious, another futile effort to mechanize ethics. Sam Harris is a smart fellow, but incapable of getting outside of the mindset created by scientism.
In his forthcoming book, Harris proposes that answers to questions of human value can be visualized on a “moral landscape”—a space of real and potential outcomes whose peaks and valleys correspond to states of greater or lesser well being in conscious creatures like ourselves. Different ways of thinking and behaving—different cultural practices, ethical codes, modes of government, etc.—translate into movements across this landscape. Such changes can be analyzed objectively on many levels—ranging from biochemistry to economics—but they have their crucial realization as states and capacities of the human brain.
Hannity falsely claims Obama admin. gives special treatment to atheists
MediaMatters
http://mediamatters.org/research/201002270001
Commenting on a White House staff-level meeting with leaders of atheist groups, Sean Hannity claimed that religious groups “have not received this treatment from the Obama White House.” In fact, President Obama himself has met with numerous religious leaders, and the administration’s contacts with religious groups include two days of meetings between administration staffers and more than 60 religious leaders.
What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory
by Erin Biba – Wired Science
from dawkins site
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/what-is-time/
Tropics: Global Warming Likely to Significantly Affect Rainfall Patterns
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) — Climate models project that the global average temperature will rise about 1°C by the middle of the century, if we continue with business as usual and emit greenhouse gases as we have been. The global average, though, does not tell us anything about what will happen to regional climates, for example rainfall in the western United States or in paradisical islands like Hawai’i.
Climate Change and Coral Reefs: Coral Species Has Developed the ‘Skills’ to Cope With Rising Temperatures
ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2010) — Move, adapt or die. Those are the options marine plants and animals have in the face of climate change, said Stanford biologist Steve Palumbi, who has been exploring how to help them go with the first two options, rather than the third. He’s come up with some surprising answers.
Published on Saturday, February 27, 2010 by the Miami Herald
Chile’s Quake Many Times More Powerful Than Haiti’s
by Fred Tasker
“This was a big one. A really big one,” said Dr. Tim Dixon, geophysics professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, speaking of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck near Chile Saturday morning.
Published on Sunday, February 28, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
An Accidental Experience with a Health System that Seems to Work
by Dave Lindorff
As I write this article, I’m seated in a hotel room across from the train station in Geneva, Switzerland. There’s a slight, dull pain in my forehead from a two-inch line of stitches that are pulling together a gash that runs diagonally across my brow, thanks to a stumble on a high step on a sidewalk in the rain last night, that sent me flying airborne headfirst into a round metal lamppost.
gnxp
Research suggests that hormone shifts that follow weight loss play a role in changing the way our brain responds to food
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123894109
gnxp
Common test given to patients after the passing attacks appears to miss some cognitive impairments
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56598/title/Ministrokes_may_cause_more_damage_than_thought
gnxp
Teaching stroke patients to sing “rewires” their brains, helping them recover their speech, say scientists
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8526699.stm
gnxp
The success of genetically modified crops provides opportunities to win over their critics
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15579956
RG mail
by Thomas C Mountain
Countercurrents.org (February 22 2010)
The “richest man in the world”, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, recently announced
that he was making a $10 billion donation towards finding vaccines to
prevent some of the worlds worst diseases.
Malaria is the number one killer in Africa. From what I’m hearing about $1
billion of Bill Gates’ donation/tax write-off is for research to find a
vaccine to prevent malaria.
The African country of Eritrea, where I live, has reduced malaria
mortality by 85% in the last seven years. How? By using basic public
health methods. By distributing pesticide treated mosquito nets and
organizing the pesticide retreatment every three months of mosquito nets.
By habitat eradication. And by community medical clinics for immediate
treatment.
http://www.countercurrents.org/mountain220210.htm
RG mail
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/us/27race.html
February 26, 2010
To Court Blacks, Foes of Abortion Make Racial Case
By SHAILA DEWAN
ATLANTA — For years the largely white staff of Georgia Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, tried to tackle the disproportionately high number of black women who undergo abortions. But, staff members said, they found it difficult to make inroads with black audiences.
Need for social democratic left
James said,
February 27, 2010 at 2:54 pm ·
I’m not sure what a genuine left could do at this point. The tremendous wealth and manufacturing capabilities that the US built up in the first half of 20th century has been systematically destroyed by our leaders because of their worship of the Globalization Gods and their desire to emulate Rome. We’re 12 trillion in the hole and we simply don’t have the money to create a social democracy. It’s only a matter of time before the California virus spreads to the rest of the country. Of course, we could follow the jaw-droppingly stupid advice of Stiglitz (however, I do respect him for being one of the few economists who actually cares about human well-being):“Speaking at an event at the London School of Economics, Mr Stiglitz said that “the likelihood of a default is so small, particularly in the US because all we do is print money to pay it back.””
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7194071/Prospect-of-a-default-by-the-US-or-Britain-is-absurb-notion-Joe-Stiglitz-says.html
Stiglitz’ book FreefaLL is, however, worth reading.
Actually, the left and the Social Democratic Left are quite different, at least in the minds of the far left who excoriate Social Democratic compromises. But that is an old issue, and the current culture is so desperate that distinction doesn’t cut much ice anymore, except to note that socialism need have to fear of a money crunch or the deluxe options of social democracy. Socialism could be quite cheap.
The best way to rebalance one’s thinking on secularism is to study the eonic effect, where the ‘modern transition’ is seen in its balanced complexity: The modern transition
The nature of secularism comes through in this context.
The great irony of secularism is that its place in world history and the evolution of civiization makes it fully the equivalent, not just of the Greek classical transition, but of Old Testament Axial period, which has been totally misunderstood and mythologized.
Thus the almost magical nature of the rise of secularism should leave Xtianity idiots gasping, clutching their now obsolete Bibles in vain.
Comment on The Problem with Secularism
James said,
February 27, 2010 at 2:37 pm ·
Why is commentary from the mass media on every conceivable topic so worthless? I find it strange that none of the usual suspects can find the right reference point to frame this debate. The issue isn’t some abstractions called “science,” “secularism,” “atheism,” etc. vs. “religion,” “spirituality,” etc.; it is about competing systems of thought that create different paradigms of human action. When it comes down to it, Marxists, Darwinists, Christians, Muslims, etc. are all playing the same game.
The term ‘secular’ has itself shifted meaning, and now we see religionists attacking modernity because they think that secularism means atheism, this view often seconded by the ‘scientism gang’ of New Atheists, Darwinists, etc…
So it is important to see that while the center of gravity of secularism seems to lie beyond religion the fact remains that modernity is perfectly compatible with religion. It began with the Protestant Reformation.
Atheism was a secondary strain in the Enlightenment and became a kind of cult in the nineteenth century. The New Atheists have created a completely stupid pseud-secularism based on scientism, Darwinism, and atheism, which is a complete misunderstanding.
The term ‘secular’ is very similar to the idea of a new age, if not ‘New Age’, and only points to a society beyond the theocracy of medieval Catholicism. The Reformation fought a war of liberation on that score, and when that war was over secular culture came into existence, as by and large still a Christian culture. Even Spinoza was only amibiguously atheist.
This is not a plea for theism or religion, but a warning that the watered down secularism of the Dawkins/scientism cult will backfire and produce a religious reaction.
Just arrived in my inbox:
Fontoflife has shared a video with you on YouTube:
Hello: I thought I’d share this latest Symphony of Science youtube video with you. Hope you find it interesting.
Symphony of Science – The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)
mp3: http://symphonyofscience.comThe Poetry of Reality is the fifth installment in the Symphony of Science music video series. It features 12 scientists and science enthusiasts, including Michael Shermer, Jacob Bronowski, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Jill Tarter, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, Carolyn Porco, and PZ Myers, promoting science through words of wisdom.
Special thanks are due to The Sagan Appreciation Society:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SaganAppreciationSoc
and Connie Barlow:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ghostsofevolution
for their huge help in finding source materials. Check out their Youtube pages! Thanks also to all of you who suggested footage that I have not mentioned, I really appreciate it.
Check out http://symphonyofscience.com for more science music videos!
And my other website for more original electronic music: http://www.colorpulsemusic…
Amazon review system and Darwin books
Stephen said,
February 26, 2010 at 6:53 pm · Edit
They won`t like my review either, just posted.Stephen said,
February 26, 2010 at 7:07 pm · Edit
see:http://www.amazon.com/review/R1Y4HNK7KLMCBJ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini (page xiii) write: “It is our assumption that evolution is a mechanical process through and through. We take to rule out not just divine cause but final causes, elan vital, entelechies, the intervention of extraterrestrial aliens and so forth.” The authors then go on to refute Darwinism, but I will also argue that this reliance on mechanical processes is equally dubious.
Stephen (aka Hucklebird) is right, good to point it out, and I debated being more critical of their book. But it seemed to me that the authors’ strategy makes sense in the context in which they are operating. The authors restrict themselves to pointing to an inherent flaw in Darwinian-style theories. OK to concentrate on a crucial flaw.
But as you point out, they are likely to remain trapped in the paradigm in any case, as will become evident when the Altenberg 16 non-paradigm shift appears, in April.
The big breakthrough is self-org theory which leaves me playing with my mashed potatoes on the side of my plate.
Still, while this review is apt and inevitable, let us hope that Fodor/PP will signal to at least some of the Darwinian brain-dead that there is a problem with their beloved theory.
5. Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves by James Le Fanu. The second international book to make the Top Ten list this year is Why Us? by James Le Fanu, a British medical doctor who publishes in peer-reviewed medical journals like the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and the British Medical Journal, a columnist for the London Telegraph, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for his book The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine (2001). In Why Us? we discover he is also a Darwin doubter. Le Fanu’s main point is that the more science reveals about the most important question a human can ask—What is man and how did he come to be?—the more we have to admit that we don’t know. Le Fanu demonstrates this by masterfully recounting the epic demise of expectations that prevailed until recently for the prospects of three scientific enterprises. Darwinian evolution, genetics, and brain research were supposed to combine to give a compelling, coherent and united naturalistic account of man’s origin and nature. They did no such thing and the prospect of their doing so in the future appears hopeless. This is a great book to give your Darwin-devoted friends. Intelligent design is never mentioned, but the foundation for the materialist, reductionist world-view is systematically dismantled by a well-known authority on science and medicine.