04.30.10
Posted in Evolution at 12:19 pm by nemo
Amazon review of Evolution in four dimensions,
a very interesting discussions, with problems, as I outline them. The evolution of language and consciousness are simply voids in terms of any science of evolution, and it is nothing but hype to claim otherwise. Thus the last two dimensions of behavior and language don’t quite complete the explanation, in my book.
But the question of epigenetics over genetics is critical and a fair warning the straight Darwin paradigm is finished.
Try and get the Darwin dummy/Dawkins groupie mainstream to admit it, or even discuss this material.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:40 am by nemo
My thoughts on the Pigliucci vs Fodor Debate
He started out trying to define science. He stated that science is very difficult to demarcate. Many times in debates between IDists and anti-IDists we see the first point to be made is that ID is not testable. Massimo seems to disagree that this is the right strategy. Even astrology and creationism make testable claims. Yet no mainstream scientist or philosopher of science would consider these two propositions science. On the other hand, string theory is considered science by many (not all) scientists. Yet it is at the moment, untestable. So it’s complicated.
Eh? Natural selection is not testable save in a very limited cases. And the result never shows real macroevolution. So much for P’s clear thinking skills
Someone please put Daniel Dennett’s claim that free will evolved by natural selection to the test. Please!!
As this example shows the Darwinian claims are hype, and they get away with it because noone can put their claims to a test.
Instead they just browbeat and bully people who get out of line.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:34 am by nemo
Do chimps know death?
by Jerry Coyne – Why Evolution is True
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5514
I’ve always said that we are the only species whose members know they’re going to die. I’m not sure that’s true, of course, but there have been suggestions that some mammals, even if they don’t grasp their own personal mortality, at least understand that death is something final and unique.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:32 am by nemo
Frogs much like humans, genetically speaking
At least 1,700 genes in African clawed frog genome are similar to humans
Permalink
Posted in atheism at 11:29 am by nemo
American atheists irreligiously united, politically divided
In the United States, largely as a result of the relatively recent, post-1980 alliance between the political and religious right, atheism and secularism have come to be identified in the public mind with political liberalism. “Secular liberal” is an epithet to the anti-intellectual segment of the right, which–as a number of conservative intellectuals have pointed out recently–is in the driver’s seat among angry conservatives today. Implicit in this epithet is the belief that liberalism, secularism, and a liking for big government are linked. Nothing could be more ahistorical or less accurate about present-day secular America.
This is very complacent, and Darwinists/New Atheists are harming liberalism which is a highly pluralistic perspective. The narrow intolerance and cultic fetishism of the New Atheists, is bad atheism, bad religion, bad secularism, and bad liberalism.
The presumption of speaking for all atheists is embryonic fanaticism.
Permalink
Posted in neuroscience at 11:24 am by nemo
Watching a Living Brain in the Act of Seeing – With Single-Synapse Resolution
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2010) — Pioneering a novel microscopy method, neuroscientist Arthur Konnerth and colleagues from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have shown that individual neurons carry out significant aspects of sensory processing: specifically, in this case, determining which direction an object in the field of view is moving.
Permalink
Posted in neuroscience at 11:22 am by nemo
Sign Language Study Shows Multiple Brain Regions Wired for Language
ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2010) — A new study from the University of Rochester finds that there is no single advanced area of the human brain that gives it language capabilities above and beyond those of any other animal species.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:21 am by nemo
First Case of Animals Making Their Own Essential Nutrients: Carotenoids
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2010) — The insects known as aphids can make their own essential nutrients called carotenoids, according to University of Arizona researchers.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 11:19 am by nemo
Scientists Report First Genome Sequence of Frog: Genome of Xenopus Tropicalis Will Advance Frog Genetics
ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2010) — A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the University of California, Berkeley, is publishing the first genome sequence of an amphibian, the African clawed frog Xenopus tropicalis, filling in a major gap among the vertebrates sequenced to date.
Permalink
Posted in global warming at 11:18 am by nemo
Melting icebergs boost sea-level rise
09:00 30 April 2010 by Kate McAlpine
For similar stories, visit the Climate Change Topic Guide
When an ice cube melts in a glass, the overall water level does not change from when the ice is frozen to when it joins the liquid. Doesn’t that mean that melting icebergs shouldn’t contribute to sea-level rise? Not quite.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:15 am by nemo
Published on Friday, April 30, 2010 by ABC News
Oil Hits Louisiana Shore, Federal Government Increases Response
by Ned Potter, Ryan Owens and Kate McCarthy
Oil from a collapsed offshore drilling platform oozed onto the Louisiana coastline early Friday morning, threatening the worst environmental disaster to hit the U.S. in two decades.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:13 am by nemo
Published on Friday, April 30, 2010 by The Guardian/UK
International Failure to Meet Target to Reduce Biodiversity Decline
Pressures on the natural world have risen since the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity, say conservation groups
by Juliette Jowit
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:10 am by nemo
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:07 am by nemo
gnxp
The dean of Harvard Law School is condemning an e-mail sent by a law student suggesting that black people could be genetically inferior to white people
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/04/e-mail_sparks_a.html
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:05 am by nemo
gnxp
Injecting mice with Wnt proteins speeds up healing
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100428/full/news.2010.209.html
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:03 am by nemo
gnxp
Dogs ‘Smell Time’ and ‘See Faster,’ But Don’t Hear So Well
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/inside-dog-dog/story?id=10494333
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 11:00 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/GAM.20100429.ECONOMYEUROPESPAINSTAFFATL/GIStory/currencies/
Globe and Mail Report on Business April 29, 2010*
Debt crisis grows as Greece’s woes spread to Spain
Country hit with credit downgrade, lending new urgency to Greek bailout and
raising fears the crisis will cripple struggling EU members, including Italy
ERIC REGULY
ROME — Greece’s fiscal crisis is rapidly spilling over to other parts of
Europe, even hitting countries with relatively low debt levels.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 10:58 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/26/big-oil-fought-off-new-sa_n_552575.html
April 28, 2010
*Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion*
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 10:57 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/28-2
Common Dreams April 28, 2010
Murphy’s Law and the
Stupidity of Obama’s Drill-Drill-Drill Offshore Oil Policy
by Dave Lindorff
British Petroleum had a fail-safe system for it’s Deepwater Horizon floating
deep-water drilling rig.
You know, the one that blew up and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving a
tangled spaghetti pile of 22-inch steel pipe one mile long all balled up on
the sea floor a mile below the surface, and that is leaking oil at 42,000
gallons per day…so far.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 10:55 am by nemo
RG mail
What Is Going To Happen And Why Weren’t We Forewarned?
by Nicholas C Arguimbau
Information Clearing House (April 23 2010)
Look at this graph {1} and be afraid. It does not come from Earth First.
It does not come from the Sierra Club. It was not drawn by Socialists or
Nazis or Osama Bin Laden or anyone from Goldman-Sachs. If you are a
Republican Tea-Partier, rest assured it does not come from a progressive
Democrat. And vice versa. It was drawn by the United States Department of
Energy, and the United States military’s Joint Forces Command concurs with
the overall picture.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25306.htm
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 10:52 am by nemo
RG mail
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/29/AR2010042901106.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead
Gulf Coast oil spill could eclipse Exxon Valdez
By CAIN BURDEAU and HOLBROOK MOHR
The Associated Press
Friday, April 30, 2010; 2:29 AM
VENICE, La. — An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control with a faint sheen washing ashore along the Gulf Coast Thursday night as fishermen rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.
Permalink
04.29.10
Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 1:10 pm by nemo
The economist manifesto
Amartya Sen
The 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith wasn’t the free-market fundamentalist he is thought to have been. It’s time we realised the relevance of his ideas to today’s financial crisis.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 1:07 pm by nemo
“Fashions in social explanation come and go, but there remains no substitute for game theory in modeling human behavior… “
Game theory is an invitation to an especial kind of ‘smart idiocy’, of the kind we discussed last week, e.g. the case of someone like Alan Greenspan, with his easy mastery of economic junk theory and misunderstanding of its real meaning.
The overuse of game theory (I don’t wish to be totally rejecting here) is, we can bet, open to a similar mesmerizing delusion in its adepts.
In fact, a classic example is not hard to find: the Prisoner’s dilemma and the abuse of game theory in the Darwinization of ethics. All these geeky nerds are incapable of grasping the limits of such explanations.
Permalink
Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 1:03 pm by nemo
The Revenge of the Brands
How corporate America turned Naomi Klein’s anti-branding manifesto on its head
Permalink
Posted in General at 1:00 pm by nemo
The Case Of The Missing Centuries
It might help for scientists to understand their history, and the way in which science itself emerges in a directed evolutionary pattern, something scientists don’t control.
Thus as the modern tide of science distances itself from its macro mechanism the danger of deviation and decline arise as a grave danger, a problem we see already, perhaps, in the crystallization around scientism
Permalink
Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 12:55 pm by nemo
Watching the debate, once again, over natural selection flare up in the wake of the Fodor/PP book, I am struck by the almost incredible state of affairs Darwinists have created for science, putting the whole enterprise at risk. What on earth is the problem here?
To critique natural selection in Darwinism (and critiquing that critique is par for the course, but…) should be a moment’s exercise in science and dialectic but has become such an exercise in uphill struggle against sheer educated idiocy that one is left puzzled: what is it in science, and its educational method that has created such a dangerous mindset on the verge of precipiating the failure of science? Answer: the basically religious temperament of figures such as Dawkins with his effective piedpiper tactics and marketable oversimplications.
It is time to face the fact that all the world’s best scientists, the most intelligent, the best educated, are completely incapable of doing evolutionary theory, incapable of correcting their mistake(s), reviewing their history, telling the truth about the whole situation, or even sensing that there is a problem.
Scientists don’t even see the danger, or the way in which they are approachiing the Niagara falls, unable to change, indeed, stubborn about not changing.
The question of Darwinism has defaulted to the critiques of outsiders, as the establishment of science remains fixated and inflexible.
That legacy of failure will soon come to haunt science.
Permalink
Posted in 1848+, Ultra Far Left at 12:46 pm by nemo
An Evolutionary Psychology: Classical Samkhya
Antiquity also had its leftis revolt done right against religious exploitatioin, the classic Samkhya. By comparison the Feuerbachian Marxists, what to say of their New Atheist descendants, are pikers, incompetent on the whole question.
Permalink
Posted in General at 12:30 pm by nemo
There are a lot of answers to the implied question, but the previous post shows how the left is susceptible to the New Atheist game. In fact, the left virtually invented it, and the generation of Feuerbach and Marx shows the brand source of what we see in Dawkins et al. emerging. It is worth going back to the point to see how superficial, if apt, Feuerbach’s critique of religion was (really of Hegel) and the way figures such as Marx lapped it up like cat’s milk.
The left needs to repent of its oversimplifications, and carry out its real project of exposing religious exploitation. The solution to that exploitation is not to destroy religion, but to attack exploitation. The latter is now impossible for the left, since they no longer understand what the exploitation was, and is.
Permalink
Posted in atheism, Science & Religion at 12:26 pm by nemo
God and His Demons [Hardcover]
Michael Parenti
The abortion of the New Atheism movement lies in the indiscriminate hate campaign triggered by the word ‘religion’, a dangerous form of bias that discredits the critique of much historical religion.
This is on a par with Hitchens, using this tactic, transferring his hate campaign to Buddhists, denying the existence of enlightenment, in the name, I guess, of a secularist critique of all religion.
Traditionalist religionists are going to win this battle, such is the stupidity of the tactics, pioneered by Dawkins.
Permalink
Posted in Booknotes, Science & Religion at 12:18 pm by nemo
‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ by Philip Pullman
The savior of man, and his ‘evil twin.’BOOK REVIEWApril 28, 2010|By Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
With due respect to the indefatigable Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, Philip Pullman probably will be recalled as the most significant of the muscular British neo-atheists who have emerged with such intellectual force over the last decade or so.
When he is, however, it won’t be for his new novel, “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ,” which is a polemical fable every bit as wrong-headedly obvious as the title suggests.
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »