History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
Retina Created from Human Embryonic Stem Cells
ScienceDaily (May 27, 2010) — UC Irvine scientists have created an eight-layer, early stage retina from human embryonic stem cells, the first three-dimensional tissue structure to be made from stem cells.
Has Craig Venter Produced Artificial Life?
“Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived.” So proclaimed The Economist on May 20th, after a team of scientists headed by J. Craig Venter [2] announced that it had replaced the natural DNA in a bacterial cell with DNA they had artificially synthesized.
According to University of Pennsylvania philosopher and bioethicist Arthur Caplan, “Venter and his colleagues have shown that the material world can be manipulated to produce what we recognize as life. In doing so they bring to an end a debate about the nature of life that has lasted thousands of years. Their achievement undermines a fundamental belief about the nature of life that is likely to prove as momentous to our view of ourselves and our place in the Universe as the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein.”
Whoa! Wait a minute!
Another link to WEIT blog: Grayling on Dalai Lama
Grayling has a point here, and the PR sermonizing of the DL, of late, has been a bit wishwashy.
However, while it is ‘right on’ to deny the original Buddhist stream was a ‘relligion’, it is not quite the same as a secular atheist philosophy of the modern type.
The stance of the Buddhists probably resembled that of the Jains, and the primordial Shavism, which tended toward atheism, but with a strain of agnostic polytheism, claiming that nothing could be know of a spiritual world.
Buddhism clearly specified the different realms, the ‘god’ realm (polytheism?), the titanic realm, the realm of hungry ghosts, etc…
What is a hungry ghost? Too bad if you don’t know, but you’ll be sorry when you find out. ….
Their approach is surely the right one: we don’t know anything about these realms, but we can make an operational framework of their probable significance.
There is an op-ed in today’s New York Times by no less a personage than the Dalai Lama, headlined “Many Faiths, One Truth.” He is of course right: there are many faiths, and there is one truth: viz. that all the faiths are bunkum. We all like the good old Dalai, do we not, who in this article iterates the claim that no-one heeds, viz., that tolerance is required for a peaceful world—except that he doesn’t seem to extend that warm sentiment to the limit. “Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs,” he laments, alongside mention of murderous inter-religious strife and religion-inspired mayhem—as if blanket condemnations‚ and mass murders carried out by zealots were somehow on a par.
Anyway: the point of mentioning this is to suggest that we never allow passage to the claim that the many faiths are all the same at bottom. The faithful hope that repetition of the claim will make it seem true. In response we should endlessly iterate the obvious, that the religions are mutually exclusive, mutually blaspheming, mutually hostile, bitterly and deeply divisive, and thus a rash of open sores in the flesh of humanity.
An equally bad thing about the Dalai Lama’s article is that he calls Buddhism a religion‚ and indeed in the superstitious demon-ridden polytheistic Tibetan version of it that he leads, that is what it is. But original Buddhism is a philosophy, without gods or supernatural beings—all such explicitly rejected by Siddhartha Gautama in offering a quietist ethical teaching; but he has of course been subjected to the Brian’s Sandal phenomenon in the usual stupid way of time and the masses.
The DL’s op-ed:
Many Faiths, One Truth
By TENZIN GYATSO
Published: May 24, 2010
Read the rest of this entry »
Is depression an adaptation?
Coyne rightly critiques ‘evo-psych’ explanations here. In fact, Darwinism flunks all around on psychology. Can Buddhist Enlightenment be explained as an adaptation? Ha! Termination of the subject is anti-survival strategy with a vengeance.
Disturbed by the continuing and uncritical darwinization of psychiatry, especially the tendency of psychiatrists to explain mental illnesses as evolutionary adaptations, I’ve written a piece for the Psychiatric Times, which I’m told is the most widely read publication in the field. You’ll have to register (free) to see it at the journal, but I’ve posted it in its entirety below.
This article grew out of two of my posts on this website from last August (here and here). I felt especially compelled to write it because the authors of the study I critique think that the if depression is an evolved adaptation, psychiatrists should treat it with Darwinian remedies. To them, this means using problem-solving talk therapies (not necessarily a bad thing, I guess, though I don’t see why this should always be the best approach), and, especially, withholding medication. If depression is adaptive, so they say, then people should be encouraged to suffer through its pain to receive its benefits.
Chomsky’s Audience Problem: Is Anyone Listening?
I, for one, am listening, so I can’t evaluate this critique/question, but its general point may be well taken.
What often puzzles me is why Chomsky cannot lead the way in the expose of Darwinism, both in general, and for the left. He is a clear postdarwinian, no use denying it, and has neglected his paradigmatic duties in declaring the endgame at its end, for Darwinian nonsense.
The obvious inability of Darwinian theory to explicate linguistic evolution in man should be the defense card for those who suspect something is awry with the ‘science’ here, without any religious or other agenda.
The previous post, despite our lack of enthusiasm for ID here, shows that attacking ID is pointless. The elusive truth of evolution in nature is beyond the current reductionist Darwinism.
It is worth considering the insight of Schopenhauer (which in turn resembles that of the ancient naturalistic Samkhya) into the question of ‘will’, a treacherous study requiring careful analysis of his meaning. But in general the noumenal aspect of will, which doesn’t mean human will, in relation to scientific laws (assuming one understands this, the use of the word ‘will’ at all being equivocal), gives us a deep hint, however hypothetical, into the subtlety of the design question, and the reason religionists confuse the issue and try to turn it into ideology
Intelligent Design Is an Empty Sack, So Why Do We Have to Repeat This?
Constantly attacking ID is getting to be a pointless exercise, given that Darwinism is actually worse.
Why not a dialectical approach looking at the dialectic of all sides. That would disarm the ID gambit effectively, and put Darwinism in its place
Why morality doesn’t need God
By TIM DEAN – ABC (AUSTRALIA)
Added: Thursday, 27 May 2010 at 03:04 PM
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/474092-why-morality-doesn-t-need-god
If God is not, everything is permitted.” Or so they say. Except they’re wrong. Dangerously so.
This dictum – that without some absolute divine authority, then morality is at best arbitrary, at worst, annihilated – is unsheathed and bandied about all-too-often these days.
Recently, it’s reared its seditious head in response to the trial of an ethics-based complement to scripture in NSW. The church has pulled out all the stops to block the ethics class, and one of the reasons posed is that ethics without God is hollow, that teaching secular ethics is like teaching English without books, maths without numbers, science without observation.
But the notion that God is required in order for morality to have any real clout is demonstrably false. In fact, if you want a comprehensive, robust and flexible ethics that can address the problems we face today, then you need to explicitly look for a morality without God.
This is because the subject matter of morality is very much grounded in the real world: morality deals with real people, real issues and has to navigate real conflicts. And the real world is a complicated place where not everything is as it seems. One of our best tools for understanding the real world is the humble question “why.” But often you have to ask “why” more than once to get to the answer.
In theory this is a correct argument, but in practice the damage done here is ongoing and destructive. Nietzsche’s appeal to scientists is concealed and deadly.
This idea, it should be said, was clearly present in Kant! You still have to explicate morality, and scientism/Darwinism can’t do that.
Dr. Craig Venter shakes the heavens with synthetic life
By Jordan Manalastas
http://www.dailybruin.com/articles/2010/5/27/dr-craig-venter-shakes-heavens-synthetic-life/
May 27, 2010 at midnight
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Ancient Jaw Bones Discovered in Sahara Help Scientists Identify New Pterodactyl
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2010) — With the help of ancient fossils unearthed in the Sahara desert, scientists have identified a new type of pterosaur (giant flying reptile or pterodactyl) that existed about 95 million years ago.
Copycat Behavior in Children Is Universal and May Help Promote Human Culture
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2010) — Children learn a great deal by imitating adults.
Swarming Locusts Need Larger Brains
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2010) — One of the most devastating events in the insect world — the locust swarm — has extraordinary effects on the insect’s brains, scientists in Cambridge have discovered.
Gene Causes Blue Light to Have a Banana Odor in Fruit Flies
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2010) — Scientists at Germany’s Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum have succeeded to genetically modify Drosophila (fruit fly) larvae allowing them to smell blue light.
Prehistoric Birds Were Poor Flyers, Research Shows
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2010) — The evolution of flight took longer than previously thought with the ancestors of modern birds “rubbish” at flying, if they flew at all, according to scientists.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/27-2
Published on Thursday, May 27, 2010 by the Associated Press
Scientists Say More Gulf Oil Flowing Than Thought
ROBERT, La. – Scientists studying the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico now say it’s leaking at least twice as much oil and possibly five times as much as original estimates.
U.S. Geological Survey Director Dr. Marcia McNutt is the leader of a team put together to try to figure out how much oil is coming from the well.
She says results are preliminary but two teams using different methods determined the well is leaking at least 504,000 gallons a day. One team said it might be leaking as much as 798,000 gallons and another said that number might be closer to a million gallons.
The well blew out when the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20.
BP and the Coast Guard had said since then that about 210,000 gallons a day was flowing.
mxmail
NY Times May 26, 2010
New King of Technology: Apple Overtakes Microsoft
By MIGUEL HELFT and ASHLEE VANCE
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gnxp
Darwin made important contributions to more than just the life sciences. It turns out he was also an early experimental psychologist
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-evolution-of-emotion-charles-da-2010-05-24
gnxp
Plants that spontaneously grow in the city are marvels of adaptation. What can we learn from them?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/05/23/this_is_not_a_weed/
gnxp
Women who are open and trusting become more shrewd and less trusting when given testosterone, say researchers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10156433.stm
gnxp
Heavy smokers who get lung cancer may have tens of thousands of genetic mutations, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100526/hl_nm/us_cancer_lung_genentech
Can exercise help keep our minds sharp? Researchers studying both animals and humans increasingly say the answer is yes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052402608.html
Barry Eisler: Promoting Ideology through Culture
http://act.commondreams.org/go/783?akid=68.96588.zC585m&t=16
Oil Regulation a Broken System
http://act.commondreams.org/go/782?akid=68.96588.zC585m&t=14
End of Alaotra Grebe Is Further Evidence of Sixth Great Extinction
http://act.commondreams.org/go/778?akid=68.96588.zC585m&t=6
Nets Slung Around Apple Factories to Deter Suicidal Employees
http://act.commondreams.org/go/777?akid=68.96588.zC585m&t=4
RG mail
How the left learned to be helpless
by Kevin Baker
Harper’s Magazine Essay (April 2010)
On the first day of December last year, Barack Obama stood before the
assembled Corps of Cadets at West Point and announced his decision to send
another 30,000 troops to the war in Afghanistan. The president’s
nationally televised address was, in many ways, the most honest speech
made to the American people by their leader in a generation. Obama
conceded that our client state in Afghanistan “has been hampered by
corruption” and “has moved backwards”, He told us he had rejected “a more
dramatic and open-ended escalation” of the war because that would require
setting “goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost,
and what we need to achieve to secure our interests”, He called on the
nation to restore “the connection between our national security and our
economy”, since “our prosperity provides a foundation for our power”,
which means therefore that “our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be
open-ended – because the nation that I am most interested in building is
our own”.
Humans: Why They Triumphed
How did one ape 45,000 years ago happen to turn into a planet dominator? The answer lies in an epochal collision of creativity. By Matt Ridley
This failure to explain human evolution is right out in the open, and covered over with non-explanations such as Ridley’s.
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