07.03.09
Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 5:07 pm by nemo
Old Fossil Takes On DarwinPosted by PZ Myers, Pharyngula at 5:01 AM on July 2, 2009.
The old fossil is Pat Buchanan, who has published a freakishly antiquated diatribe against Darwin.
Myers manages a miracle: he’s even more confused, or else untruthful, than Pat Buchanan.
The book in question, The End of Darwinism, actually hit 300 rank at Amazon, which is stupefying.
This book has problems, but all in all, it touches on many of the problems with Darwinism. Myers lambastes the author for his views on Marx and Darwin. Great, I have denied Marx’s Darwinism many times, but here: why not press this criticism on the current left? And the usual denial of the Darwin to Hitler connection. The connection is there, but it is worth reading Weikart’s book on this, to see the complexity of the question.
This attack of Myers is worthless, and not defense against these right-wing anti-darwinists.
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Posted in Evolution at 4:22 pm by nemo
I am told the NCSE is now downplaying ‘natural selection’ theory.
We seem to be getting somewhere.
http://history-and-evolution.com/whee/intro1_4.htm
Darwin did a tremendous disservice by putting so much emphasis on natural selection. It was a ‘gimmmick’ and a ‘crank theory’, and, also, the key to what Darwin considered his ‘originality’.
The idea of evolution was already known, the key to his fame and fortune as in the claims for natural selection.
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Posted in Evolution at 2:38 pm by nemo
The Front-loading Fiction
Posted by Rob on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 5:49:41 PM
In responding to an email about “front-loading” as a Deistic solution to the universe that does not require an interventionist (theist) God, I replied that I have some philosophical problems with the phrase “front-loading”. It is a concession to Deism that doesn’t have to be made. Trying to describe a “front-loaded algorithm” highlights the problem with the philosophical solution.
Historically, the argument for front-loading came from Laplacian determinism based on a Newtonian or mechanical universe–if one could control all the initial conditions, then the outcome was predetermined. First quantum mechanics, and then chaos-theory has basically destroyed it, since no amount of precision can control the outcome far in the future. (The exponential nature of the precision required to predetermine the outcome exceeds the information storage of the medium.)
But “front-loading” permitted Deists to say that God designed the Universe, and then stepped back and let “natural” forces operate, thereby removing any “supernatural” interference of the sort that Lucretius fumed about in 50BC. So if Newtonian determinism was now impossible, perhaps there could be some sort of algorithmic determinism (which I’ll call Turing determinism) which could step in and permit a Deist to avoid the supernatural. That is, God doesn’t have to create the oak from the acorn anymore, but the biological program He inserted in the acorn can handle all the intermediate steps. So perhaps, God didn’t have to create humans, but the biological program in the first living cell He created, started the ecosystem that eventually evolved humans.
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Posted in Booknotes, Evolution at 1:45 pm by nemo
Press Release: Miscellaneous Announcements
The Selfish Genius: How Dawkins Rewrote Darwin’s Legacy
Posted at 4:02PM Friday 03 Jul 2009
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 1:37 pm by nemo
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson on Intelligent Design
Proponents of ID seem desperate. But appealing to Jefferson will backfire.
The current design argument is so overhyped that to put Jefferson into this camp is actually a disservice to Jefferson, and, ironically, to the design argument.
The worst thing that ever happened to the design argument was the Discovery Institute.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:29 pm by nemo
Triple Fossil Find Puts Australia Back On The Dinosaur Map
ScienceDaily (July 3, 2009) — Scientists have discovered three new species of Australian dinosaur discovered in a prehistoric billabong in Western Queensland.
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Posted in Evolution, biology at 1:25 pm by nemo
Giant Moa Rebuilt Using Ancient DNA From Prehistoric Feathers
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — Scientists have performed the first DNA-based reconstruction of the giant extinct moa bird, using prehistoric feathers recovered from caves and rock shelters in New Zealand.
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07.02.09
Posted in Evolution at 2:50 pm by nemo
Comment: Huxley’s warning to Darwin
James said,
July 2, 2009 at 2:36 pm ·
While NS is a problem, the real issue is that evolutionary biology isn’t anywhere close to being able to develop an adequate theory. We would still be stuck with the same problems if Kimura’s theory became the reigning paradigm. Biologists should get over their physics envy and admit that they aren’t ready to join the “real science” club.
Natural selection theory has made people complacent. But ‘evolution’ is a very complex subject indeed.
I always recomment the eonic effect. There is no theory there, because we are confronted by a massively complex entity stretching over ten millennia and actively dynamic in relation to complex parts of culture.
Once we see that, at least in part, we realize that ‘evolution’ is another dimension of effects, an order of magnitude more complex than physics.
So it is a bit silly to be going around preening one’s feathers over Darwinism.
Primitive ape behavior.
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Posted in Evolution at 2:14 pm by nemo
Looking at this naivete on the part of Darwinists, that natural selection can explain language evolution, I am mindful of T.H. Huxley’s warning to Darwin on the even of the publication of Orign: you unnecessarily burden yourself with natural selection.
That Huxley, Darwin’s principle defender and promoter, should have taken this view on NS should be a wake up call for scientists, and followers of Darwinism. But it seems not to sink in. People like Huxley hadn’t suffered a century of brainwashing on NS. Their excitement was in the ‘fact’ of evolution.
The issue of the day was ‘evolution’, although the word was not yet in general usage. After a generation of public reluctance after the French Rev (’evolution’ being about as respectable as ‘bolshevism’ is today) the tide began turning, first with Chambers, then especially with Darwin.
Darwin’s breakthrough was in the public promotion of evolution, first, then, his natural selection theory, second, and that theory was less popular, for good reason.
Consider the point, and the unnecessary confusion created by Darwin in the middle of his ’success’.
This is important, given the previous post discussing the left on language evolution: everyone in ’secular’ circles is unnecessarily burdened with NS theory.
If you really think an organ as complex as language arose by NS, without proof, then the argument will, fairly soon, cede to the religious critics, because ‘design’ seems like the only alternative, to those unnecessarily burdened with NS thinking.
The only safe stance for a secularist here is to plead ignorance. We are completely outclassed by the question of the evolution of language.
That’s not surprising: we don’t even understand how language works, or its neuroscience. Small wonder its evolution is an enigma.
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Posted in Descent of Man Revisited, Evolution at 1:28 pm by nemo
Evolution’s revolution
Mike Belbin looks at the emergence of human culture and the vital role of symbolism
“Do materialists really think that language just ‘evolved’, like finches’ beaks …?” - AN Wilson, ‘Why I believe again’ New Statesman April 6 2009
“We are annoying to the leopard because our ancestor stole fire from theirs” - South Amerindian story
What kind of animal are humans? To the crude materialist we are, according to taste, chiefly animal; bundles of needs, habits and reactions; savage or simple. To the spiritual believer, animal matter required something extra, something originally separate, to become human. Is human culture then just another kind of animal behaviour? What does it mean to trace humanity’s development from nature to society? What is the ‘missing link’ between natural history and anthropology? If animals communicate, and they do, is there anything special about human language
The left hasn’t a clue on evolution, which is about the same condition liberals find themselves in. (and everyone else)
This quote from A.N. Wilson (who has done major Wobbles on atheism, now a ‘reconvert’) constitutes a threat to leftist/materialist thinking. The more so since all these people quoting Marx/Engels ad nauseam on these issues simply show their ignorance. And quoting Chomsky is also problematical: he is a postdarwinist who arm has been so twisted by Pinker that he can be considered a victim of torture: silenced.
How is the complex potential for language Chomsky depicts to have evolved?
At least Wilson doesn’t (here) propose the design argument.
These navie leftists are going to lost the argument for us. Time to really consider what Wilson is saying. It is dangerous thinking for old-fashioned nineteenth century materialist. The public is going to regress to religious traditionalism if the left/liberals keep spouting Darwin stupidities.
The study of the eonic effect can help here, if only to remind us that real evolution is so far beyond our current grasp that we may as well be chimpanzees on the subject: Check out the ‘evolution of art’ in the axial period,
Art, evolution, and the tragic genre
Beyond that, a new approach to evolution/universal history can be pursued in two essays here:
http://eonic-effect.net/index_top_1848.htm
http://eonic-effect.net/politics_of_evolution.htm
It is worth remembering that Marx talked materialism but was a post-Hegelian with a sense of ‘universal history’, as in the philosophy of history.
That’s closer to a form of an ‘atheist’ design argument than to materialism.
I wouldn’t be citing A.N. Wilson so glibly here.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:07 pm by nemo
Comment on Zogby: most Americans believe in ID
James said,
July 2, 2009 at 9:11 am ·
They should also do another poll to determine the number of Americans who are aware that the argument from design was successfully torpedoed a while ago.
The point is absolutely clear: the ID group seems to be betting noone has heard of any of the history of the design argument
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Posted in Evolution at 12:47 pm by nemo
Did Evolution Make Us Cancer Prone?
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered that gene mutations that once helped humans survive may increase the possibility for diseases, including cancer.
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Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 12:44 pm by nemo
July 2, 2009, 7:44 am
The Non-Evolution of God
By Nicholas Wade
Robert Wright’s new book, “The Evolution of God,” has a provocative title. But it’s a disappointment from the Darwinian perspective. He doesn’t mean real evolution, just the development of ideas about God.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 12:41 pm by nemo
Darwin complicit in manipulating photos
July 2nd, 2009 When Darwin came to publish The Expression of the Emotions in 1872, he employed images made by five photographers to illustrate the wide variation in human facial expressions. A new study of the way that two of these photographers operated reveals the extent to which Darwin’s photographs were manipulated.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:37 pm by nemo
Not Darwin’s Year?
By Freakonomics
According to a Zogby poll taken this year, Darwin’s 200th anniversary, Americans favor intelligent design over Darwinian theory. According to the poll, 33 percent of respondents said they agreed with Darwinism, but 52 percent agreed that “the development of life was guided by intelligent design.” On the other hand, the poll was commissioned by The Discovery Institute, which advocates intelligent design. This is the kind of thing that gives Gary Langer fits.
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Posted in Evolution, you've got mail at 12:06 pm by nemo
gnxp
Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090701/ap_on_sc/as_sci_myanmar_primate_fossil
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07.01.09
Posted in Evolution at 2:27 pm by nemo
Older post from 2006
Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor, by Gregory Moore, is an important study of Darwin and Nietzsche, with some chilling data on Nietzsche’s eugenic sentiments.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 2:18 pm by nemo
An older post (2006) about a review of Jeffrey Schwartz’ Sudden Origins, a book still worth reading on the obvious gaps in the ‘Synthesis’.
This critical books disappear from sight as the tide of propaganda rolls on.
Carl Resler - July 2000
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 1:28 pm by nemo
You may have observed a near take over of the Huffpost site by evolutionary psychology: Here’s the latest from David Sloan Wilson, who seems have to a regular colummn there, defending the Paradigm.
Rekindling the Romance??
I once enjoyed the Huffpost, but because of its deliberately manufactured sleazy side I never quite trust what I am reading and certainly call into question any articles on the subject of ‘evolution’. And now all at once, the liberal image fades, and we see that an engineered Darwinism is being put over us.
Please correct me if this is unfair.
It is sad to have to stop reading Huffpost.
Please note that Arianna Huffington is almost certainly not a true believer in Darwinism, used to have a variety of evolution articles (e.g. from Deepak Chopra, who I can’t recommend either on evolution), and now, in a pattern familiar from past cases, is suddenly a hard promoter of Darwinism/evo-psych. Correct me if I am wrong.
All I can say is that if Arianna Huffington can trash liberalism to increase web stats, she is likely to do the same with evolution.
Conclusion: don’t trust what you read there.
As to David Sloan Wilson, he is, as coauthor of Unto Others, clearly hooked on the population genetics of group selection and the debate over that next to kin selection since the sixties. This ‘debate’ induces the illusion in its defenders of somehow being more liberal than their sociobiological brethren, and in general appeals to the geekish half-smart who are capable of believing in the math of population genetics as an explanation for altruism, the ’smart stupid’ type that keeps Darwinism afloat with this scientism.
In a word, it seems that Wilson’s ticket to Huffpost lies the belief that defenders of group selection are the liberal good guys and deserve to be the evolution mouthpieces at Huffpost.
I have a better idea. Let’s sink Huffpost, if it is a dishonest substitute for honest commentary.
Arianna, we don’t need anymore normative bullshit propaganda in favor of Darwinism. You are cleverly an untruthful and deceptive person, and the best you can do is stay away from an important subject such as evolution.
If you don’t believe in Darwinism, don’t ask your readers to do so.
Of course, we know what happens when such people step out of line. So we know the Darwin promo is insincere, based on fear.
Meanwhile, the appearance of ’science’ in promoting Darwinism is a perfect excuse for censorship.
Why not have a reasonable balance of views, and skip the garbage from people like David Sloan Wilson?
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Posted in Evolution at 12:47 pm by nemo
Key To Evolutionary Fitness: Cut The Calories
ScienceDaily (July 1, 2009) — Charles Darwin and his contemporaries postulated that food consumption in birds and mammals was limited by resource levels, that is, animals would eat as much as they could while food was plentiful and produce as many offspring as this would allow them to.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:38 pm by nemo
Zogby Poll: Most Americans Believe in Intelligent Design
By Bob Ellis on July 1st, 2009
That has to really stink for the committed evolutionist.
After 150 years of rapturous embrace by the “scientific” community, decades of one-sided promotion in the public education system, uniform adherence from movie and television media, and still most of the American people just aren’t buying the contention that this incredibly beautiful and fantastically complex universe we see around us just happened to end up this way without an intelligent designer.
That’s what a new Zogby poll finds after sampling 1,053 likely voters on the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:33 pm by nemo
Thirst For Blood Sparks Toxic Algal Blooms
ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — The blooming of toxic algae that occurs during the summer conceal a fight for life and death. Scientists at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, propose in an article published in the journal PNAS that algal blooms are created when aggressive algae kill and injure their competitors in order to absorb the nutrients they contain.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:31 pm by nemo
Study Of Flower Color Shows Evolution In Action
ScienceDaily (June 30, 2009) — Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have zeroed in on the genes responsible for changing flower color, an area of research that began with Gregor Mendel’s studies of the garden pea in the 1850’s.
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