Physicist Brian Miller: The Non-Algorithmic Nature of Life

algorithms, Brian Miller, cognition, David Klinghoffer, decision-making, DNA, embryos, Evolution, genes, genetics, Harvard University, ID The Future, immaterial genome, information, Intelligent Design, life, Michael Levin, nucleotide alteration, physicalism, physicists, Plato's Revenge, Platonic forms, Podcast, purpose, René Thom, Richard Sternberg, scientific revolution, software, splicing, teleonomy, Tufts University
Immaterial? As in not material? It’s a daring proposition, to be sure, and one that has the power to change everything we understand about life. Source
Read More

Eavesdropping in the Platonic Academy 

algorithms, Andreas Wagner, Aristotle, biology, C.H. Waddington, Casey Luskin, creationists, demiurge, Denis Noble, DNA, Erwin Schrödinger, Evolution, evolutionary biology, Günter Bechly, Hans Driesch, Harvard University, Intelligent Design, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lars Löfgren, Michael Levin, microbes, Philosophy of Science, Plato, Plato's Revenge, Platonism, René Descartes, René Thom, Richard Sternberg, Robert Rosen, sequoia trees, Summer Seminar on Intelligent Design, theoretical biology, Tufts University, University of Zurich, vitalism
I can relate to the paleontologist Günter Bechly, who, after hearing Sternberg lay out his thesis, lay awake unable to sleep as he considered the implications. Source
Read More

Biologist Michael Levin: A Farewell to Physicalism

Andreas Wagner, biology, Daniel Dennett, David Deutsch, Discovery Institute, DNA, emergence, Engineering, environment, Evolution, flatworms, frogs, George F. R. Ellis, Günter Bechly, Harvard University, Life Sciences, material world, materialism, mathematics, Max Tegmark, Michael Levin, morphogenesis, mysterian, mysticism, naturalism, numerosity, philosophies, physical world, planarian flatworms, Platonism, Platonists, preprint, Richard Sternberg, Roger Penrose, spooky, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, teleology, Tufts University, University of Zurich, Werner Heisenberg
Levin proposes a “radical Platonist view in which some of the causal input into mind and life originates outside the physical world.” Source
Read More

Dawkins and Picard Win This Year’s Trotter Prize

affective computing, American Humanist Association, C.S. Lewis, Charlie Townes, clash, Culture & Ethics, Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, debates, Denis Noble, Denyse O'Leary, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, Francis Crick, Ide P. Trotter Sr., Intelligent Design, James Shapiro, Mendelian genetics, Micah Green, Michael Egnor, Miracles (book), MIT, Old Testament, qualia, Richard Dawkins, Roger Penrose, Rosalind Picard, Rudder Theatre, Santa Fe, Simon Conway Morris, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Steven Weinberg, Stuart Kauffman, Texas A&M University, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Blind Watchmaker, The End of Christianity, The Third Way of Evolution, Trotter Prize, Tufts University, violence, Zeitgeist
A reflection on the 2025 Trotter Prize Lecture delivered by Oxford's Richard Dawkins and MIT's Rosalind Picard. Source
Read More

Bees with Feelings? A Darwinist Winces

animal consciousness, animals, Chemistry, consciousness, Daniel Dennett, Evolution, Feelings, flight distance, human consciousness, insects, Jerry Coyne, Lars Chittka, natural selection, naturalism, Neuroscience & Mind, panpsychism, Princeton University Press, protozoans, qualia, Queen Mary University, Scientific American, sentience, The Mind of a Bee, Tufts University
Most naturalist philosophers of mind have held that human consciousness — maddeningly mysterious — is an illusion. Source
Read More

Farewell to Daniel Dennett

aquatic ape, Boston, Commentary, copyright, Daniel Dennett, Darwinists, David Berlinski, Elaine Morgan, Evolution, evolutionary anthropologists, iconoclasts, Intelligent Design, ISI Books, letters, Michael Behe, MIT, Paul Nelson, Phillip Johnson, Richard Dawkins, smooth skin, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Tufts University, Uncommon Dissent
Dennett noted that Paul Nelson and I were in the audience and would be speaking at Tufts that evening on intelligent design. Source
Read More

Dawkins, Dennett, and the Taste for Iconoclasm

aquatic ape, Boston, Commentary, copyright, Daniel Dennett, Darwinists, David Berlinski, Elaine Morgan, Evolution, evolutionary anthropologists, iconoclasts, Intelligent Design, ISI Books, letters, Michael Behe, MIT, Phillip Johnson, Richard Dawkins, smooth skin, The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Tufts University, Uncommon Dissent
I’ve had two memorable encounters with Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, one with Dennett alone, the other with both together. Source
Read More

Morphogenesis: Coding for Shape

3-D printing, Allen Discovery Center, amoeba, anatomy, beetles, biological revolution, biological shapes, brachiosaurs, chick, crabs, Darwinism, Douglas Axe, embryonic development, Engineering, eukaryotes, Evolution, functional whole, Harvard University, Hydra, Illustra Media, information, Information Technology, Intelligent Design, liver, liver enzymes, Michael Levin, morphogenesis, octopuses, paramecium, planaria, rotifers, sequoias, Stentor, Terminator 2, The Scientist, Tufts University, Undeniable, Wyss Institute
How do you get a 3-D shape from a linear code? That is the puzzle of morphogenesis. Source
Read More