30Jun 2024 by Post

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
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20Jun 2024 by Post

Steven Buri, Wesley Smith: What Is a Human Being?

Angels, animals, Bruce Chapman, Center for Science and Culture, Center for Wealth and Poverty, creator, Culture & Ethics, drug addiction, George Gilder, guerrilla, harm reduction, homelessness, housing first, human being, human exceptionalism, Human Origins, Humanize, humans, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Choe, journalism, mental illness, Steven Buri, think tank, vision, Wesley J. Smith
That politicians and activists can watch their fellow men wallow in degradation this way is itself a twisted tribute to human exceptionalism. Source
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20May 2024 by Post

Phenology: The Science of Seasonal Adaptation

abiotic changes, Albert B. Phillimore, algorithms, Animal Algorithms, animals, biotic changes, calendars, California poppy blooms, caterpillars, Chaco Canyon, cicada emergences, Current Biology, Darwinian evolution, Darwin’s Bluff, El Niño, Evolution, Farmer’s Almanac, foresight, genetic adaptation, herbaceous plants, Intelligent Design, Kirsty H. Macphie, La Niña, Life Sciences, locust plagues, moisture, mosquito swarms, pandemics, phenology, physiology, plants, PNAS, Robert Shedinger, sensors, Stonehenge, superblooms, temperate, temperature
No, not phrenology — phenology. It’s not pseudoscience, but a lesser-known branch of science that includes birds, bees, and trees. Source
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03Mar 2024 by Post

War on Human Exceptionalism Turns to Tool Use

Abigail Desmond, abstraction, animals, archaeologists, bragging rights, capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, crows, debris, dolphins, environment, hands, Harvard University, human exceptionalism, Human Origins, life forms, Michael Haslam, monkeys, Neuroscience & Mind, octopuses, Oxford University, Saturn V rocket, sea urchins, tool use, tools
As the academic war on human exceptionalism motors on, researchers’ thinking sometimes shorts out — and they don’t even notice. Source
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06Nov 2023 by Post

The Superior Programming that Makes Plants Look Smart

animals, anthropomorphism, bacteria, behavior, biology, Chapman University, Curiosity rover, Darwinians, Duke University, ethylene, flowers, herbivores, Ian T. Baldwin, intelligence, Intelligent Design, ivy, leaf senescence, leaves, Life Sciences, memory, Michael Pollan, Nature (journal), nitrogen, programming, Richard Karban, self-awareness, strigolactone, synthetic organic chemistry, tendrils, tentacles, The New Yorker, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, trees, Wesley Smith
Two signaling molecules — strigolactone and ethylene — can work independently to begin the process of leaf senescence. Source
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03Oct 2023 by Post

Dreaming Animals and Human Exceptionalism

abstractions, American Kennel Club, animals, bird song, birds, cats, cuttlefish, David M. Peña-Guzmán, dolphins, dreaming, horses, human exceptionalism, information, jumping spiders, learning, Life Sciences, memory, Neuroscience & Mind, rapid eye movement, sleep, Smithsonian Magazine, spiders, symbols, Teresa Iglesias, thought, whales
Researchers have detected something like REM (rapid eye movement) sleep — which is associated with dreaming in humans — in jumping spiders. Source
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07Aug 2023 by Post

Asking Questions Demonstrates Human Exceptionalism

Albert Einstein, animals, Bible, chatbot, ChatGPT, cosmos, curiosity, DNA, electronic technology, fine-tuning, history, human exceptionalism, Human Origins, humans, imagination, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, metaphysics, natural world, Physics, Earth & Space, prompt engineering, Questions
This human trait of question-asking begins almost as soon as we learn to talk. Young children can confound their parents with their rapid-fire questions. Source
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