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
Read More
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
Read More
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
Read More
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
Read More
03Jul 2023 by Post

With Becket Cook, David Berlinski Discusses Speech as a Problem for Darwin, and More

animal life, animals, Becket Cook, Bible, communication, Darwinism, David Berlinski, discontinuity, Dogs, Evolution, externalization, human exceptionalism, Human Origins, humans, Jesuits, Ovid, pets, Science After Babel
Dog owners know that to look into your dog’s eyes is often to see that the dog has something he wishes to say but lacks the “machinery for externalization.” Source
Read More
03Jun 2023 by Post

Engineering and Evolution in the Microbial World

animals, Azusa Pacific University, bacteria, biology, Carolyn Hovde, Conference on Engineering in Living Systems, Dustin Van Hofwegen, E. coli, Evolution, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Journal of Bacteriology, Long Term Evolution Experiment, Neo-Darwinism, plants, Podcast, Richard Lenski, Scott Minnich, University of Idaho
This year’s Conference on Engineering in Living Systems (CELS) is going on right now, exploring design principles at work in living things. Source
Read More
01Feb 2023 by Post

By Design: Storytelling Reveals Human Exceptionalism

addiction, Andrew McDiarmid, animals, Bible, Big Tech, Braveheart, characters, consciousness, Culture & Ethics, Dennis Prager, devices, Dogs, Eric Metaxas, Google, human exceptionalism, humans, Intelligent Design, Internet, Michael Medved, nature, New York Post, pets, plot, Sabbath, science, storytelling, Technology
That humans enjoy being made to wait seems to have been deliberately built into us. It’s unique in nature, an intelligent design. Source
Read More
06Jan 2023 by Post

Can Animals Be Held Criminally Responsible?

American Philosophical Quarterly, animal rights, animals, bears, cannibalism, consciousness, crime, Culture & Ethics, defendants, Ed Simon, free will, human exceptionalism, humans, moral agency, moral capacity, morality, Neuroscience & Mind, Nonhuman Rights Project, plaintiffs, Psyche, Raegan Scharfetter, responsibility, science
While the idea is handled provocatively in philosophy literature, in practice, animals are envisioned as plaintiffs, not defendants, in animal rights cases. Source
Read More