23Oct 2023 by Post

Darwinism Needs Laws to Look Scientific; Cronin and Hazen Stand Ready to Serve

Adrian Bejan, Assembly Theory, Berra's Blunder, biology, Caltech, Carol Cleland, Cassini mission, chemical evolution, Constructal Law, Cornell University, Daniel Arend, Darwin’s genie, designer substitute, Doubts About Darwin, er Demar, Evolution, Evolution News, galumph, human technology, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Lunine, laws of nature, Lee Cronin, Michael Wong, multicellularity, Robert Hazen, selection, Stuart Bartlett, tautology, The Origin of Species, Thomas Woodward, Titan, Tova Forman, University of Glasgow
Desperate to justify their worldview as legitimate, some Darwinians are making up new “laws of nature” to appear smiling inside the big tent of science. Source
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15Oct 2023 by Post

Saving Humans Is More Important than Saving Pigs

bacon, Belgium, BioEdge, bioethics, Canada, Cornell University, Culture & Ethics, Franklin G. Miller, human life, internal bleeding, kidneys, Lawrence Faucette, Medicine, Netherlands, organ transplant, organs, Peter Singer, pigs, porcine virus, surgery, The Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Tom Beauchamp, vascular disease
A potential avenue of increasing the supply of organs — xenotransplantation — is not, in my view, morally problematic in the least. Source
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08Aug 2022 by Post

Beyond Genes: Biologists Seek Purpose in Unknown Substances, Processes

Andrew Nelson, Arabidopsis thaliana, Bernhard Kramer, biology, bok choy, Boyce Thompson Institute, Brassica rapa, cell's, central dogma, Cornell University, genome, Human Genome Project, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, Kyle Palos, Life Sciences, lincRNA, Mars, mustard species, non-coding RNAs, Reductionism, RNA, The Plant Cell, turnips, University of Zurich
There’s more going on in DNA and cells than the old Central Dogma predicted. The time has come to look beyond genes. Source
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27Mar 2022 by Post

Are Birds Really Smarter than Reptiles?

animal behavior, babies, birds, brain size, brain volume, cognitive capacity, Cornell University, cuckoo, Diane Colombelli-Négrel, eggs, facial recognition, fairy wrens, intelligence, Intelligent Design, lemurs, lizards, Malurus cyaneus, neurons, Neuroscience & Mind, Pavel Němec, penguins, reptiles, The Scientist
Scientists clash over how to measure animal intelligence: brain volume, brain organization, numbers of neurons…? Source
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29May 2021 by Post

Can LSD Help Us Understand the Mind–Brain Relationship?

Aldous Huxley, brain, brain injuries, consciousness, Cornell University, Ferdinand Schiller, fMRI, forgetfulness, functional magnetic resonance imaging, hypnosis, Ian Sample, LSD, matter, mind, near-death experiences, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Oxford University, psychedelic drugs, The Guardian
Aldous Huxley noted that LSD “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing the mind on the problems of life.” Source
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22Apr 2020 by Post

How to Restore Science’s Lost Luster

Agnes Grudniewicz, arXiv, bioRxiv, C.S. Lewis, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Christian Reflections, Christos A. Ouzounis, consciousness, Cornell University, De Futilitate, Economics, EMBO Report, Evolution, evolutionary anthropology, Francis Bacon, high school, history, information ecosystem, integrity, Intelligent Design, J.P. Moreland, Janet Browne, Jay Richards, Jennifer Allen, journals, laymen, March for Science, morality, Nature (journal), pandemic, peer-review, philosophy, PLOS Biology, Politicians, predatory journals, quantum chromodynamics, Science Advances, Science and Scientism, scientific conferences, scientific meetings, scientific method, scientism, scientists, Stephen Meyer, Tom Coburn, universe, Wastebook, Westworld, World War II, X Club
Scientists used to be among the most trusted individuals in society. The white lab coat marked an individual who was highly trained, very intelligent, and ultimately credible. Changes in the last century have cast severe doubt on that picture — and scientific organizations sometimes admit it themselves. Some are very worried about loss of public trust in their “expert” opinions. They should be worried. In his book Science and Scientism, J.P. Moreland helps put scientists in their place, as did C.S. Lewis before him. Moreland loves science. He trusts much of what scientists say. But he demonstrates that scientism is not credible, because it refutes itself. Many important fields of inquiry, he writes, are off-limits to science, and to the extent scientists invade areas outside their domain, their opinions have…
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03Jan 2020 by Post

Himmelfarb and Her Haters

10 Books That Screwed Up the World, Adrian Desmond, Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Dickson White, Bea Kristol, Benjamin Wiker, Borneo, Bridgewater Treatises, Charles Darwin, Charles Gillispie, Charles Kingsley, City University of New York, Cornell University, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, Darwinists, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, Dyak headhunters, Edward T. Oakes, Encounter (journal), Ernst Mayr, Eugenics Record Office, Evolution, Francis Galton, George Will, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Harry Bruinius, history, Jacques Barzun, James D. Watson, James Moore, Jeffrey Shallit, Jewish Women, John William Draper, Julian Huxley, Leo Strauss, Mein Kampf, P.Z. Myers, Panda's Thumb, Uaupés River Valley, Victorian England
Editor’s note: Historian and Darwin skeptic Gertrude Himmelfarb died on Monday, December 30, 2019. While mourning the passing of this great scholar, we are pleased to republish Professor Flannery’s 2009 essay, below. See also Flannery’s tribute, ‘Farewell to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Brutally Honest Historian of the “Darwinian Revolution.’” “If you have no enemies, it is a sign fortune has forgot you.” — Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732  Noted physician Thomas Fuller was an expert on “eruptive fevers,” and so it seems fitting to open this essay with his wry but telling observation on enemies in public life, for perhaps no contemporary historian has spawned more “eruptive fever” over an analysis of the reigning secular creation myth demigod, Charles Darwin, than has the present subject of this essay. If Fuller is any judge,…
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