28Feb 2025 by Post

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
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22Sep 2024 by Post

Decade-Long Study of Water Fleas Found No Evidence of Darwinian Evolution

"survival of the fittest", amoebas, Arizona State University, Complexity, Culture, Daniel Dennett, Daphnia, Daphnia pulex, Darwinian evolution, environment, Evolution, genetic drift, genome, humans, Intelligent Design, Michael Lynch, microcrustaceans, mind, natural selection, random mutations, school systems, subtlety, water fleas
After many generations, water fleas showed no evidence of changing genetically to adapt to their environment, as the theory would predict. 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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13Nov 2023 by Post

Epigenetics: Performing the Genome

cadenza, central dogma, coda, Current Biology, diet, DNA, EMBO Reports, environment, epigenetics, Evolution, exercise, Frank Gannon, Frankenstein, genome, Intelligent Design, John Innes Centre, Life Sciences, lifestyle, low oxygen, mental habits, middle C, mind, mood, mutations, pianist, piano, RNA, Serengeti, tempo, University of Georgia, Van Cliburn, Vladimir Horowitz, zebra, zebra finch, zebrafish
Epigenetics is surpassing genetics in distinction, just as the pianist gets the applause and not the piano. Source
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31Aug 2021 by Post

Engineering Better Explains Adaptation than Evolutionary Theory

adaptation, anatomy, artificial limbs, CELS 2021, Conference on Engineering in Living Systems, design logic, Engineering, engineers, environment, Evolution, fitness, fitness landscape, fur color, genes, genotype, height, Intelligent Design, living systems, micro air vehicles, mutations, nanomachines, natural genetic engineering, operational gravity well, operational parameters, physiology
The genetic variation in any species is confined to a limited set of variables such as a finch beak’s thickness. Source
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17Jul 2020 by Post

Some Possible Reasons for the Limited Success of Evolutionary Algorithms

Achilles heel, Alan Turing, algorithms, Artificial Neural Networks, artificial neurons, computer science, Darwinian algorithm, early Earth, environment, Evolution, evolutionary algorithms, evolutionary computation, fitness functions, predictions, programmers, Second Life, software, speech recognition, Test Driven Development
It is theoretically possible that out of thousands of scientists working on evolutionary computation, all failed to correctly implement the Darwinian algorithm. Source
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