06Aug 2022 by Post

Bees Feel Pain. Therefore…Insect Rights?

Animal Algorithms, animal rights, bees, consciousness, crops, Eric Cassell, Heather Browning, insect rights, insects, Kenny Torrella, London School of Economics, meat, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, pain, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, pests, PETA, PNAS, Research, science
As we learn more from research about how various life forms respond to experiences, a more complex picture may raise political issues. Source
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13Jun 2022 by Post

How Darwin and Wallace Split over the Human Mind

Alfred Russel Wallace, Animal Liberation, Anthony Flew, Anthony O’Hear, biology, consciousness, cosmogonism, Darwin, David Bentley Hart, David Hume, deism, Donald Hoffman, Erasmus Darwin, Europeans, Evolution, Francis Crick, How Darwin and Wallace Split over the Human Mind, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Lawrence Krauss, Lucretius, materialism, Michael Ruse, mind, natural selection, natural theology, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Peter Singer, Racism, rationalism, Richard Dawkins, Richard Rorty, Richard Spilsbury, Stephen Hawking, Ternate letter, The Origin of Species, Thomas Huxley, Tom Wolfe
Marvelously free of racist prejudice, Wallace noted in his fieldwork in far-flung locations that primitive tribes were intellectually the equals of Europeans. Source
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04Jun 2022 by Post

Yes, Ants Think — Like Computers

Agouti, agriculture, algorithm, ant colony, antennae, anternet, ants, Bert Hölldobler, biology, brains, capybara, castes, cities, computer, computer programmers, consensus-building, Deborah M. Gordon, division of labor, E. O. Wilson, eggs, evolutionary biologists, foraging, humans, Intelligent Design, language, larvae, leafcutter ants, mammals, neurons, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, pheromones, pupae, slavery, Stanford University, superorganism, territorial wars, The Superorganism
Computer programmers have adapted some ant problem-solving methods to software programs (but without the need for complex chemical scents). Source
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08Apr 2022 by Post

Brain Neurons Are “Comparable to a Library”

axon, biology, brain, Brown University, Duke University, external world, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, library, Max Planck Institute, NELL2, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, pinwheels, proteins, purpose, retina, Robo3, Rockefeller University, visual cortex
It’s one of those occasions in biology (not rare) when the term “intelligent design,” despite other merits, falls flat as a description. Source
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