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Shrink Validity Is Shrinking

Should you trust the diagnosis of a psychiatrist? If it helps, individuals are free to choose. Behind the scenes, however, there are severe, deep-seated debates about whether psychiatrists understand disorders, let alone diagnose them properly.

Improbable Ape Speaks Randomly

It's not uncharitable to call someone an ape when he calls himself that.

Evolutionists Need to Mind Their Matters

To a Darwinian evolutionist, the mind is the product of unguided mutations and random environmental pressures acting on material forces. This raises questions about the mind and morals: do they have any validity? Evolutionists need to "mind" their matter. The following examples show how they try to justify these non-material entities arising from matter in motion.

Best Cave Art Is Still the Oldest

A new research study confirms that the exquisite cave art at Chauvet Cave is the oldest.

We Became Human by Mistake

A new theme in human evolution is making the rounds. According to the story, a mistake led to the human brain, and the rest is history.

Humans Evolved from Dogs

A new finding shows dogs performing better on one kind of intelligence test than chimpanzees. If evolution teaches that human intelligence is the main trait separating us from other animals, and dogs are smarter than apes, shouldn’t the conclusion be that dogs are closer on the family tree? If not, is it valid for evolutionary biologists to pick and choose the traits that matter?

Liberal Bias Detected in Science Media

Incredible as it sounds, the science news media seem to have a liberal bias. This is astonishing, considering the vast majority of science professors in academia are Democrats. The following examples illustrate this trend that came to light around 1859.

SETI Finds Intelligent Humans

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is 50 years old this year. SETI’s latest scientific discovery was the detection of a human-made satellite in Earth orbit. In a sense, this counts as a success: the detection of a signal of intelligent origin from an extra-terrestrial source (beyond terra firma). The false alarm helped calibrate the instrumentation, but did little to garner support for the effort to find aliens. The SETI Institute was all SETI-ready to party hardy at the 50th anniversary of Frank Drake’s first search, but instead, found itself struggling to keep its doors open after a severe shortfall of private funds, highlighting questions about the scientific status of the long-shot project.

Tilt-A-World: Another Constraint on Habitability

Did you ever ride a Tilt-A-Whirl, one of those cheap carnival rides that makes you dizzy and sick? Our planet would be like that if its inclination were out of control. Without tilt stability, a new study reveals, we wouldn't be sick, we'd be dead, or never alive in the first place. It's not enough to be in the Habitable Zone. Would-be inhabited planets need to avoid a new problem, called “tilt erosion.”

Body Talk

Scientists sometimes just prove the obvious, like that men and women are different. If we can talk body without talking bawdy, there are some new discoveries about body works that should put a spring in your step today about how your body works.

Chinks in the Scientific Method

V & V. That’s shorthand in project design for “validation and verification.” Does the scientific method provide V & V? We are all taught to think that peer review, publication and replication help science to be self-checking, so as to avoid error. Some recent articles show that ain’t necessarily so. It may sound good in theory, but in practice, the ideal doesn’t always match the real.

Snowflake Designers

Could any “useless” natural object composed of simple materials exceed the beauty of a snow crystal? As you wish for a white Christmas, think about two snowflake designers: one who makes them in a lab, and one who makes them in clouds.

Human Variability Can Be Rapid

All living humans are interfertile – one species by definition. People from all parts of the globe can marry and have children, even though global travel is relatively recent in human history. Yet we know there is considerable variability between tribes and nationalities. Does this variability take millions of years? Does it lead to the origin of new human species? Recent evidence shows that variations can be rapid, both genetic and acquired, without reducing interfertility.

Good Science Requires Good Ethics

Science is conducted by humans for humans. It is not done in a vacuum. Even the lone researcher working in a basement hopes to make a discovery worth sharing. The need for ethical science shows most clearly when humans experiment on humans – with or without their consent. Two recent articles underscore the indispensability of moral grounds for science, and a third raises questions about the source of morality.

Hopping Fish and Other Darwin Mysteries

The chieftans of evolutionary theory insist that their doctrines have come a long way since Darwin. Discoveries in molecular biology, population genetics, biogeography, paleontology have left the Victorian concepts of evolution outdated and antiquated, they would say. Yet a look at the evolutionary literature shows otherwise. Simplistic just-so stories, Darwinian phrases like “survival of the fittest” and “missing link,” iconic fossils, and antiquated principles continue to be the rule, as the following articles illustrate.
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