Mind and Brain – Page 75

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Who Invited the Scientist in Here?

August 25, 2010

If you envision science in terms of white-coated lab chemists holding flasks, field biologists gathering bird eggs, astronomers peering through a telescope or geologists chipping rocks with hand picks, think again. Today’s science sweeps everything into its domain, including the human mind, intellect, emotions, will, creativity, and our most sincere beliefs and actions. When not […]

Bible and Theology

Is Our World Natural?

July 27, 2010

At first glance, the headline sounds absurd: is our world natural? Of course the world is natural. Nature is natural, isn’t it? Often, though, we picture what humans do as unnatural – oil spills, landfills, pollution, nuclear waste, crime, war. But if humans are a part of nature, then whatever they do is natural. Some […]

Darwin and Evolution

Recapitulation Theory Gets Recap

July 26, 2010

The long-discounted “recapitulation theory” of Ernst Haeckel, the idea that the development of an embryo replays its evolutionary history, pops up every once in awhile in evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary biologists (most notably the late Stephen Jay Gould) have long since disparaged the idea that evolutionary history would be preserved in embryos. In addition, photos of […]

Bible and Theology

Spinning Webs of Belief: Accounting for George Price

July 16, 2010

It’s instructive to take a story and compare how evolutionists and creationists report it. A recent example can be found in the story of George Price: an ex-atheist scientist who, as a creationist, contributed original ideas to evolutionary theory. How did reviewers from both sides of the origins aisle characterize his creationist beliefs? […]

Bible and Theology

Is Psychology Adding Scientific Knowledge?

July 8, 2010

Psychologists have a knack for proving the obvious. It leads to a question, though: do we really need their help? Broken relationships are bad: A press release on PhysOrg about a study at the University of Queensland reported that “Separation has an enormous impact on both men and women.” Rudeness at work is bad: According […]

Human Body

Can Darwin Be Rescued from a New Eye Discovery?

May 7, 2010

Scientists find waveguides and noise receptors built into the retina.

Mind and Brain

Freud’s Out; Who’s Next?

October 15, 2009

Nature is "shocked by the abandon with which he elaborated his theories on the basis of essentially no empirical evidence."

Mind and Brain

What Darwin Does to Psychology – And Humanity

September 6, 2009

“Traits that we may find unsavory are nevertheless also products of our evolutionary history.” This quote stands out boldly in a call-out from an article by psychologist Jerome H. Barkow (Dalhousie University) in a review of evo-psych (evolutionary psychology) in PNAS.1 Barkow acknowledged controversy about the premise that the evolutionary history of our psyches produces […]

Early Man

Gobekli Tepe: What Mean These Ancient Stones?

March 10, 2009

Imagine stone carvings and monuments whose age make the pyramids and Stonehenge look like artifacts of modern history. Such monuments exist on a hill in Turkey at a site called Gobekli Tepe. Squared-off limestone blocks stacked like the letter T, arranged in circles, with ornate animal carvings on them, have been baffling archaeologists for the […]

Darwin and Evolution

Exploring the Malleability of Evolutionary Explanation

January 23, 2009

Is evolutionary theory just a very malleable and ductile idea, able to adapt to changing observations, or should it be described as a strong theory, powerful in its explanatory breadth?

Bible and Theology

Human Mind Outwits Darwinian Models

May 2, 2008

Evolutionists struggle to explain complex human behaviors in Darwinian terms. Sure, corporate squabbles can seem like survival of the fittest, but humans also sacrifice for people they don’t even know and do other weird, un-Darwinian things. In Darwinism, selfishness rules. How does cooperative and altruistic behavior arise from selfish motives? Here are some of the recent attempts to reconcile observations with a theory in which selfishness is key.

Mind and Brain

Mars Radiation Would Fry Astronaut Brains

September 23, 2006

Imagine the first Martian astronauts coming home confused, impaired and demented. This is the risk from solar radiation on Mars, say a group of NASA medical researchers (see RxPG News). Among the gravest risks of a manned flight to Mars ranks the possibility that massive amounts of solar and cosmic radiation will decimate the brains […]

Education

How to Overcome Student Objections to Evolution

December 21, 2005

Biology teachers face increasing difficulty from students coming into class with bad feelings about evolution (11/30/2005, 08/30/2005). Many pro-evolution teachers will be attracted to methods that have a demonstrable track record of relieving tensions and facilitating the process of getting students to accept Darwin’s theory. David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton U, NY) has just the thing. […]

Darwin and Evolution

Why Darwin Is Like Yoda, and Darwinism Like Marxism

February 4, 2004

Homage for the master is palpable in John Vandermeer’s review (Science, Jan. 23)1 of a thick new book entitled Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution by Odling-Smee, Laland and Feldman (Princeton, 2004). Vandermeer seems almost worshipful in his opening lines: The nascent germ of many novel ideas in biology can be traced directly or […]

Mind and Brain

A Bad Kind of Sexual Selection

March 20, 2002

51; Darwin taught a kind of sexual selection that presumed mate choice can lead to extravagant sexual differences. There is a kind of sexual selection going on among humans that is by intelligent design – with bad consequences. In this case, the selections are not being made by potential mates, but by parents. […]

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