A Tale of Two Mavericks
November 12, 2010
Two men who recently died are now being honored for their willingness to have stood up to the majority and advanced views that were unpopular at the time.
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Cells Can Be Transformed
November 8, 2010
An astonishing feat has been performed in a Canadian lab: scientists turned human skin cells into blood cells. Bypassing the need for stem cells, the technique provides hope for a supply of blood from a person’s own skin. Live Science calls it a “modern miracle.” The technique avoids “the ethical concerns concerning embryonic stem cells […]
Windows into the Mind
November 3, 2010
What would it be like to see things for the first time? You can watch the reaction on Live Science #1 and Live Science #2. Blind patients were implanted with a microchip that allowed them, for the first time, to roughly sense the visual input of objects in front of them. Amazing as it was, […]
People Doing Science, Sometimes Badly
November 2, 2010
Harvard historian of science Steven Shapin has a really long subtitle for his latest book, but it reveals all. The title is very short: Never Pure.1 Here’s the long subtitle: “Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and […]
Are Saturn Rings Like Galaxies?
November 1, 2010
Dramatic photos of dynamic processes in Saturn’s rings have been released by the Cassini mission at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The photos, taken near Saturn’s equinox last year, show ruffled edges of the B ring made of particles lofted as high as 2 miles above the ring plane, casting long shadows across the rings. By watching […]
Mind Matters
October 22, 2010
The conundrum of how reasoning could have emerged by an undirected evolutionary process persists. Atheists and materialists are convinced that natural selection is up to the task, while theists strongly disagree and use human rationality as evidence for creation by an intelligent source (usually God). Perhaps a few recent findings can illuminate on the options. […]
Creationism Wont Die
October 21, 2010
To ardent evolutionists, creationism should have died a long time ago. Some of them are confounded, if not dumbfounded, that they cannot get rid of it. They think (many of them) that the Dover case in Pennsylvania should have settled the issue once for all. Well, it didn’t. It keeps coming back like a cat […]
Darwinism in Chaos, but Gave Us Morals
October 19, 2010
Two papers on evolutionary theory create a strong tension. One says that there is no law of evolution – just chaos. The other claims that morality evolved out of the mess. Evolution is a theory in chaos…: If you thought Charles Darwin brought biological evolution under natural laws, think again. Keith Bennett on New Scientist […]
Babbages Computer May Be Built
October 15, 2010
The “Analytical Engine,” a 19th-century computer conceived by Charles Babbage, may finally be built 140 years after his death. The remarkable contraption was to be powered by steam and would fill a warehouse, but the eccentric old man could not get the Royal Society to back it. His idea, 100 years ahead of its time, […]
Institutional Science as a Leftist Cabal
October 14, 2010
Something strange happens in scientific journals and reports. Whenever they talk politics, it is almost always from a leftist point of view. Why is that? Did they arrive at that position by the scientific method? Is there something about the need for government funding that drives institutions to a leftist position? Whatever the reason, it’s […]
Altruism Researchers Could Use a Little
October 10, 2010
Hidden from public view, there’s a fight going on between evolutionists trying to explain the origin of altruism (unselfish behavior) by natural selection. This problem that bothered Darwin 150 years ago appears to be heating up. Last month, 30 evolutionists squared off in Amsterdam and apparently made little progress, because Nature published an article trying […]
Cosmology Faces More Chaos
October 5, 2010
Most of us have experience with orderly things going to chaos: an unkept room, the garden, our list of things to do. We all work hard to overcome that universal tendency. Clara Moskowitz reported on two cosmologists who think the universe went the other way. She wrote in Space.com, “The universe was in chaos after […]
Big Gains for Adult Stem Cells Announced
October 4, 2010
Ever since Shinya Yamanaka figured out how to coax skin cells to become pluripotent stem cells in 2007 (something for which he is being considered for a Nobel Prize, see PhysOrg), other researchers have been improving on his idea. Three big gains were announced recently. PhysOrg and New Scientist reported work by Derrick […]
Cosmic Accidents Are Not Scientific Explanations
October 3, 2010
Sunday Meditation Oct 3, 2010 — The classic understanding of science is that it explains things with reference to natural laws, makes predictions, is testable, quantifiable, and falsifiable. Depending on the branch of science, many researchers still attempt to hold to those ideals. Eugenie Scott put it this way: “modern science operates under a rule […]
Galileo Affair: Plenty of Blame to Go Around
October 2, 2010
What is the true account of Galileo Galilei’s troubles with the Catholic church? We may never know. Complex historical events are often difficult to interpret, and new details sometimes shed different light on commonly-accepted views. One thing does seem certain, according to Thomas Mayer, historian at Augustana College, Illinois: “The notion that Galileo’s trial was […]