Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 182

At Mind Matters News: New find pushes symbolic thinking further back in human history

A Neanderthal find from 51,000 years ago is another piece in the puzzle of the origin of abstract human thinking:

At one time, scientists believed that only some groups of humans possessed the ability to think symbolically. Neanderthals were held to be an example of humans who could not do so. But more recently, as George Dvorsky tells us at Gizmodo, a 2019 finding at the Unicorn Cave in the Harz Mountains in central Germany challenges that belief:

“Patterns deliberately etched onto a bone belonging to a giant deer are signs that Neanderthals possessed the capacity for symbolic thought.

“Neanderthals decorated themselves with feathers, drew cave paintings, and created jewelry from eagle talons, so it comes as little surprise to learn that Neanderthals also engraved patterns onto bone. The discovery of this 51,000-year-old bone carving, as described in Nature Ecology & Evolution, is more evidence of sophisticated behavior among Neanderthals. – George Dvorsky, “51,000-year-old Bone Carving Suggests Neanderthals Were True Artists” At Gizmodo”

According to Smithsonian Magazine, “The carvings include angled lines that form a pattern, clearly made intentionally rather than as a result of butchering the animal.

News, “New find pushes symbolic thinking further back in human history” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: The incisions on the bone could be a message or a charm but in any event they are instances of abstract thinking.

See also: Death: Child grave from 80,000 years ago shows abstract thinking. The lovingly prepared site on the Kenyan coast held the remains of a 2–3 year-old child. Perhaps the snail shell with the excisions gave an identity to “Mtoto” — a message to another world, perhaps, about who the child was.

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The Scientist’s obit on Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin (1929–2021) notes his takedown of the notion of “race”

Richard Lewontin, who died July 4, was famous for, among other things, doubting the concept of race. From The Scientist we learn,

In 1966, at the University of Chicago, Lewontin and John Hubby published two papers that pioneered the use of protein gel electrophoresis to study genetic variation within populations of wild fruit flies. Not only did the technique lay the groundwork for the field of molecular genetics, but it revealed a surprising amount of genetic diversity within the population …

Lewontin was well-known for his critiques of adaptationist programs—the idea that all organismal traits have been “optimized” due to natural selection. Rather, he argued that genetic variation within a population could also be the product of random chance, or due to selection on linked loci on the genome.

He also wrote a seminal 1972 paper in which he argued there is more genetic variation within members of a population of humans than there is between members of different groups, undermining the idea that there is a genetic basis for the idea of race.

Stephanie Melchor, “Evolutionary Biologist Richard Lewontin Dies at 92” at The Scientist

See also: Richard Lewontin (1929 – 2021) has died

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The textbooks are wrong: Birds CAN smell

Two recent studies* are cited in evidence:

To find out, Wikelski piloted his plane in circles to observe a flock of 70 storks on sunny spring and summer days. Even when the storks couldn’t see or hear the mowing, he and his colleagues noted, they homed in on mowed fields upwind of them, as if drawn to the smell of the cut grass. To confirm the suspicion, the team sprayed cut-grass smell—a mix of three volatile chemicals—onto fields that hadn’t been mowed recently. The storks came flocking, the team reported on 18 June in Scientific Reports. The work “shows very clearly that these birds rely exclusively on their sense of smell to make foraging decisions,” Whittaker says.

Other bird species may also respond to “calls” from injured plants, recent evidence shows. Two European birds, the great tit and the blue tit, locate insects that are attacking pine trees by detecting the volatile chemicals the stressed trees release, ecologist Elina Mäntylä of the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and colleagues reported in the September 2020 issue of Ecology and Evolution.

All these results show bird olfaction “should not be ignored,” Mäntylä says. Driver adds that they might also point to a new form of natural pest control, in which farmers or foresters could treat threatened flora with chemicals that entice birds to come and gobble up invasive insects.

Other studies suggest olfaction might guide social interactions between birds.

Elizabeth Pennisi, “Textbooks say most birds can’t smell. Scientists are proving them wrong” at Science (July 7, 2021)

So “It’s in the textbooks!” is right up there with “Trust the science!”?

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At Scientific American: “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy”

Well, congratulations, Scientific American! You’re a worthy competitor for the war on math and the war on science crowd in terms of how to hurt disadvantaged people.

Get this:

I want to unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” the legalistic wing of creationists loudly insists that their point of view deserves equal time in the classroom. Science education in the U.S. is constantly on the defensive against antievolution activists who want biblical stories to be taught as fact. In fact, the first wave of legal fights against evolution was supported by the Klan in the 1920s. Ever since then, entrenched racism and the ban on teaching evolution in the schools have gone hand in hand. In his piece, What We Get Wrong About the Evolution Debate, Adam Shapiro argues that “the history of American controversies over evolution has long been entangled with the history of American educational racism.”

Allison Hopper, “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy” at Scientific American (July 5, 2021)

At Evolution News and Science Today, David Klinghoffer writes,

Given evolution’s racist baggage, you might think the theory’s proponents would be somewhat abashed to accuse the critics of Darwin of “white supremacy.” Apparently not. Writing in Scientific American, Allison Hopper goes there: “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy.” Who is Allison Hopper? She is a white lady, a “filmmaker and designer with a master’s degree in educational design from New York University. Early in her career, she worked on PBS documentaries.” Ms. Hopper “has presented on evolution at the Big History Conference in Amsterdam and Chautauqua, among other places.” Having been handed a platform by America’s foremost popular science publication, she writes: I want to unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies.

White people like this always talk about “Black bodies” instead of Black (or black) people. The idea here is that our human ancestors, who created the first cultures, came out of Africa and were dark-skinned. Supposedly evolution skeptics wish to deny this history, holding that a “continuous line of white descendants segregates white heritage from Black bodies. In the real world, this mythology translates into lethal effects on people who are Black. Fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible are part of the ‘fake news’ epidemic that feeds the racial divide in our country.”

David Klinghoffer, “On Evolution and Racism, Scientific American Goes to War Against the Truth” at Evolution News and Science Today (July 8, 2021)

Wow. Has the Darwin lobby hired itself a PR firm that recommended getting someone on board to accuse everyone who doubts Darwin of being a “white supremacist”?

Quite simply, Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man is surely by far the most racist iconic document to be lauded by all the Right People!

And getting someone to holler about “white supremacy” among Darwin doubters is, ahem, just a cheap shot, not a response to the stark raving racism in print of the actual document. For example: Darwin’s racism. Guys, try another one.

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At Mind Matters News: Can traditional philosophy help us understand mind vs. brain?

Michael Egnor asks us to look back to the traditional idea that the soul is the “form” of the body.

Michael Egnor: In the Thomistic view, the soul is the “form” of the body. It is different from other forms, in that it can contain forms but not become the thing it contains, and Aristotle actually said the soul is, in a way, all things. So the way that intentionality works, in Thomistic dualism, is that the soul grasps the form of the [00:36:30] object of your thought, and that form of the object of your thought is incorporated in the form that is the soul, so the soul can have forms of other things in it without becoming that thing.

“Note: The soul as a “form” can be seen as the difference between a live body and a dead one. A body before and after death may be almost identical — except for that one critical fact. In traditional philosophy, some parts of the soul are considered material (emotions) and others are considered immaterial (reasoning and moral choice).

“About “intentionality”: you can, of course, imagine many things without becoming any of them. You could write an epic without becoming one of the characters.”

David Papineau: It does sound to me like just explaining one mystery in terms of another. If you tell me that I have a soul, and the form of the city Lima is part of my soul, and that’s how I can refer to the city Lima that just needs to be explained …

Note: There was considerable crosstalk at this point…

News, “Can traditional philosophy help us understand mind vs. brain” at Mind Matters News

Can Traditional Philosophy Help Us Understand Mind vs. Brain?

In the Western world, the traditional view of the soul originated with Greek philosophers, chiefly Aristotle and Plato.

You may also wish to read the earlier portions of the debate:

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor takes on philosopher David Papineau Round 1. In the debate, Egnor begins by offering three fundamental reasons why the mind is not the brain. Neuroscience caused Egnor to honestly doubt Papineau’s materialist perspective that the mind is simply what the brain does.

Round 2: Philosopher Papineau replies to neurosurgeon Egnor. Dr. Papineau is considered to be one of the best defenders of naturalism (nature is all there is), often called “materialism.” Papineau: Mental processes, including conscious processes, are one in the same as physical processes. I’m curious about how Michael Egnor would answer it.

Round 3: Egnor vs Papineau: The Big Bang has no natural beginning. In the debate between theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and naturalist philosopher David Papineau, the question gets round to the origin of the universe itself. Egnor maintains that the Big Bang, which is held to have created the universe, is an effect with no physical cause. Papineau agrees.
Round 4: Egnor vs. Papineau Egnor defends the mind vs. the brain

Round 4: Philosopher David Papineau does not feel that neurosurgeon Michael Egnor is being “entirely helpful” at this point… It became quite the dustup actually. Egnor deals with the brain as an organ, not a theory, and doesn’t see it as equivalent to the mind. Papineau differs.

Also: Philosopher: Consciousness Is Not a Problem. Dualism Is! He says that consciousness is just “brain processes that feel like something” Physicalist David Papineau argues that consciousness “seems mysterious not because of any hidden essence, but only because we think about it in a special way.” In short, it’s all in our heads. But wait, say others, the hard problem of consciousness is not so easily dismissed.

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Bacterial flagellum: Engineering design constraints

The flagellum is a good example of what doesn’t work in purely naturalist explanations:

A new peer-reviewed paper in the journal BIO-Complexity, “An Engineering Perspective on the Bacterial Flagellum: Part 1 — Constructive View,” comes out of the Engineering Research Group and Conference on Engineering in Living Systems that Steve Laufmann recently wrote about. The author, Waldean Schulz, holds a PhD in computer science from Colorado State University, and is a signer of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list. What could a computer scientist say about the bacterial flagellum? Well, Schulz explains that his study “examines the bacterial flagellum from an engineering viewpoint,” which aims to concentrate on the “the structure, proteins, control, and assembly of a typical flagellum, which is the organelle imparting motility to common bacteria.”

This technique of examining biology through the eyes of engineering is not necessarily new — systems biologists have been doing it for years. However, since engineering is a field that tries to determine how to better design technology, the field of intelligent design promises to yield new engineering-based insights into biology. Schulz’s paper is a prime example of such a contribution. It produces what is arguably the most rigorous logical demonstration of the irreducible complexity of the flagellum produced to date. Casey Luskin, “New Paper Investigates Engineering Design Constraints on the Bacterial Flagellum” at Evolution News and Science Today (July 7, 2021) Paper.

None of it happened by chance unless you think masses of information can just suddenly pop into existence by chance. Wouldn’t that be magic? Miracle?

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Astronomer: Standard Model of the universe needs no modification

Not what we have been hearing:

If it turns out that errors are causing the mismatch, that would confirm our basic model of how the universe works. The other possibility presents a thread that, when pulled, would suggest some fundamental missing new physics is needed to stitch it back together. For several years, each new piece of evidence from telescopes has seesawed the argument back and forth, giving rise to what has been called the ‘Hubble tension.’

Wendy Freedman, a renowned astronomer and the John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, made some of the original measurements of the expansion rate of the universe that resulted in a higher value of the Hubble constant. But in a new review paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, Freedman gives an overview of the most recent observations. Her conclusion: the latest observations are beginning to close the gap.

That is, there may not be a conflict after all, and our standard model of the universe does not need to be significantly modified.

The rate at which the universe is expanding is called the Hubble constant, named for UChicago alum Edwin Hubble, SB 1910, PhD 1917, who is credited with discovering the expansion of the universe in 1929. Scientists want to pin down this rate precisely, because the Hubble constant is tied to the age of the universe and how it evolved over time. A substantial wrinkle emerged in the past decade when results from the two main measurement methods began to diverge. But scientists are still debating the significance of the mismatch.

University of Chicago, “’There may not be a conflict after all’ in expanding universe debate” at ScienceDaily (June 30, 2021) The paper is open access.

See also: Recently Discovered Giant Arc Of Galaxies May “Break” Standard Model In Cosmology

Some sense where Wendy Freedman is coming from:

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At Mind Matters News: Egnor vs. Papineau Round 4, Egnor defends the mind vs. the brain

Philosopher David Papineau does not feel that neurosurgeon Michael Egnor is being “entirely helpful” at this point… One can believe that.

Michael Egnor: What scientific paradigm ascribes logic to your neurochemistry? … and the logic of identity? How do you get logic out of gray matter? …

David Papineau: Michael, we’re trying to argue logically here, and I feel you’re not being entirely helpful in this respect. We were talking a moment ago about whether there were movements of bits of matter in the brain that would be a surprise to the people in the physics department, and I took it that you were saying yes, you believe there were. So let’s just flag that as something we might come back to …

Quite, but if your view were right, what you should be doing is going to tell your friends in the physics department, “Forget about all that cosmology, forget about all that high-energy stuff at CERN. All you have to do is go and look inside people’s skulls and you will find counterexamples to the theses of contemporary physics. You’re going to get a Nobel Prize, just by looking at …“

Note: Michael Egnor’s perspective was doubtless formed, in part, from regular contact with people who had split brains or brains largely missing or apparently inactive. He has reasons for doubting that the mind is simply what the brain does. Note: Egnor had done roughly 7000 neurosurgeries.

David Papineau: Well, I think there are brain states, structured brain states, just like… I mean, not just like, but if you want to think for a moment, sentences, strings of marks on paper, and elements in those brain states refer to things in the world …

News, “Egnor vs. Papineau Round 4, Egnor defends the mind vs. the brain” at Mind Matters News

It became quite the dustup actually. Egnor deals with the brain as an organ, not a theory, and doesn’t see it as equivalent to the mind. Papineau differs.

You may also wish to read the earlier portions of the debate:

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor takes on philosopher David Papineau Round 1. In the debate, Egnor begins by offering three fundamental reasons why the mind is not the brain. Neuroscience caused Egnor to honestly doubt Papineau’s materialist perspective that the mind is simply what the brain does.

Round 2: Philosopher Papineau replies to neurosurgeon Egnor. Dr. Papineau is considered to be one of the best defenders of naturalism (nature is all there is), often called “materialism.” Papineau: Mental processes, including conscious processes, are one in the same as physical processes. I’m curious about how Michael Egnor would answer it.

Round 3: Round 3: Egnor vs Papineau: The Big Bang has no natural beginning. In the debate between theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and naturalist philosopher David Papineau, the question gets round to the origin of the universe itself. Egnor maintains that the Big Bang, which is held to have created the universe, is an effect with no physical cause. Papineau agrees.

Also: Philosopher: Consciousness Is Not a Problem. Dualism Is! He says that consciousness is just “brain processes that feel like something” Physicalist David Papineau argues that consciousness “seems mysterious not because of any hidden essence, but only because we think about it in a special way.” In short, it’s all in our heads. But wait, say others, the hard problem of consciousness is not so easily dismissed.

Copyright © 2021 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
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At Mind Matters News: Round 3: Egnor vs Papineau: The Big Bang has no natural beginning

In the debate between theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and naturalist (physicalist) philosopher David Papineau, the question gets round to the origin of the universe itself:

Michael Egnor: What was the physical cause of the big bang? …

David Papineau: None, because that’s… Look, okay, the big bang doesn’t have a cause, right? I say that’s not a counterexample…

Michael Egnor: No, I think it has a cause. I very much think it has a cause.

David Papineau:I think it doesn’t have a cause, but I don’t take that to be a counterexample to my causal closure thesis. Now, do you follow what I’m saying there or not? Sorry, I …

Michael Egnor: I follow what you’re saying, but it strikes me as a case of special pleading. You’ve been arguing for this neat universe, where every physical effect has a physical cause, and I’ve shown you that the entire universe itself, which is a physical effect, did not have a physical cause, because the singularity of the big bang isn’t a physical thing.

David Papineau: Let’s try once more. If you say it doesn’t have a cause, I’ll say it’s not an effect, and therefore not a counterexample to my thesis.

Michael Egnor: We both agree. Every effect has a cause. I’m saying that there are physical effects that don’t have physical causes. The Big Bang is one.

David Papineau: I think you need to listen to what I’m saying, but let’s try it differently. I think you’re using effect synonymously with event, right? I am not claiming that every physical event has a physical cause, because I think the Big Bang doesn’t have a cause. I think there’s some physical events that don’t have physical causes.

Michael Egnor: I don’t agree with you. I think every event has a cause …

David Papineau: I think we’re getting sidetracked here. Let’s look at the more interesting issue.

It will not surprise many readers to learn that the more interesting issue revolves around … the human mind. Stay tuned!

News, “Round 3: Egnor vs Papineau: The Big Bang has no natural beginning” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: Egnor maintains that the Big Bang, which is held to have created the universe, is an effect with no physical cause. Papineau agrees.

You may also wish to read the earlier portions of the debate:

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor takes on philosopher David Papineau Round 1. In the debate, Egnor begins by offering three fundamental reasons why the mind is not the brain. Neuroscience caused Egnor to honestly doubt Papineau’s materialist perspective that the mind is simply what the brain does.

Round 2: Philosopher Papineau replies to neurosurgeon Egnor. Dr. Papineau is considered to be one of the best defenders of naturalism (nature is all there is), often called “materialism.” Papineau: Mental processes, including conscious processes, are one in the same as physical processes. I’m curious about how Michael Egnor would answer it.

Also: Philosopher: Consciousness Is Not a Problem. Dualism Is! He says that consciousness is just “brain processes that feel like something” Physicalist David Papineau argues that consciousness “seems mysterious not because of any hidden essence, but only because we think about it in a special way.” In short, it’s all in our heads. But wait, say others, the hard problem of consciousness is not so easily dismissed.

Copyright © 2021 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
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Tributes to Richard Lewontin (1919 – 2021)

Readers may recall his words: “It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.”

Now the remembrances of someone who made the stakes so clear trickle in:

One of Lewontin’s most famous contributions to science came in a 1979 paper he co-wrote with Stephen Jay Gould, titled “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme.” The paper critiqued the standard Darwinian viewpoint that every feature of life must have an adaptive benefit. They introduced the term “spandrel” into evolutionary biology — based upon the gaps between supportive arches common in medieval architecture — as a feature that is not immediately adaptive but a natural byproduct of other features (which may be adaptive). Lewontin’s article with Gould was heavily critical of the “adaptationist programme” and its credulity, the tendency to embrace weak tales to “explain” the origin of features …

Casey Luskin, “Honoring Richard Lewontin, Famed Evolutionary Biologist and Sometime Critic of His Own Field” at Evolution News and Science Today (July 6, 2021)

Sure. Rape and infanticide are “adaptive” and all that. Lewontin and Gould were right, of course.

Also:

We do have a phrase in English that captures what I’d most like to say about Lewontin’s scholarship: “He kept his own counsel.” Lewontin was an unapologetic Marxist, a philosophical and political perspective that, whatever its flaws, gave him an independent standpoint from which to critique neo-Darwinian theory. And he did: his 1978 essay on adaptation, for instance, presaged a broader critical analysis by a larger scientific community of central neo-Darwinian concepts such as “fitness.” Lewontin opposed the facile storytelling of much of sociobiology, with its invocation of hypothetical genes for equally hypothetical behavioral traits. The fact that his opposition stemmed in part from his politics is no indictment; his evidential critique holds its value, or stands on its own two legs, independently of the Marxism. Show me the actual data, he would say, or stop the storytelling. Politics count against one in science (or anywhere) when politics is all one has to bring to the table. That would never be true of Lewontin’s work, which will endure.

Paul Nelson, “Richard Lewontin (1929-2021), Mensch” at Evolution News and Science Today (July 6, 2021)

We hope so. From the UD News Coffee room, requiescat:

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