Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 467

Copernicus: National Geographic tries to get the history right

Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God , 1873, by Matejko. In background: Frombork Cathedral.

Setting the story of the heliocentric conception of the universe in the context of its time is more interesting than TV talking points:

A man of both science and faith, Copernicus lived during a time of great change in Europe. A new flowering of humanist thought was spreading throughout the continent, as scholars and artists looked back to the classical era and brought its influence to bear on art, architecture, literature, politics, and science. After Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, a religious revolution began that would roil the Catholic Church and form new denominations. Throughout all this tumult, Copernicus held fast at the center, methodically crafting his own astronomical revolution…

A century before Galileo’s persecution, the church’s attitude to- ward astronomy was more open. The Julian calendar, then in use, had become so inexact that it fell out of time with the seasons. Copernicus submitted a statement to a 1512-16 council convened to address the problem, in which he called for more accurate observations. A new “Gregorian” calendar with leap years was introduced under Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and is still in use today.

Ernest Kowalczyk, “Copernicus’s revolutionary ideas reorganized the heavens” at National Geographic

The calendar problem was beginning to interfere with agriculture and business. Calendar reform, more than an intellectual thesis, was the astronomy project of the age. Copernicus thought that the calendar couldn’t be reformed using the Ptolemaic system. That, rather than a “war of faith vs. reason” was his driving idea.

Incidentally, if someone had come along and claimed that there is an infinity of infinities of universes out there, including many just like our own, in which anything and anything and nothing can happen, someone else would probably cough politely and say, “Methinks, your worships, that he hath found his way betimes to the mead-cellar … “

See also: What Copernicus Really Thought… Not Your Usual Lecture Room Platitude

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Next! Is vivid imagination “helping explain consciousness”?

Imagine a scene in an intellectual property office where a lineup is trying to patent a theory of consciousness… Here’s one outlined in a recent pop science article:

Arguably, our powers of imagination explain above all else why our species has come to dominate the planet. And although there is more to imagination than imagery, it is a significant component of our internal experiences, giving us a nifty way to recall the past and simulate the future. Daniel Cossins, “People with Extreme Imagination Are Helping Explain Consciousness” at New Scientist…

Imagination is a power of abstraction, sometimes turned to the task of taking observations from the existing world and constructing and conveying a story in words and images—or an entire world that exists only in the imagination (for example, Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings). To understand imagination, we need to understand the origin of abstraction, a uniquely human quality, as Michael Egnor observes … “Does vivid imagination help explain consciousness?” at Mind Matters News

But that can’t be done on a purely material basis because information is immaterial. The second film in the Science Uprising series, “The Inescapable I,” mocks that prejudice explicitly:

See also: Science Uprising: Stop ignoring evidence for the existence of the human mind! Materialism enables irrational ideas about ourselves to compete with rational ones on an equal basis. It won’t work

and

Does brain stimulation research challenge free will? Michael Egnor looks at immaterial qualities of the human mind.

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If Shakespeare is right about imagination, robot Sophia will certainly break some hearts

All “she” (= her programmer) wants is more brainpower:

A critical fact about artificially intelligent and sentient robots—if they could exist—University of Glasgow philosopher emeritus Hugh McLachlan notes is that, unlike life forms, they could be turned on and off.

“We can imagine robots that can think and feel” at Mind Matters News

And they could be turned on and off. What are the implications of that?

See also: AI Delusions: A statistics expert sets us straight We learn why Watson’s programmers did not want certain Jeopardy questions asked If you ask about anything that’s a puzzle, joke, riddle, or sarcasm that you can’t look up in Wikipedia, computers are helpless.

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Rob Sheldon: Taken seriously, the multiverse proves the existence of God

Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts on Ethan Siegel’s multiverse, in response to Gunter Bechly’s observations:

My version of what Gunter said is this argument:

In an infinite universe, somebody somewhere has figured out how to talk from one universe to another. That technology can then collect the information in every universe, and become the Borg. But since there are infinite universes, this machine has infinite information. A machine with infinite information is omniscient and likely omnipotent and obviously omnipresent. Little finite minds like ours would see it as God. So the omniverse proves the existence of God, if that is what Ethan Siegel wants to do.

Of course, if God is inevitable, then the right question Ethan should ask, is how should he behave toward this being, aka morality. I’m not judging, but denying its existence doesn’t seem the wisest course of action.

Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon is the author of Genesis: The Long Ascent

See also: Logic vs. the multiverse: Gunter Bechly offers some insights: For example, how can we “partition an infinite multiverse so to arrive at the finite probabilities we observe and require (e.g. for quantum mechanics) because in an infinite multiverse everything that can happen happens an infinite (with the same cardinality) number of times?”

and

The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide

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Logic vs. the multiverse: Gunter Bechly offers some insights

Readers may remember Gunter Bechly as the accomplished paleontologist who disappeared from Wikipedia because he thinks that life forms show evidence of design.

A friend wrote to ask about an Ethan Siegel piece from Forbes (2017) that is getting recycled through Medium: “The Multiverse Is Inevitable, And We’re Living In It: If you thought all we could see is all that’s out there, prepare to rethink everything you knew.”

Yeah. Right. Out there is Out There to the Power of Infinity. And all the universes are “causally disconnected from one another.” If they are causally disconnected, who dare ask for evidence that the multiverse theory is true? The money shot is that the multiverse can be used to falsify otherwise entirely rational assumptions about our own universe. Hence its allure.

Bechly, to whom the question was put, turns on the cold water:

Well, this is pretty much standard inflationary cosmology. What the author does not mention is two little problems with it, of which one has been called the biggest crisis of modern cosmology by cosmologist Max Tegmark:

1.) the measure problem: how to partition an infinite multiverse so to arrive at the finite probabilities we observe and require (e.g. for quantum mechanics) because in an infinite multiverse everything that can happen happens an infinite (with the same cardinality) number of times.

2.) this also implies that Boltzmann brains and other freak observers (generated by random vacuum fluctuations) outnumber normal observers. Based on the Copernican principle we should not expect to be special, thus we should be Boltzmann brains. But since the vast majority of Boltzmann brains would no experience consistent memories and observations, we are obviously not Boltzmann brains.

In summary: eternal inflation undermines any rational discourse and thus science itself. It is also empirically refuted by our continuous consistent experiences. There must be something wrong with it. Why was it invented? To get rid of the incredible knife-edge finetuning of the initial conditions of the Big Bang, that would have implied a creator. Eternal inflation is an artifact of methodological naturalism, and funny thing is: it is self-refuting and also takes naturalism with it into the abyss.

The abyss must feel like welcoming arms for post-modernists.

See also: Gunter Bechly: New Human Find In The Philippines = New Headache For Darwinism

Gunter Bechly: Ediacaran Fossil Paper Is “Junk Science”

Gunter Bechly is the researcher who got erased from Wikipedia for doubting Darwinism (not for doubting that Dickinsonia is an animal).

See also: Researchers: Dickinsonia (571–541 mya) could have had a mouth and guts Associate Professor Jochen Brocks commented, “These fossils comprise our best window into earliest animal evolution and are the key to understanding our own deep origins.” Yes, in the sense that sudden emergence rather than a long, slow Darwinian process seems more likely all the time.

Gunter Bechly: Dickinsonia Is NOT Likely An Animal (September 2018)

Cosmic inflation theory loses hangups about the scientific method

and

What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?

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Jonathan Bartlett: Consciousness as the “first instantiation of a new law of nature”

From his review of Scott Ventureyra’s On the Origin of Consciousness:

… Ventureyra poses the phenomena as a FINDON — a “first instantiation of a new law of nature.” That is, current cosmology indicates that there was a time in which consciousness did not exist. Now, however, consciousness is a given as a law of psychology. Therefore, at some point in the past, one or more new laws of nature arose involving consciousness.

This is not the only point in the history of the universe for a new law or laws to arise either. When the first life originated, the laws of biology began.

Jonathan Bartlett, “The Why, Not the How, of the Origin of Consciousness” at Mind Matters News

If consciousness is a first instantiation of a new law of nature, there should be laws associated with its workings. They should relate to the laws of information theory.

See also: Prominent psychologist offers non-reductive approach to consciousness in journal article. A new edition of Communications of the Blyth Institute highlights mind, consciousness, and machine learning

Here’s the cafe of alternatives: Alternatively, Panpsychism: You are conscious but so is your coffee mug

How can consciousness be a material thing? (as some claim)

or

Consciousness is an illusion that sees through itself

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Ten thinkers tell us what post-modernism means

To judge from the flow of verbiage, it spells little good for the sciences. One rather inclines, in part, to Steven Weinberg’s succinct view,given last:

Alas, it was too late. I may be just out of the loop, but it seems to me now that for scientists to argue against constructivism is beating a dead donkey. There is widespread skepticism about the judgments of science, on topics like climate change, but it has other sources — as far as I know, there are no social constructivists in the Trump administration.

Steven Weinberg, “The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of Postmodernism” at Chronicle of Higher Education

Actually, there is good reason for skepticism about the “judgments of science” that doesn’t flow from post-modernism. One could write a book on the subject, just using as topic headers attested information that was observed rushing by at Uncommon Descent. But, in general, scientists cannot benefit from post-modernism because it opposes any reality we must all acknowledge.

Lots of people know this. See, for example: Stop ignoring evidence for the existence of the human mind.

But it’s most instructive to see so much intensely cultivated uselessness on display.

Note:To read the article free, select it under “Articles of Note” at Arts and Letters Daily. At least, that worked here. Thing is, most of the article isn’t worth buying a subscription to wade through unless you have already been financially supporting an intellectually collapsed arts faculty at a university, in which cases you do not know what to do with your money.

There are better uses for your money. Honestly.

See also: A “Gender Non-Binary Dino” Is Not A Useful Teaching Moment

Is there life Post-Truth?

and

Which side will atheists choose in the war on science? They need to re-evaluate their alliance with progressivism, which is doing science no favours.

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Once again: Did Neanderthals speak?

Some enterprising researchers actually looked into this: in considerable detail and find that they did have the anatomical properties to enable speech:

“The Neanderthal voice box is a lot bigger than ours,” says Martelli. The voice box, or larynx, is essentially the echo chamber within which the voice resonates. A bigger, differently shaped echo chamber affects the phonetic quality of the sounds that come out of it. “We can get the model to produce a very convincing ‘oo’ and ‘ee’ sound, but the ‘ah’ comes out quite different.” The Neanderthal “ah,” it seems, would have been closer to “uh” or a combination of “ah” and “uh” that is difficult for us modern humans to render phonetically. (Readers in the United States should be able to watch a video here). Anna Goldfield, “The Neanderthal Throat—Did Neanderthals Speak?” at Sapiens

At the Sapiens site, Goldfield offers some sound files that might represent Neanderthal vs, current vocalization.

See also: Can we talk? Language as the business end of consciousness

and

Neanderthal Man: The long-lost relative turns up again, this time with documents

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Only some cells have “licences” to kill? Let’s look at what that means

It’s come to this. The human body is being described as if it were a nation state (and it’s not an exaggeration, quite the opposite):

Inflammation can help to eliminate infection, but excessive inflammation can cause damage to the body. The sensor proteins that trigger an inflammatory immune response must therefore be carefully regulated. Some intracellular immune-sensor proteins detect components in a cell that become abnormal or altered during a cellular crisis. Signs of cellular crisis are sometimes produced in the absence of an infection, so mechanisms are needed to prevent the proteins from triggering an inappropriate inflammatory response. Writing in Nature, Sharif et al.1 report a structural study that investigates an immune-sensor protein called NLRP3, revealing that a protein called NEK7 acts as a ‘licence’ that enables this protein to cause inflammation. …

Proteins that are normally present in mammalian cells do not seem able to trigger the accidental formation of NLRC4-containing inflammasomes, given the lack of reports of such aberrant events. By contrast, inflammasomes that contain NLRP3 are activated when NLRP3 recognizes — by an as yet unknown mechanism — hallmarks of cellular catastrophe, such as extremely low concentrations of potassium in the cytoplasm, or signs of dysfunction in organelles called mitochondria2. Such events can arise from tissue damage that is unrelated to infection, and NLRP3 activation in such cases has been implicated as a possible cause of inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis. …

Finally, we still don’t know the answer to perhaps the most important question of all: what direct interaction between NLRP3 and an unknown cellular factor results in the formation of the inflammasome? Perhaps the evidence that the NEK7 licence is revoked during cell division provides a clue. If inappropriate activation of NLRP3 is likely to occur during cell division, then having an NEK7-licensing step would help to combat this potential problem. Thus, one could imagine that the type of cellular catastrophe detected by NLRP3 also occurs during cell division but in a controlled manner. Kengo Nozaki &
Edward A. Miao[name], “A licence to kill during inflammation” at Nature

The crux we now face: If there is so much intelligent organization in nature that a body resembles a state with a complex government, if there is no design, consciousness itself must also be an evolved illusion., That is a view that many quietly hold. But then science has no defence against the raging Woke, demanding that their grievances be science. There is no way to escape the dilemma: design or chaos

See also: Researchers: Gene translation “much more complex than previously thought” We keep learning about a variety of life forms that they are “more complex than expected.” So why do we keep expecting them to be simpler? How be we turn it around and say: Such-and-so features layers on layers of complexity, as we expected. What would be the implications?

and

Materialism’s secret of success. Hint: It’s not evidence Materialism enables irrational ideas about ourselves to compete with rational ones on an equal basis. It won’t work

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Researchers: Gene translation “much more complex than previously thought”

DNA in cell/ © Juan Gärtner, Adobe Stock

From ScienceDaily:

Researchers from the group of Marvin Tanenbaum at the Hubrecht Institute have shown that translation of the genetic information stored in our DNA is much more complex than previously thought. This discovery was made by developing a type of advanced microscopy that directly visualizes the translation of the genetic code in a living cell. Their study is published in the scientific journal Cell on June 6th. Paper.(open access) – Sanne Boersma, Deepak Khuperkar, Bram M.P. Verhagen, Stijn Sonneveld, Jonathan B. Grimm, Luke D. Lavis, Marvin E. Tanenbaum. Multi-Color Single-Molecule Imaging Uncovers Extensive Heterogeneity in mRNA Decoding. Cell, 2019; DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.05.001 More.

We keep learning about a variety of life forms that they are “more complex than expected.” So why do we keep expecting them to be simpler?

How be we turn it around and say: Such-and-so features layers on layers of complexity, as we expected.

Is there an agenda that would not be well-served by such an admission?

From the story:

The researchers discovered that out-of-frame translation happens surprisingly frequently. In extreme cases, almost half of all the proteins that were built, used a different reading frame or code than the expected code. These surprising findings show that the genetic information stored in our DNA is far more complex than previously thought. Based on the new study, our DNA likely encodes thousands of previously unknown proteins with unknown functions. Sanne Boersma: “Because of our study, we can now ask very important questions: what do all these new proteins do? Do they have important functions in our body or are they waste side-products of translation that can damage our cells?”

Based on recent history, which way would you place your bet? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!

See also: Clusters of human body cells have different genomes Remember the Selfish Gene? Aw, he was just playin’ you guys. You didn’t fall for that, did you?

and

Researchers’ new find: Liver, pancreas cells are generally as old as the brain If the vast majority of liver cells are as old as the animal, being kind to the liver may be a key to longevity. It will be interesting to see whether epigenetic changes affect new cells or old cells more.

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