Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 480

Will the President Set Right a Ten-Year Old Injustice?

The following headline appeared in the New York Times today:

Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes

My family and I have been praying for a headline like this for over ten years.

Before I tell this story I will disclose my personal interest. My father met his best friend Darryl Hatley over seventy years ago. These two men raised their families in Boyd, Texas (population 700) where I grew up. “Uncle Darryl” and his family were more than our friends. They were family. In 1968 Darryl’s son John was born within a week of my little sister, so I have known John literally all of his life. While our paths separated years ago as he pursued his career in the Army and I pursued mine in the law, I have always kept up with John and his family. And now I pick up the story.

John excelled in the Army. He became an Airborne Ranger, was promoted to first sergeant and received numerous awards, including two Bronze Stars and an Army Commendation for Valor. He was ultimately inducted into the Audie Murphy Club, an exclusive organization for the best of the best of the Army’s NCOs.

All of that changed in 2009 when he was put on trial and convicted of trumped up charges of a murder for which there was absolutely zero evidence. C. J. Oakes summarizes this travesty of justice in this article.

Hatley’s plight began during a climate of “punishing US soldiers” (e.g. the “Leavenworth 10”) as a reaction to political opposition to the American presence in the Middle East and the accusations of inhumane treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay at the hands of the US Army. In the wake of the backlash, the Army upper echelon engaged in an effort to “prove” that they held US soldiers to high standards of engagement and accountability for their actions. 

Hatley was convicted solely on the accusation of a soldier, Jesse Cunningham, whom he was in the process of bringing charges against, and the coerced and coached testimony of a handful of his men who were threatened with life in prison and never seeing their families again, and who were each being told the others were pointing the finger at them.  With a court martial-conviction rate of almost 98%, these few accused soldiers – with the exception of Hatley – were not willing to take the chance to fight for the truth.

Sometime during March or April of 2007, a firefight occurred between First Sergeant Hatley’s unit and a group of Iraqi fighters. Hatley and his men chased the insurgents to a house about four blocks away from the initial firefight. The house was occupied by women and children who said they were the men’s wives and children. The men were taken into custody and a large cache of weapons and ammunition was recovered.  However, as per the stringent policies pertaining to detaining enemy combatants, there was not enough evidence to detain the insurgents. This was a routine scenario for American soldiers, and First Sergeant Hatley made the decision to take the five detained prisoners to the outskirts of their sector and release them, which, according to Hatley, they did without incident. 

Ten months after this event, Cunningham was facing two charges of striking a fellow NCO and one charge of threatening an officer with great bodily harm. Cunningham asked his attorney to take an offer of a deal to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the Army offering information on a homicide in exchange for immunity. Immunity was denied, but the attorney had already given CID Cunningham’s statement.

There was not a single shred of physical or forensic evidence against Hatley or his co-accused, Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo and Sergeant Michael Leahy. A seven-man Army diving team searched the canal where Cunningham said four men were executed and the bodies were supposedly dumped. They found nothing.

According to CID, no bodies, no items of clothing, no personal belongings, no bone fragments, no bullets, or no casings were found. CID had one of the soldiers take them to the house where the five enemy fighters had been apprehended to interview the family members of the supposed victims. All of them said they knew of no one missing or dead. No names were obtained. Further, CID interviewed neighbors from the surrounding areas who said no one was missing from the neighborhood. 

I urge you to read the linked story for the whole sordid tale. To summarize, John was convicted of murder on the basis of tainted and coerced testimony of a man up on charges. There was ZERO forensic evidence. There were no bodies. No one was reported missing, much less dead. No complaint was ever filed by any Iraqi citizen. The supposed victims were never even named.

John was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on the basis of this flimsy non-existent evidence. He has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence from the very first and says he will spend the rest of his life in prison before he admits to a crime he did not commit.

John’s family and mine (especially my sister) have worked countless hours over the years on appeals and pleas for pardons. And that is why I was thrilled to read the linked New York Times story that the President is considering pardons for several men who have been railroaded by the military system of “justice.” We hope and pray that John is on that list.

Please join me, my family, and John’s family as we continue to pray that justice might finally prevail.

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Moon first, then Mars — a path to Solar System colonization?

Some dates are being discussed in a May 18th 2019 Phys-dot-org article:

“The Moon is the proving ground for our eventual mission to Mars,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a conference this week.
“The Moon is our path to get to Mars in the fastest, safest way possible. That’s why we go to the Moon.”
According to Robert Howard, who heads up the lab developing future space habitats at the legendary Johnson Space Center in Houston, the hurdles aren’t so much technical or scientific as much as a question of budget and political will.
“A lot of people want us to have an Apollo moment, and have a president stand up like Kennedy and say, we’ve got to do it and the entire country comes together,” he said.
“If that happened, I would actually say 2027. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think in our current approach, we are going to be lucky to do it by the 2037 date.”

But Howard said if he were to be pessimistic, and assume political dithering lay ahead, “it could be the 2060s.”

Excessive political polarisation and a habit of ruthless agit-prop may be fatally distracting us from major opportunities and a breakout from the limits of a single planet. That is, deterioration of good order, quality of governance and awareness of possibilities tied to the rise of a focus on the bizarre comes with an opportunity cost that may be dear indeed. As such, it points to a neglected justice issue.

Energy transformation and solar system colonisation could open up the future. But, if we wreck our civilisation through excessive polarisation, we will forgo what might otherwise have been. Do we really understand what a more sustainable alternative might look like?

Perhaps, it is time to open up our horizons:

It is time for a civilisation level change strategy towards a more desirable alternative. END

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AI and hopes for fusion power

A recent news item suggests that AI may help bring fusion power to the table on the long used but challenging Tokamak toroidal reactor architecture. This would be a major positive use of AI technology, if it proves sufficiently reliable:

A Tokamak Reactor’s key elements. Managing the pinched plasma has been a problem for decades. (HT: Wikipedia)

Artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science that is transforming scientific inquiry and industry, could now speed the development of safe, clean and virtually limitless fusion energy for generating electricity. A major step in this direction is under way at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University, where a team of scientists working with a Harvard graduate student is for the first time applying deep learning — a powerful new version of the machine learning form of AI — to forecast sudden disruptions that can halt fusion reactions and damage the doughnut-shaped tokamaks that house the reactions . . . . vast databases have enabled reliable predictions of disruptions on tokamaks other than those on which the system was trained — in this case from the smaller DIII-D to the larger JET. The achievement bodes well for the prediction of disruptions on ITER, a far larger and more powerful tokamak that will have to apply capabilities learned on today’s fusion facilities.

If this breakthrough actually happens, it will open up a transformation of the global energy sector, turning water into the world’s main energy resource. In turn, application to electric vehicle and hydrogen etc technologies would transform the transport sector. Desalination would open up vast desert areas for agriculture, and beyond, solar system colonisation would open up. That would transform the world from limits to growth models.

Providing, we don’t wreck our civilisation first; which seems to be where we are headed. END

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Philosopher: The laws of physics don’t rule out free will

George Musser, a science writer reviewing a new book on the subject, thinks it will force free will skeptics to become more sophisticated in their arguments:

Recently, theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder insisted that the laws of physics do not really allow for free will. However, science writer George Musser, the author of Spooky Action at a Distance (2015), notes that the debate around free will and physics is changing—and not in the way that many would expect. Introducing a new book by Christian List of the London School of Economics, Why Free Will Is Real (2019), he notes that List is one of a newer generation of thinkers, including cosmologist Sean Carroll and philosopher Jenann Ismael, who do not see a contradiction between “a nuanced reading of physics” and free will: “Younger thinkers now argue that free will is real ” at Mind Matters News

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See also: Mind Matters News offers a number of articles on free will bu neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor on free will including

Can physics prove there is no free will? No, but it can make physicists incoherent when they write about free will. It’s hilarious. Sabine Hossenfelder misses the irony that she insists that people “change their minds” by accepting her assertion that they… can’t change their minds.

Does “alien hand syndrome” show that we don’t really have free will? One woman’s left hand seemed to have a mind of its own. Did it? Alien hand syndrome doesn’t mean that free will is not real. In fact, it clarifies exactly what free will is and what it isn’t.

And

Does brain stimulation research challenge free will? If we can be forced to want something, is the will still free?

Also: Do quasars provide evidence for free will? Possibly. They certainly rule out experimenter interference.

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Robert J. Marks: What do AI and evolution have in common?

They both need creativity to make things happen:

Biologists in the mid-twentieth century were excited by the advent of computers that could simulate evolution. Millions of generations could be simulated in a few seconds. But evolution simulation on a computer is algorithmic. It requires computer code. Creativity is non-algorithmic and therefore uncomputable.

Many biologists claimed to have written code to simulate evolution. But the popularization of the No Free Lunch theorems showed that the computer programmer must infuse guiding information into the evolutionary program to make it work. To explain the diversity of creativity, an evolution process must be directed.

Design theorist William Dembski and I built on the No Free Lunch theorem, showing that the creative information added to an evolution program could be measured in bits.1 Computer simulations of popular evolutionary algorithms at EvoInfo.org demonstrate that evolutionary programs need this active information. The programmer must contribute creativity to make the code work. Robert J. Marks, “What one thing do AI, entrepreneurship, and evolution all need?” at Mind Matters News

Robert J. Marks is one of the authors of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics

Also by Robert J. Marks: What it Really Takes to Build a High-tech Company, Sell It, and Get Rich Inventor and entrepreneur Hal Philipp offers a rewarding but cautionary true story

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NASA says the moon is shaking, shrinking

Moonquakes happen, and they are shaking up lunar geology:

If you’re looking up at a bright full moon and notice it’s getting smaller, you’re so slightly right that you’re closer to being wrong. The moon is shrinking, but only very slowly, and it always has been since its formation, from which it’s still cooling down. You’ve never seen it when it wasn’t shrinking.

NASA has just announced, though, that this gradual reduction in size is producing moonquakes. The seemingly lifeless satellite is actually pretty dynamic from a geological point of view, a surprise to the scientific community. Blame shrinkage. Also the pull of earth’s gravity.Robby Berman, “The moon is shrinking — also, moonquakes are a thing” at BigThink

Paper. (paywall)

SkyNet also reveals, “NASA announced earlier this year that it wants to send the first woman, and the next man, to the moon by 2024.”

They can call in at the Chinese lunar base for tea… ;

Before you go: Hugh Ross: The fine-tuning that enabled our life-friendly moon creates discomfort Was it yesterday that we noted particle physicist Sabine Hossenfelder’s view that fine-tuning is “a waste of time”? Not so fast. If the evidence points to fine-tuning and the only alternative is the crackpot cosmology she deplores, it’s not so much a waste of time as a philosophically unacceptable conclusion. Put another way, it comes down to fine-tuning, nonsense, or nothing.

Moon formed from smashed moonlets?

Scientists finally know how old Moon is What’s surprising, really, is how little we know about the moon in general.

And various current theories:

Another moon origin theory: Epic crash

How the Moon Formed: 5 Wild Lunar Theories (Mike Wall at Space.com, 2014)

Our moon formed in collision with embryo planet?

and

Origin of the moon still shrouded in mystery

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When particle physicists collide, some are transformed into children

There was a big meet in Granada to discuss the future of particle physics (which really means a meeting to discuss whether to build a Collider-saurus that would dwarf the Large Hadron Collider. An experimental particle physicist is peeved that some physicists doubt the value. He names no names, but can you guess who he has in mind here?:

However, this is the age of instant knowledge: a half hour internship will allow any internet surfer to feel they have become experts on any topic, and they will form an opinion on how science should and should not progress.

What’s worse, there are always disgruntled scientists around, who will take every chance they can at getting even with a system they dropped out of, maybe in pursuit of a better personal fulfilment. They know the stuff, or so they think, and they will try to inflict damage to their former field of study, getting their revenge! Internet gives them megaphons to reach out and collect a following among the instant-knowledge crowd. Tommaso Dorrigo, “The Future Of Particle Physics Discussed In Granada” at Science2.0

My, my. A commenter formed the correct impression and suggests, “Could you please answer the very valid questions raised by Sabine instead of smearing her like this?”

Yes, of course. Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, has offered some shrewd analysis of the collider problem that theoretical physics now faces: “But it is no longer just an opinion: The LHC predictions based on naturalness arguments did, as a matter of fact, not work. So you might think that particle physicists would finally stop using them.”

In any event, the meeting wrapped up without a definite direction. There were “frank and open discussions” and “ “participants did not stay away from hard questions”:

Among the many “interesting questions” that she said Europe needed to address were the Higgs boson, dark matter and the “flavour problem”. “The Higgs is still mysterious [and] understanding the behaviour of the Higgs boson is a must.” Hamish Johnston, “European physicists look to the future of particle colliders” at Physics World

And the bleat goes on.

See also: Sabine Hossenfelder; Has the Large Hadron Collider “Broken Physics?”

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Vids: String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity

Strings:

Loop-Q-G:

Food for thought. END

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Vids: Explaining the recent black hole image

A TED Talk

Second vid on observing a black hole:

Apart from a notice, there will be no comments. END

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Darwinian conservative has a troubling history re racist links

Every so often, for whatever reason. US conservative thinkmags step on Darwin’s rake. A while back, it was “Darwin’s conservatives” Larry Arnhart (First Things, 2000, response here ) and John McGinnis (National Review, 1997). But that was just the usual stuff.

Last year, it was “unapologetic elitist,” Kevin Williamson at National Review, with David Klinghoffer responding at Evolution News and Science Today. Summary here. Not so think-tanky, that one.

Now, just recently, doctoral student in genetics Razib Khan got into the act, again at National Review, proclaiming that “Conservatives Shouldn’t Fear Evolutionary Theory” because “It is a crowning achievement of Western civilization and a rejoinder to the modern myths of the Left.”

Hey, wait a minute. Who talks up a storm about “Western civilization” anyhow? Ah yes… the rake…

Khan, it turns out, knows more apparent racists and anti-Semites than is good for his reputation:

Was Khan unaware of what was going on around him at the alt-right magazines? He spoke to the online journal Undark:

“Khan said that he used to be more tolerant of those perspectives. “Obviously, I don’t condone it,” he said. When I observed that standing by silently — and even linking to [Steve] Sailer’s work — seemed like the definition of “condone,” Khan hesitated. “In terms of being at Unz, I was probably there too long,” he said.”

“Probably there too long”? Gee, do ya think so? Actually, today his name is still on the Unz homepage, at the very top of the list of “ARCHIVED BLOGS AND COLUMNS,” juxtaposed with newer stories including “‘The Holocaust’ Is a Myth That Conceals Our Shame,” “9/11 Was an Israeli Job,” “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars,” reflections on the “Old Testament, Israel’s Trojan Horse inside Christianity,” and the current banner article at the top promoting the “magisterial” scholarship of Holocaust denier David Irving. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was all a colossal misunderstanding, that he demanded that Unz take him off their putrid site, but was rebuffed. David Klinghoffer , “Razib Khan: A Geneticist and the Alt-Right” at Evolution News and Science Today:

Well, if he isn’t really one of them, he could threaten to sue, couldn’t he?

Klinghoffer recommends that Khan watch Human Zoos: America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism

Also whistling past: New Scientist asks, “Does population genetics have a racism problem, even today?” Well, so far as we know, the problem never actually left. No matter what the politics espoused, racism is implicit in the nature of Darwinism as a way of understanding human history. At best, political correctness is a cover for it.

Remember, with Darwinism, someone must be the subhuman. That’s the point. They cannot find him, so they invent him.

Note: Five years ago, there was also the curious saga of retired science writer Nicholas Wade and his book Troublesome Inheritance, which few seemed able to discuss honestly – with unfortunate consequences for at least one party.

We thought, after it all blew over, that the Dark Enlightenment had moved on. To judge from recent antics at National Review, maybe not.

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