Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 75

Rescuing the multiverse as a science concept… ?

Australian theoretical astrophysicist Luke Barnes makes the attempt, riffing off the recent film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:

How did our universe get the right mix of ingredients? Perhaps we won the cosmic lottery. Perhaps, on scales much bigger than what our telescopes can see, other parts of the universe have different building blocks.

Our universe is just one of the options—a particularly fortunate one—among a multiverse of universes with losing tickets.

This is the scientific multiverse: not simply more of our universe, but universes with different fundamental ingredients. Most are dead, but very very rarely, the right combination for life-forms comes up.

The Marvel multiverse, by contrast, merely rearranges the familiar atoms and forces of our universe (plus a bit of magic). That’s not enough.

Luke Barnes, “What is the multiverse, and does it really exist?” at Phys.org (May 6, 2022)

Barnes concludes,

In the cycle of the scientific method, the multiverse is in an exploratory phase. We’ve got an idea that might explain a few things, if it was true. That makes it worthy of our attention, but it’s not quite science yet. We need to find evidence that is more direct, more decisive.

Luke Barnes, “What is the multiverse, and does it really exist?” at Phys.org (May 6, 2022)

The multiverse is not believed to be true because of evidence but because it enables evasion of the logical consequences of fine-tuning of our own universe.

You may also wish to read: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?

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C. S. Lewis and the limits of science

He saw it as a limited language:

Lewis’s attitude toward science, though very positive and respectful, was not uncritical. He believed that science, like all human enterprises, has its limits and that those limits needed to be understood and observed not only for the sake of other disciplines but for the sake of science itself. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis deprecates “unscientific followers of science”: those who overvalue the scientific method or accept scientific pronouncements without question. He argues that these people may suppose themselves to be devotees of the discipline, when in fact, they are undermining it from within. As an intellectual historian and an interested observer of scientific developments, Lewis often took aim at this error.

Michael Ward, “Numb and Numb-er” at Plough (April 28, 2022)

Michael Ward is the author of Planet Narnia (2010).

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At Mind Matters News: A purpose must underlie the universe if intelligent beings exist

Theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser argues that intelligent life is extremely rare in the universe:

Until it becomes intelligent, life is happy just replicating. With intelligence, it will be unhappy just replicating. This, in a nutshell, is the essence of the human condition.

News, “A purpose must underlie the universe if intelligent beings exist” at Mind Matters News (May 7, 2022)

Takehome: His reasons would suggest that human intelligence cannot simply be a product of evolution, whether he realizes that or not.

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It turns out that fact-checker “credibility” ratings don’t affect people’s views of news much

Nor should it:

Labeling the credibility of information sources does not shift the consumption of news away from low-quality sources or reduce belief in widely circulated inaccurate claims among average internet users, but providing an indicator of sources’ quality may improve the news diet quality of the heaviest consumers of misinformation, shows a new study by New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics.

Notably, the researchers also found that a majority of people rely on credible sources of information, with two-thirds completely avoiding unreliable news sites.

The study, which appears in the journal Science Advances, centered on credibility ratings determined by NewsGuard, a browser extension that rates news and other information sites in order to guide users in assessing the trustworthiness of the content they come across online.

New York University, “Does presenting credibility labels of journalistic sources affect news consumption? New study finds limited effects” at Phys.org (May 6, 2022)

It’s actually just the first stage of censorship.

When nonsense news is really a problem, there are better ways to deal with it.

The paper is open access.

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Unusual finding: Nature does NOT generally help human mental health

What?:

The field—which combines psychology and environmental research—has produced numerous important studies detailing the benefits of nature, forests and parks on human well-being and mental health, including happiness, depression, and anxiety. The findings have been popularized by books like Your Brain on Nature and The Nature Fix, which champion the great outdoors’ health benefits.

But when University of Vermont researchers analyzed a decade of research from the field—174 peer-reviewed studies from 2010 to 2020—they found that study participants were overwhelmingly white, and that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities were strongly underrepresented. Over 95% of studies occurred in high-income Western nations in North America, Europe and East Asia—or Westernized nations such as South Africa—while research in the Global South was largely absent. Less than 4% of studies took place in medium-income nations, such as India, with no studies in low-income countries.

This narrow sample of humanity makes it difficult for the field to credibly make universal scientific claims, say the researchers, who published their findings today in Current Research in Environmental Sustainability.

University of Vermont, “Nature helps mental health, research says—but only for rich, white people?” at Eurekalert (May 6, 2022

The Woke are eating their own at a faster rate than ever.

The paper is open access.

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Stasis: Mating behavior unchanged from Cambrian era

If we go by the claspers in trilobites:

Claspers are special hook-like appendages often found in male arthropods. The male uses the claspers to hold onto the female during mating. Different groups have convergently evolved this appendage in different parts of the body depending on the exact mode of mating in that clade. Branchiopods and horseshoe crabs have both evolved claspers, but they function in different ways according to the female’s exoskeleton. For instance, branchiopods clasp on to the carapace, while Limulus clasps on to the spines. In O. serratus, the males claspers would line up with the spines on the female’s pygidium.

“We knew it could not be for mastication because the appendages are not near the head or mouth, they’re in the middle of the body,” Losso said. “This shows sexual dimorphism in trilobites, but in this case it is only expressed in the appendages. This tells us more about the reproduction in trilobites and how they would have mated, which previously has been hard to understand and has been very speculative based on modern analogies.”

“There are very few cases of fossils that have directly informed reproductive ecology and behavior, particularly in fossils this old. In this case, because there is a structure that is very specifically adapted for this function, it is possible to make this particular argument, and more particular of trilobites,” said Ortega-Hernández. “This really is the first time that it is possible to show these limbs so heavily modified for this function. And it provides strong evidence to suggest that a Limulus, or horseshoe crab-like behavior, already existed in the Cambrian completely by convergence. So, it really helps us to get a sense of how these animals were actually living millions of years ago.”

Harvard University, “Clasper appendages discovered in mid-Cambrian trilobite show horseshoe crab-like mating behavior” at Phys.org (May 6, 2022)

Half a billion years ago, actually.

Stasis: Life goes on but evolution does not happen

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Science writers complain about online harassment

So people have noticed trolls? [comments interspersed]

FOR THE PAST several years, we’ve watched with rising concern as journalists in the United States and abroad have been increasingly subjected to online harassment. As journalism professors specializing in science reporting and violence against the press at George Washington University, we have researched, observed, and written about the rising trend in anti-press attacks through email, instant messages, social media, and other digital channels. Sadly, online attacks and threats have become the new normal in many newsrooms, with the result being that journalists are subject to a form of mob censorship. [So they are finally experiencing the culture they helped create?] Late last year, we began conducting a series of in-depth interviews — ten in total — to learn specifically how online harassment is affecting journalists who cover science. We spoke with science journalists and editors, asking them about the types of digital attacks they have received, as well as the content of those attacks, among other questions. Because these interviews were done as part of a research study, we’ve kept the names confidential in accordance with rules governing research with human subjects. In aggregate, the story they told was disheartening: Like journalists who cover politics and other polarizing beats, science journalists say they are being targeted with digital provocations and hate, and report their newsrooms are doing little, if anything, to protect them. [Most people who suffered from this were not so protected but it sounds like a good idea. ] We spoke with reporters who said they repeatedly received harassing phone calls from readers. In some cases, scary, accusatory messages would arrive by the hundreds on Twitter, Instagram, and by email. Women appeared to bear the brunt of these attacks. [Um, some of us are well aware of that too… ]

Lisa Palmer & Silvio Waisbord, “Trolling Is Taking a Toll on Science Journalism” at Undark (May 5, 2022)

If the science journalists want to run a test: Just try claiming that the universe shows evidence of design. And defend yourselves against the trolls.

Otherwise, cry the rest of us a river.

No, seriously, it is a problem. But it is not a new one. And the solutions would include more freedom for dissent.

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Pancomputationalism: Everything is a computation?

Hugh Ross offers at Reasons to Believe:

Question of the week: What are your thoughts on pancomputationalism? How does it impact the fine-tuning argument for a personal God?

My answer: Pancomputationalism is the claim that all physical systems—galaxies, stars, rocks, dust, gas, molecules, atoms, protons, a pair of scissors—either continually or intermittently perform computations. Pancomputationalism is akin to digital physics. Digital physics is the belief that the universe either is a digital computation device constantly producing information or is the output from some kind of computer or computer program existing outside the universe. (April 29, 2022)

Hadn’t heard that one.

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Can quantum mechanics explain spontaneous mutation of DNA?

Despite otherwise “astounding precision”?

The molecules of life, DNA, replicate with astounding precision, yet this process is not immune to mistakes and can lead to mutations. Using sophisticated computer modelling, a team of physicists and chemists at the University of Surrey have shown that such errors in copying can arise due to the strange rules of the quantum world.

The two strands of the famous DNA double helix are linked together by subatomic particles called protons – the nuclei of atoms of hydrogen – which provide the glue that bonds molecules called bases together. These so-called hydrogen bonds are like the rungs of a twisted ladder that makes up the double helix structure discovered in 1952 by James Watson and Francis Crick based on the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.

Normally, these DNA bases (called A, C, T and G) follow strict rules on how they bond together: A always bonds to T and C always to G. This strict pairing is determined by the molecules’ shape, fitting them together like pieces in a jigsaw, but if the nature of the hydrogen bonds changes slightly, this can cause the pairing rule to break down, leading to the wrong bases being linked and hence a mutation. Although predicted by Crick and Watson, it is only now that sophisticated computational modelling has been able to quantify the process accurately.

University of Surrey, “Quantum mechanics could explain why DNA can spontaneously mutate” at Eurekalert (May 5, 2022)

The paper is open access.

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John West on C. S. Lewis and science

In connection with the book The Magician’s Twin:

John West had a great conversation on the Pints with Jack podcast about his book The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society. Dr. West reminds listeners of an insight of Lewis’s that doesn’t get the attention it deserves, perhaps because it comes in the Epilogue of the last book Lewis completed, the fascinating The Discarded Image. It’s not his Lewis’s most widely read work. The subject matter is not what everyone associates with him — not fantasy, or science fiction, or apologetics, but an account of the Medieval mental picture of the world.

David Klinghoffer, “John West: C. S. Lewis and the “Human Fallibility of Science”” at Evolution News and Science Today (May 4, 2022)

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