Category: Science

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Natural Selection Data Points

Quite apart from the Darwin Awards, possible evidence of at least one of the mechanisms whereby natural selection seems to work can be observed as roadkill. Obviously, it seems, the less fit of any species is likely to be what we see/drive by (or create) as roadkill: animals that weren’t smart enough, observant enough, or quick enough to get out of the way of oncoming traffic. (Strikes on scavenger birds/animals making a meal of roadkill are particularly ironic.)

But there are other data that can be intriguing apart from the easily-observed negative data of roadkill. Yesterday, just at dusk, I was on a two-lane rural highway at the posted 55mph speed, when I spotted movement ahead of me on the far side of the verge of the oncoming lane. It was a doe, stopping, her head turned to look straight at me. Her gaze followed me as I passed, and, in my rear view mirror I saw her head swivel, apparently checking for traffic, before she bounded across the road.

Deer learning “Stop, Look, and Listen”? Survival of the smartest?

😉

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Spinning the Moral Compass

First, the lede:

Morality is modified in the lab

Scientists have shown they can change people’s moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses.

Now, the crux:

“The study suggests that this region – the RTPJ – is necessary for moral reasoning.

“What is interesting is that this is a region that is very late developing – into adolescence and beyond right into the 20s.

“The next step would be to look at how or whether moral development changes through childhood into adulthood.”

As far as I’m concerned, this adds weight to parents setting clear limits and doling out consequences for misbehavior that gives children a “moral compass” to guide them through childhood and youth.

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Common Sense on Research Funding

As always, Jerry Pournelle is worth paying attention to:

When most science is funded through taxes, then the peer review process takes over. Science administration is a bureaucracy, and that bureaucracy is as subject to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy as any other. The process weeds out silly grant applications and those based on truly unsound science, but it also weeds out bold challenges to the consensus, and the number of “peers” who adhere to the consensus grows. The result is concentration of resources on the popular hypotheses: often a good thing, but no formula for breakthroughs. How to fund contrarian ideas is the real challenge to government funding of science. We don’t really want to be handing grants off to the Flat Earth Society, but you know, I’d rather give them a million or so each century than beggar the country in order to enrich Al Gore.

Of course, any reasonable person would rather fund harmless kooks than fund deliberate liars (like Algore) who are out to enrich themselves by doing harm to enormous numbers of people.

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Here’s Some Spit in the Global Warmists’ Eyes

Anyone remember the Maunder Minimum? (If so, you’re a bit older than I am, and I know dirt I call “young fella” *heh*)

“Sunspots May Vanish by 2015”

From the first link above,

The Maunder minimum is the name given to a period of extreme solar inactivity that occurred between 1645 and 1710. Of particular interest is that this period of inactivity corresponds closely to one of the coldest periods of the so-called “Little Ice Age” in Europe, a time of long, cold winters that caused severe hardships in the pre-industrial revolution world. This has led scientists to extensively study the possible influences of solar activity on terrestrial climate, as well as examine other stars for evidence of activity cycle behavior similar to the Sun’s.

If, as the paper noted at the second link suggests, we are entering another period of relatively major solar inactivity, all the resources being wasted on The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming’s assault upon civilization (assault upon reason, even) will be hard cheese indeed to our progeny.

After all, the nut of

Examinations of the solar activity cycle and the unusually cold weather of the Maunder minimum period have spurred significant controversy among astronomers, atmospheric scientists, and climatologists. The period from about 1300-1715 is known as the “Little Ice Age” in Europe, a period characterized by unusually long and cold winters. This period coincides closely with the time during which the Sun is known to have had time of inactivity, with some of the worst weather occurring squarely during the Maunder minimum.

…is that it led to widespread famine, disease and widespread depopulation. Oh, wait. Those are all goals embraced by the looniest of The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming and their co-religionists in the “Bow Down and Worship Gaia” crowd of even loonier eco-freaks who view mankind as a disease.

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We Need This Man for Emperor

*heh*

Well, either him or his clone, thinking exactly as he does.

Example, a snippet dealing with education, Darwinism and Intelligent Design:

“So long as the idea of scientific method — the generation and testing of falsifiable hypotheses — is shown, I don’t have any great worries that bright kids won’t figure out their own answers to matters like intelligent design; and I don’t really care if my auto mechanic believes in his heart of hearts that he was divinely created and endowed by his creators with certain inalienable rights as opposed to his having evolved from bonobos without attention from his creator. I do worry that he knows how to read the output of the computer test equipment, and that he can figure out what the funny squeak is…

“…Mandating the “correct” position and requiring local schools to adopt that is a more dangerous principle than teaching an alternative to Darwin, without regard to whether Darwin is “really true” and belief in Darwin is so fragile that teaching an alternative would undermine belief in Natural Selection. I am not convinced that there is a school district that would teach “flat earth” as an alternative to the conventional wisdom, but if there were, I do not think the republic would fall if that were allowed. There would be ridicule and merriment and mirth, but I doubt the consequences would be much greater than that.”

Read more at the link and here as well.

Heck, go a little further than Dr. Pournelle’s very calm and reasonable argument and (BUY AND) read James P. Hogan’s, Kicking the Sacred Cow. Hogan may go to extremes at times in his aversion for Dogmatic Science practiced as a religion, not science, but he marshalls his facts pretty convincingly in an accessible presentation for laymen.

Similarly to Hogan, it really chaps my gizzard to see purely religious views presented as “science”–and conversely to see religious views denigrated because they are not scientific. As my old chemistry prof was wont to say, the two manners of approaching reality deal with entirely different sets of questions and using the thinking of “blind faith” in science is just as stupid as attempting to use scientific reasoning to prove/disprove matters of faith.

Science cannot ultimately even ask or answer real “why” questions, just as religion cannot deal satisfactorily with “how” questions. ANd people who cannot see the differences in the two manners of thinking and the sets of questions they can effectively deal with are just dumber than a bag of hammers, no matter how high their IQ may test or how much alphabet soup they may string after their names.

Trackposted to Maggie’s Notebook, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, D equals S, McCain Blogs, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Celebrity Smack, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.