July 15, 2013 — Artificial and natural knowledge researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have IQ-tested one of the best available artificial intelligence systems to see how intelligent it really is.
Turns out it’s about as smart as the average 4-year-old, they will report July 17 at the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Conference in Bellevue, Wash.
I actually think that the title to this article is misleading, though the article from The Verge is interesting. It looks as though the worms do not regrow their memories but a greater propensity for learning lost skills involved with those memories. Doe this imply epigenetics?
Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True (book and blog), states this insightful piece:
…we justify science rather than faith as a way of finding out stuff not on the basis of first principles, but on the basis of which method actually gives us reliable information about the universe. And by “reliable,” I mean “methods that help us make verified predictions that advance our understanding of the world and produce practical consequences that aren’t possible with other methods”.
July 5, 2013 — A study has shown for the first time that starfish use primitive eyes at the tip of their arms to visually navigate their environment. Research headed by Dr. Anders Garm at the Marine Biological Section of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, showed that starfish eyes are image-forming and could be an essential stage in eye evolution.
Check out this fascinating article from Discover. H/T Neil Webber. Your ancestors’ lousy childhoods or excellent adventures might change your…
I thought this might be topical, given new commenter Joseph’s (a JW) predilection for evolution illiteracy whilst simultaneously claiming intellectual victory over an evolutionary biologist and other’s complete pwnage of him. It is actually sad seeing psychology deny a person reality, because that is what is happening. Perseverance bias feeding confirmation bias, predicted by cognitive dissonance makes for pitiful reading. I wonder how his creationism both predicts these results and explains them?!
Having attended a fascinating talk by James Williams (a science educator) last night at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub, I thought I would post about it. The talk was called Insidious Creationism and concerned Creationism within an educational context.
The New Scientist reports:
It’s well known that religious faith can help believers cope with stress and anxiety, by providing them with a sense of meaning and control at times of uncertainty. It now seems that a “belief” in science and a rationalistic outlook might do the same for the non-religious.
A team of psychologists led by Miguel Farias at the University of Oxford asked 52 rowers to fill in a “belief in science” questionnaire just before taking part in a competitive regatta. They gave the same test – in which participants had to score statements such as “science is the most valuable part of human culture” – to a similar number of rowers at a training session. The questionnaire also assessed self-reported stress levels and degree of religious belief.
Many animals — from locusts to fish — live in groups and swarm, but scientists aren’t sure why or how this behavior evolved. Now a multidisciplinary team of Michigan State University scientists has used a model system to show for the first time that predator confusion can make prey evolve swarming behavior.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey is to make an unprecedented attack later on climate change sceptics.
In a speech, the Lib Dem minister will complain that right-wing newspapers are undermining science for political ends.
He is set to accuses climate sceptics of nimbyism, publicity-seeking, and “blinkered… bloody-mindedness”.
A multi-national team of researchers has identified genetic markers that predict educational attainment by pooling data from more than 125,000 individuals in the United States, Australia, and 13 western European countries.
Science Daily – May 24, 2013 — A new study by archaeologists at the University of York challenges evolutionary theories behind the development of our earliest ancestors from tree dwelling quadrupeds to upright bipeds capable of walking and scrambling.
The researchers say our upright gait may have its origins in the rugged landscape of East and South Africa which was shaped during the Pliocene epoch by volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates.
Ever since hearing about the Tory government in Canada the other day from Peter, a Canadian commenter, I have been shocked to think that the Canadian government has been doing some insanely immoral dastardly things since it has been in power entirely unbeknownst to me! I came across this Huff Post Canada article and felt I had to repost this. Man, how do we put pressure on an entire G7 government to tell them to stop being such morons?
I am a skeptic. I am not a global warming skeptic. That is ideologically-driven anti-scientific nonsense. And in case you were wondering what the evidence for this was, let’s look at what the relevant scientists say:
Science Daily: May 15, 2013 — A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.
Due to the fact that wiki has some great starter articles, and I don’t necessarily have the time to write some of my own, but feel that there are some people who deserve greater notoriety. As a result, once in a while, I will randomly copy over an interesting wiki article and perhaps promote discussion on these people.
The first subject is someone important to our network here at SIN. Hypatia of Alexandria is our figurehead and is incorporated into our logos. She is an iconic role model for secular female intellects, and for all humanity. Here is a little more about her:
I love renewable energy. It fascinates and excites me in all my geekness. But it needs to be competitive. Is the tide turning (get it?)? Science Daily:
Apr. 24, 2013 — Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have designed a low-cost, long-life battery that could enable solar and wind energy to become major suppliers to the electrical grid.
Evidence adds up: three studies of human impact on climate. Three new studies were published today, each looking at a different aspect of the human impact on climate, each carrying a sobering message on the consequences of human activities on our environment. The first says recent warming is unprecedented in 2,000 years. A second reports climate zones are shifting faster due to warming temperatures. The third argues impacts from greenhouse gas emissions are not caused solely by warming temperatures.
Some research out seems to support an idea that ‘bad decisions’ that we make are as a result of the quality of the information coming in rather than the quality of the systems working on that information. Of course, this may call into question the quality of the systems actually responsible for collecting that data. The chicken and the egg scenario seems to persist here. Science Daily:
Apr. 15, 2013 — Making decisions involves a gradual accumulation of facts that support one choice or another. A person choosing a college might weigh factors such as course selection, institutional reputation and the quality of future job prospects.
I just learned from Jason Colavito that PBS NOVA the other day aired a documentary about the unraveling of one of the incredible enigmas of antiquity. And naming it after the German code machine isn’t a bad idea either, considering that this device is a marvel of gears and other mechanisms all working together.
So on the second post involving the infamous $10,000 bet about nested hierarchies in evolution, regular erudite commenter Daydreamer1 brought up some really good points about design, but not from a biological standpoint. With intelligent design theories, we often fail to look at them in contexts outside of biology, say, in the earth sciences. I think the criticisms of ID can really be pushed home in these contests, as DD1 shows: