Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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Amateur observatories, Interior views, vintage engraving.

“Consensus” Doesn’t Always Mean Science

Real scientific discovery happens within a culture of free speech and open dialogue

Robert J. Marks, host of the Mind Matters podcast, recently put out an article at Newsmax discussing “scientific consensus,” and how that term has been used to bully dissenting scientific viewpoints and even establish political and social policy. Marks writes, Consensus was used as a reason to stifle debate during the COVID crisis. Facebook and YouTube saw opposition to the government narrative as disinformation. Posts against consensus were censored and users were banned. Pre-Musk Twitter had a policy concerning tweets about climate change: “Misleading advertisements on #Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on #climatechange are prohibited, in line with its inappropriate content policy.” The word pairing “scientific consensus” is a destructive science-stifling oxymoron. -Robert J. Marks, Consensus Doesn’t Equal Science | Newsmax.com Read More ›

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Doctor Defibrillating Critical Patient In Hospital

Near-Death Experience Study: Brain Is Active After Death

Science media are making surprisingly few efforts to attack or explain away the team’s findings

A recent study led by near-death researcher Sam Parnia of the consciousness of patients whose hearts have stopped is providing more baseline data about the circumstances under which many near-death experiences occur. A team at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, working with 25 hospitals mostly in the US and Britain, studied the “lucid death experiences” that can occur when heart attack survivors are apparently unconscious. Of 567 patients, only 53 (9.3%) survived. Most of them were flatlined, meaning that they had no brain activity at a certain point. Sometimes brain activity was restored as late as up to an hour later. Only 28 of them completed interviews. According to the media release for the open-access study, “Four in 10 Read More ›

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3D rendering abstract multicolored fractal light background with bright center

If Panpsychism Is Now Mainstream, Is Fine-Tuning Next?

In his new book, panpsychist Philip Goff argues for fine-tuning of the universe and cosmic purpose

In a recent interview, Durham University philosophy professor Philip Goff told contributing editor Ricky Williamson at IAI News that panpsychism, for which he is famous, “has gone mainstream.” That is, the idea that consciousness is real and that perhaps all life forms (or the whole universe) share in it is increasingly considered a reasonable idea. Thus Goff is now tackling the concept of purpose behind the universe in a forthcoming book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023). He’s right about the mainstreaming of panpsychism in the last few years. When New Scientist can write a sympathetic account of panpsychism and University of Chicago biochemist James Shapiro, can tell us in a prestigious science journal that all Read More ›

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Magazines

“Science” Journals Are Getting Less Trustworthy

Unless scientific journals set aside nonscientific agendas, public trust in them will continue to skydive

The science and medical journals have become highly ideological on many of the most important and contentious societal issues of the day, ranging from global warming to gender ideology, to critical race theory, to virtually everything woke. Severing the discourse from true scientific objectivity could mean that legitimate research will be stifled, properly sourced articles that do not follow the preferred ideological narrative refused publication by politicized editors, or perhaps, that scientists could self-censor their own work so as to ensure their studies make it into a prestigious journal with all the career rewards that offers. And now, a climate scientist has written that he pulled his punches in a climate-change article in order to be published by the prestigious journal Nature. From, “I Left Out the Full Read More ›

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The arched stone colonnade with lanterns

When Science Writers Say Things We Hardly Expected…

Some science writers are monotonous boosters for Answers from Science but the better ones challenge themselves, and thus challenge us too

Science writers have the sort of relationship to science that automotive writers do to cars. Readers often hear a thumbs up! or down! about one trend, theory, or school of thought. But in the rush and press of news, we less often hear a philosophical reflection that goes beyond cliches like “Science is self-correcting.” But, every now and again, we do. Here are three recent examples. The “Scientific Method” is Rather Messier than We Think… Philip Ball, author of Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science (University of Chicago 2023), discusses the messy truth about how theories win out in a recent article at Nautilus: Scientists often assert that their practice is governed by the “scientific method,” in which Read More ›

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Preforming a pre-trip inspection on a truck,Concept preventive maintenance truck checklist,Truck driver holding clipboard with checking of truck,spot focus.

Science Is Self-correcting? Time for a Reality Check!

In the wake of the Stanford scandal, the reasons why science often ISN’T self-correcting are attracting much more attention

Many of us grew up with the claim “Science — unlike religion — is self-correcting!” Why so many science boosters dragged religion into it was never clear to me. It sounded too much like saying “The chemistry department, unlike the (stupid) philosophy department, is self-correcting!” Oh? Well, let’s see then. Self-absorbed nonsense often followed, which only heightened suspicion. The recent resignation of neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Stanford University, over yet another peer-reviewed research scandal has forced science thinkers to accept a, perhaps unaccustomed, moment of serious self-reflection. Here’s a sampling from recent news, first from veteran whistleblower Ivan Oransky: You may have thought, given the voluminous coverage of this case, that Tessier-Lavigne’s defenestration demonstrates such failures are highly unusual Read More ›

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Conceptual drawing of room temperature superconductivity, 3D rendering of suspended iron cubes

The LK-99 BS Further Undermines the Credibility of Science

The rejection or distortion of genuine science can have tragic consequences

Social media is afire with reports that South Korean researchers have synthesized a room-temperature and room-pressure superconductor they call K-99. This is the biggest scientific news this year — yes, ChatGPT is now so last year. A representative Wow! from experts has been: “If LK-99 is the real deal, it could be a game-changer for everything from quantum computing and medical imaging to energy and transportation.”  Long pursued by physicists and engineers, room-temperature, room-pressure superconductivity would revolutionize electronics and engineering by allowing current to move through wires without any energy loss. Everything will be cheaper and more efficient. Trains will levitate!  Alas, the likelihood that this is BS research is very close to 100 percent. In the 110-year history of Read More ›

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advanced ancient invisible forcefield dome pattern fading fractal mathematical laws of nature

What Do the “Laws of Nature” Actually Explain?

To what extent does the phrase simply stand in for an explanation?

The question of what the “laws of nature” actually explain is worth asking when we consider the way the term is sometimes used. Norwegian philosopher Daniel Joachim Kleiven points to an example in The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) and Leonard Mlodinow: They argue that the history of science can be summarized as “the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature.” But, Kleiven (pictured) probes, what is the precise nature of the change we are asked to applaud? He quotes the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), who specialized in mathematics and logic: At the basis of the whole modern view of the world Read More ›

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Armageddon. Nuclear bomb or asteroid impact creates a nuke mushroom

Science as Insight vs. Science as Power

What are the core purposes of science and math? Evaluating the idea of "knowledge as power" in the computer age

Should machines replace mathematicians? This phrase is the headline of a new post by science writer John Horgan, who comments on the current state of mathematics and the growing potential of AI and computers to do all the “heavy lifting” of the mathematical enterprise. Horgan notes that mathematicians were the ones to develop computers in the first place, but now, with the advent of advanced computing and artificial intelligence, the role of human-driven mathematics is getting vague. However, maybe math is more about input and output but a “way of being human.” For Horgan, data and computation don’t get to the heart of scientific and mathematical endeavors. It needs to mean something more than an impersonal process geared towards calculable Read More ›

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Titanic at Belfast. Date: 1912

The Titanic: A Sobering Tale About the Fragility of Technological “Progress”

The hopes of the Enlightenment were tragically short lived

By David Klinghoffer The week that the submersible Titan was revealed to have been instantaneously flattened on its way down to the wreck of the Titanic, David Berlinski spoke with James Lileks and Peter Robinson on Ricochet about the wreck of the Enlightenment. Much like the Titanic, and a bit like the Titan, so much was expected at the glorious launch of the experiment in human reasoning — yet down it went to disaster, not least in the 20th century with its horrors. Writing yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan suggested that the story of the Titanic haunts us in part because its demise came two years before the start of the century’s great catastrophe, World War I: “the reason the Titanic endures is that there was an immediate connection Read More ›

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Vienna, Austria. 2019/10/23.

The Immaterial, Alan Turing, and the Mystery of Life

Mathematician David Berlinski comments on his new book in new podcast

The recently published book Science After Babel is again in the spotlight at the podcast ID the Future, with its author, philosopher and mathematician David Berlinski, and host Andrew McDiarmid considering various elements of the work. In a new podcast, the pair discuss the puzzling relationship between purely immaterial mathematical concepts (the only kind) and the material world; World War II codebreaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing, depicted in the 2014 film The Imitation Game; and the sense that the field of physics, once seemingly on the cusp of a theory of everything, finds itself at an impasse. Then, too, Berlinski writes, there is the mystery of life itself. If scientists thought that its origin and nature would soon yield to scientific reductionism, they have Read More ›

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Scientist standing on sunny platform against building

Can Science Escape Faith-Based Beliefs? Maybe It Needs Them!

Marcelo Gleiser insists, for better or worse, science is a faith-based enterprise

Physicist and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser (pictured) offered some thoughts recently on faith and science, noting that the scientific revolution has hardly changed the picture of faith much: “the great scientific advances of the past four centuries have not radically diminished the number of believers” in transcendent realities: If science is to help us, in the words of the late Carl Sagan, by providing a “candle in the dark,” it will have to be seen in a new light. The first step in this direction is to admit that science has fundamental limitations as a way of knowing, and that it is not the only method of approaching the unattainable truth about reality. Science should be seen as the practice of Read More ›

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Blue glowing magical quantum in space

Can the Quantum Realm Explain Reality?

If we can uncover the smallest quantum particles in nature, will we have uncovered the fundamental secrets of reality?

If we can uncover the smallest quantum particles in nature, will we have uncovered the fundamental secrets of reality? A longstanding philosophical tradition in the sciences claims “yes.” Uncovering the mystery of the world lies in the ability to interrogate the smallest of the small. But is that the right way to approach it? What special status does the tiny have over the large? A paper at IAI News by London philosopher Peter West argues that reality can’t in fact be elucidated simply by observing quantum mechanics. He talks in some length about the 17th century text Micrographia by Robert Hooke, which features various images of insects and other organisms under the microscope. West notes that Hooke set the stage, Read More ›

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cosmetic laboratory research and development . science bio skincare cream serum product with leaves. natural organic beauty cosmetics concept. cosmetology.

Scientists Have Been Recommending Changes to Science Education for Decades

The modern education system seems designed to squelch curiosity

Gary Smith describes the problems with today’s science in his new book Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science. He recounts endless examples of disinformation, data torture, and data mining, much of which we already knew. Taken together, however, and as I described in this review, they are mind-blowing. He argues that many of these problems come from things scientists do such as p-hacking during statistical analysis, too little emphasis on “impact” in statistical analyses, outright data falsification, and the creation of the Internet, which can be a huge disinformation machine in addition to a valuable resource. In the last chapter, he also offers some solutions such as ending the artificial thresholds for p-values such as 0.05, requiring Read More ›

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man thinking how to solve the problem

Iterations of Immortality

If it is beauty that governs the mathematician’s soul, it is truth and certainty that remind him of his duty

by David Berlinski Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome Science After Babel, the latest book from mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski. This article is adapted from Chapter 7.  The calculus and the rich body of mathematical analysis to which it gave rise made modern science possible, but it was the algorithm that made possible the modern world. They are utterly different, these ideas. The calculus serves the imperial vision of mathematical physics. It is a vision in which the real elements of the world are revealed to be its elementary constituents: particles, forces, fields, or even a strange fused combination of space and time. Written in the language of mathematics, a single set of fearfully compressed laws describes their secret Read More ›

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Milky Way over Cordillera Huayhuash

Is Mathematics an Illusion? Lawrence Krauss and Cormac McCarthy Discuss

McCarthy asked, "Would mathematics be here if we weren't?"

In December, physicist and author Lawrence Krauss interviewed the late American novelist Cormac McCarthy, who died on June 13th at the age of 89 in Santa Fe, N.M. McCarthy is famous for his remarkable fictional works like The Road and Blood Meridian, but he was also deeply fascinated with mathematics and science. Apparently, he enjoyed reading science more than he did fiction! He moved to Santa Fe from El Paso to be closer to the Santa Fe Institute, a science think tank where McCarthy would spend time speaking with various physicists, scientists, and mathematicians. His latest two novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, are about a brother and sister who are both brilliant mathematicians. Towards the beginning of the interview, Read More ›

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Babel tower

Science After Babel

Read an excerpt of a new book by mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski

By David Berlinski Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome Science After Babel, the latest book from mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski. This article is adapted from the book’s Introduction. The scientific revolution began in the 16th century, and it began in Europe. No one knows why it happened nor why it happened where it happened, but when it happened, everything changed.  Until the day before yesterday, the imperial architects of the scientific revolution were well satisfied and sleek as seals. An immense tower was going up before their very eyes. The physicists imagined that shortly it would reach the sky; the biologists were satisfied that it had left the ground; and only the theologians were heard to observe that it Read More ›

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Reflection of mountain range in lake, Grand Teton National Park

Should We Give Nature “Rights”?

The nature rights movement is more ideological than rational

The major science journals are growing increasingly hard left politically. The prestigious journal Science, in particular, has swallowed progressive ideology–including supporting the “nature rights” movement. The rights of nature–which include geological features–are generally defined as the right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” Nature is, of course, not sentient. So, this campaign is really about granting environmental extremists legal standing to enforce their policy desires through litigation as legal guardians serving nature’s best interests. But the movement has a problem. It is clearly ideological rather than rational. So now, three law professors and a biologist writing in Science urge scientists to promote the agenda by giving courts a scientific pretext to enforce nature rights laws, or even, impose the Read More ›

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Health care researchers working in life science laboratory, medical science technology research work for test a vaccine, coronavirus covid-19 vaccine protection cure treatment

Gloomy News from a Nature Article: Is the End of Science Near?

A study in the premier science journal notes the long term falling off of truly original findings, as opposed to endless citations of others’ findings

Science writer Tibi Puiu reports on new findings that reflect what many today, have begun to suspect: Over the past few decades, the number of science and technology research papers published has soared, rising at a rate of nearly 10% each year. In the biomedical field alone, there are more than a million papers pouring into the PubMed database each year, or around two studies per minute… The new study revealed that the “disruptiveness” of contemporary science has decreased, rendering ever diminishing returns. In this particular context, authors define disruptiveness as the degree to which a study departs from previous literature and renders it obsolete. In other words, a highly disruptive study is one that completely changes the way we Read More ›

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intellectual property. light bulb with chain

MIT Takes Steps Toward Meaningful Free Expression

The most significant line: "We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious"

Anyone familiar with the campus scene today knows that many disciplines are dedicated to anything but open inquiry. The academy is full of true stories about Canceled profs and students. Not “failed” students and profs, notice, but Canceled. Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (the famous MIT) appears to be breaking the mold by adopting free speech principles by a faculty senate vote of 98 to 52. A key passage: At the intersection of the ideal of free expression and MIT community values lies the expectation of a collegial and respectful learning and working environment. We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious. At the same time, MIT deeply values civility, mutual respect, and uninhibited, wide-open debate. In fostering Read More ›