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Convergent Evolution: Darwinism, Leftism, and Sorcery October 27, 2019 | David F. Coppedge You can tell a lot about a movement by the company it keeps. Op-Ed by David Coppedge We’ve reported several times about the virulent leftism of the major scientific journals, reporters and academics (e.g., 24 March 2018, 29 July 2018, 5 Dec 2018). There is hardly a policy President Trump puts forth that scientific leaders do not immediately attack. But it’s not just hatred for one man that drives them: it is hatred for all conservative leaders and positions around the world, whether in Australia, Brazil, or...

An award-winning scientist recently told the world that science and religion are not incompatible. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports (3/19/19), “The annual Templeton Prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to ‘affirming life's spiritual dimension,’ was awarded Tuesday to Brazilian Marcelo Gleiser---a theoretical physicist dedicated to demonstrating science and religion are not enemies.” Gleiser, a professor at Dartmouth College since 1991, said, “Science does not kill God.” Although he is described as an agnostic, the AFP reports that Gleiser “refuses to write off the possibility of God's existence completely.” He said, "Atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method…Atheism is a belief in...

The Eclipse of Ethics Perhaps no area of philosophy has seen a greater effort at appropriation by advocates of scientism than ethics. Many of them tend toward a position of moral relativism. According to this position, science deals with the objective and the factual, whereas statements of ethics merely represent people’s subjective feelings; there can be no universal right or wrong. Not surprisingly, there are philosophers who have codified this opinion. The positivist tradition made much of a “fact-value distinction,” in which science was said to deal with facts, leaving fields like ethics (and aesthetics) to deal with the more...

Go figure: If you’re a birther or a 9/11 denier, chances are you aren’t much fun to be around. Sure, we’ve been saying this about our wack-job uncle for years — but now it’s backed up by science. With contemporary conspiracy theories targeting everything from myths surrounding the Mueller report to the chilling “secret” behind Disney’s “Frozen,” this cultural phenomenon is certainly ripe for clinical exploration. As such, the new study measured participants’ “belief in general notions of conspiracy” as well as how much they agreed with specific theories (“There was an official campaign by MI6 to assassinate Princess Diana”)....

The Eclipse of Epistemology Hawking and Mlodinow, in the chapter of their book called “The Theory of Everything,” quote Albert Einstein: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” In response, Hawking and Mlodinow offer this crashing banality: “The universe is comprehensible because it is governed by scientific laws; that is to say, its behavior can be modeled.” Later, the authors invite us to give ourselves a collective pat on the back: “The fact that we human beings — who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature — have been able to come this...

There are at least three areas of inquiry traditionally in the purview of philosophy that now are often claimed to be best — or only — studied scientifically: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Let us discuss each in turn. Physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow open their 2010 book The Grand Design by asking: What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? ... Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of...

“So then how does the theistic evolutionist marry evolutionary processes and theism? As I have already mentioned, there are three basic ways

It’s a sad comment on the quality of “science” being conducted by supposedly reputable scientists. Our cover story this week looks at promises made to the alcohol industry by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. According to documents, NIH promised positive results in advance of a major study on the benefits of moderate drinking. Once the researchers got caught, the study was cancelled but not before millions of our tax dollars were spent. We look at the internal emails.We also have a story that looks into allegedly slanted science in the case of Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup.  Lisa Fletcher...

From the close of the Medieval Age on through to our own time, God-haters have been waging war against the God of Revelation. The reason for this unrelenting attack upon the Triune God, but especially Jesus Christ, is mankind's sinful fallen condition. God-haters desire suppression of the knowledge of their own sin, which they hope will stifle the gnawing pain of a guilty conscience

The Dangers of Scientism By Philip Cottraux “Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power. Because things are going very fast now…it will be in everyone’s hands. It will be in kits for backyard gardeners. Experiments for schoolchildren. Cheap labs for terrorists and dictators. And that will force everyone to ask the question - ‘What should I do with my power?’ Which is the very question science says it cannot answer.” -Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park****** Atheists often accuse religious people of being anti-science. They cite past examples...

We've been told conservatives don't believe in science and that there's a "Republican war on science." But John Tierney, who's written about science for The New York Times for 25 years and now writes for the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, told me in my latest online video, "The real war on science is the one from the left." Really? Conservatives are more likely to be creationists -- denying evolution. "Right," says Tierney. "But creationism doesn't affect the way science is done." What about President George W. Bush banning government funding of stem cell research? "He didn't stop stem cell research,"...

You may recall our recent discussion about a new EPA policy which will require all scientific studies used in considering new regulations to make not only their findings but their methodology and underlying data available for public scrutiny and comparative analysis. What’s not to like, right? These are investigations being done by the government and funded by the taxpayer, so the information used to reach any conclusions should be freely available. Everyone’s a big fan of transparency when it comes to those sneaks in Washington so this should roll through smoothly. Not even close. It turns out that a previous...

With most of the U.S. recently in the grip of significant cold, and given the proper goading from President Trump, liberals again felt led to lecture us on the difference between weather and climate. It's lost on most leftists how they so often fail to apply the same standards to themselves. Whether blizzards, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, record heat, record cold, and so on, with religious devotion, liberals almost never fail to link dramatic weather events to their apocalyptic climate narrative. One of the easiest jobs in the world has to be that of climate doomsayer. No matter the weather, the...

Less than a billion years after the Big Bang, two titans speed toward each other. NRAO/AUI/NSF; D. Berry ======================================================================= Just 780 million years after the universe formed in the Big Bang, two galaxies speed to confront each other in a head-on collision that will lead to a merger between the two—and one of them is towing along a clump of dark matter larger than any spotted before. The research paper, published today in Nature, highlights a little-understood era of the universe known as the Epoch of Reionization. This is when the first galaxies came together and lit up the universe...

Andrews concludes: The bottom lines that emerge from all this are: 1. The only published temperature time series that are not distorted by adjustments and which can therefore be considered reasonably reliable are the UAH TLT series and the SST series after about 1950. (The various radiosonde series, which go back to 1958, also appear to be generally reliable, and more use could be made of them.) 2. Climate models show too much air temperature warming at the surface and in the troposphere. They show probably about the right amount of sea surface warming after 1950 but probably too little...

The scientists who produce those doomsday reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally come clean. The planet has stubbornly refused to heat up to predicted levels. Right now the scientists owe us an apology so enormous that I doubt even a bunch of two dozen roses every day for the rest of our lives is quite enough to make amends for the damage theyÂ’ve done. Thanks to their bad advice on climate change our gas and electricity bills have rocketed. So too have our taxes, our car bills and the cost of flying abroad, our kids have been...

Actually: no. In the modern world, there are ever fewer reasons to maintain the distinct roles of men and women, which evolved over millions of years. But to imagine that we are not living with that inheritance is to reject not just science, but all forms of logic and reason. The message that liberates women is not: men and women are the same, and anyone who tells you different is oppressing you. The message that liberates women is: men and women are different. (And in fact, everyone who is intellectually honest knows this—see Geoffrey Miller’s excellent point regarding the central...

A slow-moving emergency is lapping at California’s shores – climate-driven sea-level rise that experts now predict could elevate the water in coastal areas up to 10 feet in just 70 years, gobbling up beach front and overwhelming low-lying cities. The speed with which polar ice is melting and glacier shelves are cracking off indicates to some scientists that once-unthinkable outer-range projections of sea rise may turn out to be too conservative. A knee-buckling new state-commissioned report warns that if nothing changes, California’s coastal waters will rise at a rate 30 to 40 times faster than in the last century. The...

Behold the anthem of modern liberalism (Though you’ve probably already seen it, WARNING: vulgar and insanely stupid. After viewing, you’ll probably want to shower, pray, and spend some time with a Rubik’s Cube.): https://youtu.be/Wllc5gSc-N8 So I now know who Rachel Bloom is. Tragically, I can’t imagine a worse introduction. As a result of this sorry, sad, sick episode (everyone involved should be forced to turn in any degrees or diplomas they possess), this video, Nye, and Bloom have all been thoroughly—and deservedly—ridiculed. That’s what happens when one surrenders three whole minutes of a television program—that is supposedly devoted to “exploring...

Recent science and climate marches demonstrated how misinformed, indoctrinated, politicized and anti-Trump these activists are – and how indifferent about condemning millions in industrialized nations and billions in developing countries to green energy poverty. Amid it all, University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole helped illustrate how the marchers became so ignorant, insensitive and intolerant. It’s always amazed me how frequently academics, journalists, politicians and students confuse poisonous carbon monoxide (CO) with plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide (CO2). But Professor Cole’s April 17 article in The Nation presents unfathomable ignorance from the intellectual class that is “educating” our young people, while displaying...