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Top 500 supercomputer performance (orange = #1, blue = #500, green = sum)
Postmodern denials of scientific progress
The fact that scientific research has made immense progress over the past years, decades and centuries is taken for granted among professional scientists and most of the lay public as well. But there are others, from
Continue reading Is scientific progress real?
Credit: NASA
The great silence
As we have explained in previous Math Scholar blogs (see, for example, MS1 and MS2), the perplexing question why the heavens are silent even though, from all evidence, the universe is teeming with potentially habitable exoplanets, continues to perplex and fascinate scientists. It is one of the most significant
Continue reading New books and articles on the “great silence”
Credit: Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics
String theory, fine tuning and the multiverse
String theory is the name for the theory of mathematical physics which proposes that physical reality is based on exceedingly small “strings” and “branes,” embedded in 10- or 11-dimensional space. String theory has been proposed as the long-sought “theory of everything,”
Continue reading Does the string theory multiverse really exist?
Distant galaxies magnified by a gravitational lens
Fermi’s paradox
As we have discussed on this forum before (see, for example, previous Math Scholar blog), Fermi’s paradox looms as one of the most profound and puzzling conundrums of science: Given that the universe is presumed to be teeming with intelligent life and technological civilizations, why
Continue reading Fermi’s paradox and the Copernican principle
History
The Yunis-Prakash diagram comparing the chromosomes of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans
Evolution in general and human evolution in particular continue to be bones of contention, so to speak, as evidenced by the ongoing efforts by some groups to prohibit or downplay evolution, or to mandate “equal time” for “intelligent design,” in state and
Continue reading Chromosomes, DNA and human evolution
Introduction
Is the universe fine-tuned for intelligent life? In 2016, astrophysicist Geraint Lewis and cosmologist Luke Barnes, both at the University of Sydney, Australia, waded into this perplexing and controversial arena in a new book entitled A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos [Lewis2016]. The core of the Lewis-Barnes book and an accompanying
Continue reading Has cosmic fine-tuning been refuted?
Introduction
Many have read books and articles by renowned Harvard social scientist Steven Pinker. In his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Pinker cited a huge amount of historical and sociological data to conclude, counter-intuitively to many, that violence has declined “at the scale of millennia, centuries, decades, and
Continue reading Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now”: Humanism and scientific progress
Introduction
Both traditional creationists and intelligent design writers have invoked probability arguments in criticisms of biological evolution. They argue that certain features of biology are so fantastically improbable that they could never have been produced by a purely natural, “random” process, even assuming the billions of years of history of geologic history. They often
Continue reading Do probability arguments refute evolution?
Introduction
Much of the perceived conflict between science and religion centers on how one should view the Bible’s account of creation. The vast majority of scientists and theologians are willing to accept the fact that the Bible was never intended to be read primarily or even secondarily as a scientific text, and even among those
Continue reading What was the ancient biblical cosmology?
Serving food at an aid center.
Introduction
Recently several writers have attacked religious belief as a pernicious delusion [Dawkins2006; Dennett2006; Harris2006; Hitchens2007; Stenger2008]. Victor Stenger, for example, specifically rejects claims that there are any health or social benefits from religious beliefs or participation.
Other writers sharply disagree, noting benefits bestowed by religion throughout history
Continue reading Does a sense of purpose improve one’s health?
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