Author Archives: Alan Fox

About Alan Fox

alanfox@free.fr

Thinking about Thinking

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Metacognition as a ladder to enlightenment?

We humans are sentient beings. By some means or other, our species has ended up with, at least in our own opinion, with cognitive abilities that separate sharply from our closest living relatives, chimps and bonobos, with whom we share 99% of our genes. We have made huge advances in knowledge which we can store, share and use in scientific research, cultural development, building infrastructure, exploration, travel, transport. This huge explosion in cultural evolution needed and may be driven by that exceptional intelligence. Is there any limit to what we can achieve? I say there is.

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Happy New Year

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To all TSZ Members and Readers!

The end of the year and the imminent arrival of the new decade made me wonder when exactly Dr Liddle set this blog up. I see it was in (or at least prior to) August, 2011. Lizzie put up her first opening post Where does information come from? here. You can tell it’s the first because the link is to “hello_world”, the example post that comes with the WordPress package. UD addicts may like to follow this link to exchanges between Lizzie and the charming Upright Biped that may have had some part in the birth of TSZ. So TSZ is well on the way to it’s first decade – a remarkable achievement considering Lizzie has not actively participated here for some years.

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The Demise of Intelligent Design

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At last?

Back in 2007, I predicted that the idea of “Intelligent Design” would soon fade into obscurity. I wrote:

My initial assessment of ID in my earliest encounter with an ID proponent* was that ID would be forgotten within five years, and that now looks to me an over-generous estimate.

*August, 2005

I was wrong. Whilst the interest in “Intelligent Design” (ID) as a fruitful line of scientific enquiry has declined from the heady days of 2005 (or perhaps was never really there) there remain diehard enthusiasts who maintain the claim that ID has merit and is simply being held back by the dark forces of scientism. William Dembski; the “high priest” of ID has largely withdrawn from the fray but his ideas have been promoted and developed by Robert Marks and Winston Ewert. In 2017 (with Dembski as a co-author) they published Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, which was heralded as a new development in the ID blogosphere. However, the claim that this represents progress has been met with scepticism.

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Paging Dr. Holloway!

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TSZ member Eric Holloway is the latest rising star of the “Intelligent Design” movement. Such a meteoric rise is bound to attract attention and it has indeed caught the eye of veteran biologist Professor Joseph Felsentein who noticed a comment young Eric posted here at TSZ and remarks


Eric Holloway just made a dramatic announcement on The Skeptical Zone, in Dieb’s thread on the number of posts at the ID site Uncommon Descent. In this comment he concludes “At least in my personal interactions with people, it seems like ID has won the debate”.

Professor Felsenstein has a few questions for Eric and hopes he may find the time to respond. I’m just helping out in case Eric has missed Joe’s post at the Panda’s Thumb.

Ubiquitin: a challenge for evolutionary theory?

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Glancing at Uncommon Descent (I still do as Denyse O’Leary often reports on interesting science articles, as here*, and the odd comment thread can still provide entertainment), I see an OP authored by gpuccio (an Italian medical doctor) entitled The Ubiquitin System: Functional Complexity and Semiosis joined together, telling the story of the ubiquitin protein and its central role in eukaryote biochemistry in some considerable detail. Continue reading →

TSZ – The Future

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Dr Elizabeth Liddle conceived, created and grew this website to the success it is today. It was a new idea. Many other sites can be found where a particular worldview is being promoted or a particular sphere of interest draws people of like interest. TSZ was intended to address the problem that Lizzie saw first-hand at other sites I and many others watched her participate in. Her being turfed from one well-known ID blog was partly the catalyst to trigger this venture. Continue reading →

Moderation Issues (6)

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Please use this thread for (and only for) alerting admins to moderation issues and for raising complaints arising from particular decisions. We remind participants that TSZ is a benign dictatorship, the property of Dr. Elizabeth Liddle. All decisions regarding policy and implementation are hers alone.

Free Speech, pseudonymity and the Web

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Where to draw the line between the right to say what we sincerely believe and the right of others not to be insulted, belittled, threatened? Where to draw the line on protecting those who post pseudonymously on the internet?

The Internet has created opportunity. The opportunity for those living under repressive regimes to communicate, to organise, to advertise the fact of their oppression internationally. But also the opportunity for oppressive regimes to trace and document this activity and track down dissidents. And the opportunity for groups with extreme views to advertise and organise racist rallies.

I’m conflicted. My conflict is between ensuring the right of anyone to speak their mind and the responsibility of owning up to those views.

Where to draw the line?

Human Evolution: the evidence evolves!

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I see there are new fossil finds in Morocco which have been reported on the BBC. Here is the Nature Letter that reports the new find. What were modern humans up to prior to the flowering of human civilisation that left no mark prior to, lets say, ten thousand years ago? Why the large brains? Why the capacity for complex communication? Why the gap of over a quarter of a million years before the burst into human civilisation?

New Registrations

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I just noticed that the Captcha on the registration form was faulty (I’m not sure how long for) which made it impossible for anyone wishing to join in discussions here to register. I’ve fixed it now. My apologies to anyone affected.

Please be assured that the site welcomes new members and I invite those who have tried and been unable to register to have another go. If you experience any difficulties, please email me at alanfox@free.fr. (Unless you are a spammer, of course!)

The Arrival of the Fittest: a book review

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Andreas Wagner’s book,The Arrival of the Fittest has been mentioned many times (just try a site search as I’ve just done) since it was published. Petrushka pointed it out in a comment

For anyone interested in whether RMNS can create stuff, I recommend a relatively new book, Arrival of the Fittest. I just bought the Kindle version an haven’t finished, but it has a lot to say about how goldilocks mutations occur.

Much later Mung writes:

Reminds me of petrushka, who is always plugging Andreas Wagner’s Arrival of the Fittest, but will never post an OP on it for discussion.

So I’ve taken the hint and bought the book at last. I can see why people have recommended it. Continue reading →

Jerry Falwell Jr, a Trump appointee.

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I’m sure the name Jerry Falwell Jr means more to US members than it does to me. A friend passed on a link where I read:

Donald Trump appoints creationist college president to lead higher education reform taskforce

According to Salon:

The focus will be on “overregulation and micromanagement of higher education,” according to university spokesman Len Stevens. This would be consistent with Falwell’s past positions, in which he has opposed federal regulations on funding and accreditation for American schools of higher learning.

Following the appointment of (Calvinist?) Betsy DeVos as Education secretary, should we be concerned for the future of public education in the US?

Climate Change: myth or reality?

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There’s no question in my mind the “Intelligent Design” movement has lost all its arguments with Science. Unfortunately, post Trump-it, that fact is now an irrelevance. With Trump’s appointment of Betsy de Vos as Education Secretary, it looks like religious fundamentalism no longer needs its figleaf. What concerns me much more is that a similar fate awaits climate research if his appointment of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is any indication of future policy on combating climate change. Continue reading →