Category: Science

To a vastly greater degree than any other creature on earth, man is a symbolic being. Our capacity for symbolic thought–the ability to conceptualize the idea that a symbol stands for a reality or "This is that"–is vastly superior to that of any other creatures on the planet. It is what allows us to accumulate knowledge from one generation to another, to develop culture, learn science, etc., etc., etc.

But it doesn’t come on us all at once. We aren’t born with our capacity for symbolic thought all warmed up and ready to cook. It takes a while for us to learn different forms of symbolism, language being one of the first. Visual symbols can take a little longer.

If you have a really young child their visual symbol processing software ain’t all online yet.

This, of course,

MAKES ‘EM REALLY FUN TO TRY SYMBOL-BASED EXPERIMENTS ON.

Among the interesting things scientists who do this are learning are things that have to do with what are the best educational strategies for young children:

A very popular style of book contains a variety of manipulative features designed to encourage children to interact directly with the book itself–flaps that can be lifted to reveal pictures, levers that can be pulled to animate images, and so forth.

Graduate student Cynthia Chiong and I reasoned that these manipulative features might distract children from information presented in the book. Accordingly, we recently used different types of books to teach letters to 30-month-old children. One was a simple, old-fashioned alphabet book, with each letter clearly printed in simple black type accompanied by an appropriate picture–the traditional "A is for apple, B is for boy" type of book. Another book had a variety of manipulative features. The children who had been taught with the plain book subsequently recognized more letters than did those taught with the more complicated book. Presumably, the children could more readily focus their attention with the plain 2-D book, whereas with the other one their attention was drawn to the 3-D activities. Less may be more when it comes to educational books for young children.

From our Believe It Or Don’t Files, we bring you news of a cow who gave birth to quadruplets.

"It wasn’t that one of his cows had delivered twins that gave Paul Soucie pause when he checked his pasture. Eleven sets of twins had already been delivered this year on the farmstead near Deweese that Soucie runs with his wife, Janet. But what raised his curiosity on the morning of July 12 was that this particular cow still appeared pregnant.

"’I said, "She sure looks full for having already had twins. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has another calf,"’ Soucie said.

"He was right.

"The cow did indeed deliver another calf. Then another one.

"When the Soucies checked their pasture on July 13, they discovered that the cow had given birth to four offspring without human assistance."

GET THE STORY.

That was the conclusion of a Very Important Scientific Study conducted recently:

"Now, there’s a scientific theory explaining, at least in part, why cats have such snobby eating habits: genetics.

"Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and their collaborators said Sunday they found a dysfunctional feline gene that probably prevents cats from tasting sweets, a sensation nearly every other mammal on the planet experiences to varying degrees.

"Researchers took saliva and blood samples from six cats, including a tiger and a cheetah and found each had a useless gene that other mammals use to create a ‘sweet receptor’ on their tongues. The gene in question does not produce one of the two vital proteins needed to form the receptors.

"’Because cats can’t taste sweets, they’re cranky,’ joked Joseph Brand, Monell’s associate director and an author of the paper being published Sunday in the inaugural issue of the Public Library of Science’s journal Genetics."

GET THE STORY.

Just what the world needs: Scientific proof that cats are finicky.

One wonders why scientists choose the research topics that they do. While a study like this might be entertaining, of what possible use could it be to the furtherance of scientific inquiry? Merely to be able to say that we know? I hope that there is some use to studies like this and that it is only my completely unscientific mind that barely scraped through required high-school science that cannot fathom it.

It appears that dinosaurs (or some dinosaurs) may have had air sacs in their bones, allowing them to circulate the air they breathed into their bones and then back into their lungs again, giving them an extra-efficient breathing system and allowing them to sustain the hot-blooded metabolism that many scientists now think they had.

Turns out, while dinos may have invented this system of utilizing air, they aren’t the only creatures that are known to use it.

Another, very common kind of critter also uses it . . . birds.

GET THE STORY.

Reuters runs a story out of Cape Canaveral indicating that astronomers have located a planet with three suns:

"The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits the main
star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation
Cygnus ("The Swan")."

Okay, so Tatooine wouldn’t be a gas giant, and it only had the two suns… it’s still cool! For scientists, the finding adds another layer of mystery to the problem of how planets are formed. There is an "artists conception" picture with the story, even though knowledge of the planet is largely theoretical.
Now, if they could only find Magrathea…

GET THE STORY

Reuters runs a story out of Cape Canaveral indicating that astronomers have located a planet with three suns:

"The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits the main

star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation

Cygnus ("The Swan")."

Okay, so Tatooine wouldn’t be a gas giant, and it only had the two suns… it’s still cool! For scientists, the finding adds another layer of mystery to the problem of how planets are formed. There is an "artists conception" picture with the story, even though knowledge of the planet is largely theoretical.
Now, if they could only find Magrathea…

GET THE STORY

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn has written an editorial for the New York Times in which he . . . (get ready . . . brace yourself . . . drumroll) . . . explains Catholic teaching.

The New York Times publishing a piece accurately explaining Catholic doctrine is widely regarded by many bible prophecy experts as one of the seven signs of the apocalypse, but the end may not come just yet.

In the piece Shonborn explains Catholic teaching regarding evolution and notes that one cannot as a Catholic say that evolution means a random, unguided process apart from God’s providential control.

READ THE PIECE.

Now, a bit of commentary:

1. Some secularists (like the NYTNoids themselves) seem to be acting as if this is "big news." It ain’t. Anybody who understands the nature of God would realize instantly that the existence of any process in the universe that exists apart from God’s providence would be an impossibility. Any interpretation of evolution that would advocate such a notion is not compatible with the Catholic faith.
2. This is not to say that God’s design will always be distinguishable from randomness. His design may be so complex that we cannot perceive the order necessary to distinguish it from randomness. As a result, the affirmation that the process of evolution is non-random may or may not be empirically verifiable. In other words, it may remain a matter of faith.
3. That, at least, applies as far as observing the process of micro-evolution as it takes place. When it comes to the macro-evolution that is presumed to have resulted in the life forms we see around us, there are signs of order to which one may appeal in arguing that the processes that produced them were non-random. Naturalists would argue against this interpretation, of course.
4. One should not too quickly dismiss the idea of true randomness being part of creation. If God has given man true free will then he has created a form of rational freedom in the universe. But if he has created rational freedom, he might be able to create non-rational freedom as well. Non-rational freedom would seem to be what we think of as randomness. If he has created such randomness then it does not, and cannot, exist apart from his providence. Nothing can possibly exist apart from the providence of an omnipotent being, but an omnipotent being can create freedom that exists under the umbrella of his providence.
5. Consequently–and I am not arguing in favor of this, simply suggesting that one would have to argue to eliminate the possibility–one should not too quickly dismiss the possibility that God created randomness in the universe and that he allows it to play a role in natural phenomena, subject to his providence. The situation would be analogous to the way in which he allows human freedom to exist while also setting bounds to what man can do and what shape human history will have. In the same way, he might create randomness in the universe and allow it to play a role in evolution, while also setting bound to what evolution can do and what shape natural history will have.

I’d also like to note something that Cardinal Schonborn mentions towards the very end of his article. Of late many cosmologists have been talking up the idea of a multiverse as a way of avoiding the clear evidence of design in this universe. The idea is that since things look so orderly in this universe, there must be other universes out there in which things are more random. That way the apparent order in this universe can be dismissed as simply the product of randomness.

I have no problem with the idea that there might be a multiverse. If God created this universe, he can create others as well. But I have never been impressed with the use of the concept of a multiverse as a way of getting around the order we see in this one. Since we can’t detect any other universes to see what randomness or order they may contain, postulating a bunch of random universes to explain away the order in this one amounts to postulating the existence of evidence that one does not have in order to explain away the evidence one does have. That’s bad reasoning.

What we have is evidence of order on the cosmological level, and one can’t simply wish up evidence one doesn’t have of an ocean of disorder just over the horizon. You have to go with the evidence you’ve got until you get evidence otherwise.

Cardinal Schonborn doesn’t spell this out in the detail I just did, but I was tickled pink to see one of the princes of the Church enough on top of contemporary cosmological speculation to be able to comment on the situation.

Go, Schonborn!

Oh, BTW, Andrew Sullivan tries to link the Cardinal’s piece to . . . (get ready . . . brace yourself . . . drumroll) . . . Sullivan’s own sex life.

It’s always about sex with Andrew.

(CHT: Southern Appeal.)

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn has written an editorial for the New York Times in which he . . . (get ready . . . brace yourself . . . drumroll) . . . explains Catholic teaching.

The New York Times publishing a piece accurately explaining Catholic doctrine is widely regarded by many bible prophecy experts as one of the seven signs of the apocalypse, but the end may not come just yet.

In the piece Shonborn explains Catholic teaching regarding evolution and notes that one cannot as a Catholic say that evolution means a random, unguided process apart from God’s providential control.

READ THE PIECE.

Now, a bit of commentary:

1. Some secularists (like the NYTNoids themselves) seem to be acting as if this is "big news." It ain’t. Anybody who understands the nature of God would realize instantly that the existence of any process in the universe that exists apart from God’s providence would be an impossibility. Any interpretation of evolution that would advocate such a notion is not compatible with the Catholic faith.
2. This is not to say that God’s design will always be distinguishable from randomness. His design may be so complex that we cannot perceive the order necessary to distinguish it from randomness. As a result, the affirmation that the process of evolution is non-random may or may not be empirically verifiable. In other words, it may remain a matter of faith.
3. That, at least, applies as far as observing the process of micro-evolution as it takes place. When it comes to the macro-evolution that is presumed to have resulted in the life forms we see around us, there are signs of order to which one may appeal in arguing that the processes that produced them were non-random. Naturalists would argue against this interpretation, of course.
4. One should not too quickly dismiss the idea of true randomness being part of creation. If God has given man true free will then he has created a form of rational freedom in the universe. But if he has created rational freedom, he might be able to create non-rational freedom as well. Non-rational freedom would seem to be what we think of as randomness. If he has created such randomness then it does not, and cannot, exist apart from his providence. Nothing can possibly exist apart from the providence of an omnipotent being, but an omnipotent being can create freedom that exists under the umbrella of his providence.
5. Consequently–and I am not arguing in favor of this, simply suggesting that one would have to argue to eliminate the possibility–one should not too quickly dismiss the possibility that God created randomness in the universe and that he allows it to play a role in natural phenomena, subject to his providence. The situation would be analogous to the way in which he allows human freedom to exist while also setting bounds to what man can do and what shape human history will have. In the same way, he might create randomness in the universe and allow it to play a role in evolution, while also setting bound to what evolution can do and what shape natural history will have.

I’d also like to note something that Cardinal Schonborn mentions towards the very end of his article. Of late many cosmologists have been talking up the idea of a multiverse as a way of avoiding the clear evidence of design in this universe. The idea is that since things look so orderly in this universe, there must be other universes out there in which things are more random. That way the apparent order in this universe can be dismissed as simply the product of randomness.

I have no problem with the idea that there might be a multiverse. If God created this universe, he can create others as well. But I have never been impressed with the use of the concept of a multiverse as a way of getting around the order we see in this one. Since we can’t detect any other universes to see what randomness or order they may contain, postulating a bunch of random universes to explain away the order in this one amounts to postulating the existence of evidence that one does not have in order to explain away the evidence one does have. That’s bad reasoning.

What we have is evidence of order on the cosmological level, and one can’t simply wish up evidence one doesn’t have of an ocean of disorder just over the horizon. You have to go with the evidence you’ve got until you get evidence otherwise.

Cardinal Schonborn doesn’t spell this out in the detail I just did, but I was tickled pink to see one of the princes of the Church enough on top of contemporary cosmological speculation to be able to comment on the situation.

Go, Schonborn!

Oh, BTW, Andrew Sullivan tries to link the Cardinal’s piece to . . . (get ready . . . brace yourself . . . drumroll) . . . Sullivan’s own sex life.

It’s always about sex with Andrew.

(CHT: Southern Appeal.)

I’ve heard a lot of theories about the development of human beings, including the theory that we can thank Mother Nature for our bodies, as well as Father God for our souls (and bodies, too); but being the totally unscientific person that I am, I had never heard before that modern humans may owe their existence, in part, to a climate change:

"Climate change in Africa gave rise to modern humans.

[…]

"Climate change in Africa prodded mankind’s distant ancestors along their evolutionary path as forests gave way to grasslands, forcing early humans into an open environment where it appears stone tools and long strides first developed.

"But while most past changes in weather patterns were gradual — giving our pre-historic ancestors a chance to adapt — the pace of global warming today could overwhelm modern Africa.

"The United Nations projects that temperatures may rise by 1.4-5.8 Celsius by the year 2100."

GET THE STORY.

Excerpts:

Somewhere in Florida, 25,000 disembodied rat neurons are thinking about flying an F-22.

These neurons are growing on top of a multi-electrode array and form
a living "brain" that’s hooked up to a flight simulator on a desktop
computer. When information on the simulated aircraft’s horizontal and
vertical movements are fed into the brain by stimulating the
electrodes, the neurons fire away in patterns that are then used to
control its "body" — the simulated aircraft.

Currently the brain has learned enough to be able to control the
pitch and roll of the simulated F-22 fighter jet in weather conditions
ranging from blue skies to hurricane-force winds. Initially the
aircraft drifted, because the brain hadn’t figured out how to control
its "body," but over time the neurons learned to stabilize the aircraft
to a straight, level flight.

"Right now the process it’s learning is very simplistic," said
DeMarse. "It’s basically making a decision about whether to move the
stick to the left or to the right or forwards and backwards and it
learns how much to push the stick depending upon how badly the aircraft
is flying."

The bigger goal is to figure out how neurons talk to each other. MRI
scans, for example, show millions of neurons firing together. At that
resolution, it is impossible to see what’s happening between individual
neurons. While scientists can study neural activities from groups of
cells in a dish, they can’t watch them learn and grow as they would
within a living body unless the neurons have some kind of body to
interact with.

By taking these cells and giving them back a "body," the researchers
hope to uncover how the neurons communicate with each other and
eventually translate that knowledge to develop novel computing
architecture.

GET THE STORY FROM WIRED.

MORE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA.

And this just in from UNIVERSE TODAY:

In related news, EarthForce defense contractors announced
project aimed at creating a powerful "shadow" warship using a human
being as its central processing unit.

"We’re very excited about the new shadow ship," said Gen. Wink
Tinkley of EarthForce. "Using a human being as the CPU means a lot more
computing than a simulated rat brain has. The only problem we’ve found
is that telepaths can interfere with the human’s neural connection with
the ship."

EarthForce contractors also announced the creation of an even more
ambitious program which will allow a detachable human as a ship’s CPU.
When perfect, this pilot program will allow humans who pilot such
ships–known as "pilots"–to live normal lives by being extracted from
their ships at the end of missions.