27 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Innovative Computer In SF#106, we chronicled the chess match between IBM's Big Blue computer and human champion G.K . Kasparov. Incidental to the match itself was the fact that Big Blue sometimes made different moves when confronted with identical chessboards! With these denials of cyberdeterminism in mind, consider the following anecdote. About 40 years ago, D. Herschbach witnessed the first test of an early chess-playing program written by the renowned S. Ulam for the MANIAC I computer. "In this test, the MANIAC I computer played both sides of the board. After a rather bizarre game, Black made a move that checkmated White. Only then did Ulam realize that the program did not say what to do when mated; it just required that a move be made to escape check. While Ulam and his colleagues debated what might happen, the computer whirred on for about ten minutes. Finally it punched out White's move (on paper tape, then the mode). The uncanny solution: a spurious pawn appeared and began to march down the board to become a new queen." (Herschbach, Dudley; "Computer Milestones," Discover, 17:12, October 1996) Comment. If vacuum-tube-equipped MANIAC I was so resourceful and innovative, what might a modern supercomputer "think" up? Remember HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey and treat your own computer ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lop-sided evolution We risk supersaturating our readers with the anomalies of evolution, but we simply cannot bypass an article that is introduced as follows: "An analysis of the fossil record reveals some unexpected patterns in the origin of major evolutionary innovations, patterns that presumably reflect the operation of different mechanisms." The most interesting "unexpected pattern" is the gross asymmetry between the diversification of life in the Cambrian explosion (about 440 million years ago) and that following the great endPermian extinction (a little over 200 million years ago). Biological innovation was intense in both instances; both biological explosions burst upon a life-impoverished planet. Many niches were unoccupied. Even so, all existing (and many extinct) phyla arose during the Cambrian explosion and none followed the Permian extinction. ". .. why has this burst of evolutionary invention never again been equaled? Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?" Some evolutionists blame the asymmetry on the different "adaptive space" available in the two periods. "Adaptive space" was almost empty at the beginning of the Cambrian because multicellular organisms had only begun to evolve; whereas after the Permian extinction the surviving species still represented a diverse group with many adaptations. (Just how the amount of "adaptive space" available was communicated to the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biology Heavy Paleontology vs. DNA. The so-called Cambrian Explosion has been the subject of two SF items (SF#60/187 and SF#85/ 187). A paleontological fact of life is that all known body plans (phyla) seem to have evolved suddenly -- within a few million years -- after the onset of the Cambrian period some 545 million years ago. Evolutionists are understandably uncomfortable with such a high rate of evolutionary innovation. Nothing like the Cambrian Explosion appears in the hundreds of millions of years of geological strata that followed. So rapid was speciation during the Cambrian Explosion that doubt is cast upon the accepted mechanisms of evolution: slow, stepwise accumulation of mutations plus natural selection. (Refs. 1 and 2) But G.A . Wray and colleagues seem to have rescued Darwinism. They have analyzed the DNA sequences of seven genes found in living animals. Assuming that these genes mutate at constant rates and working backwards in time, they calculate that animal diversification (i .e ., when chordates diverged from invertebrates) actually began about 1 billion years ago, rather than about 545 million years ago. This expansion of the time frame gives accepted evolutionary processes much more time to innovate and create all those new body plans. The evolutionists are pleased. The paleontologists, however, are in a quandry. They see nothing -- or very little -- in the Precambrian fossil ...
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... 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The kensington stone: a mystery not solved It is safe to say that the great majority of professional archeologists consider the Kensington Stone, with its runic inscription, to be a hoax. E. Wahlgren's 1958 book bears the title: The Kensington Stone: A Mystery Solved. This title reflects the professional attitude, although not the disdain, even contempt, with which academics now view this controversial artifact. Two major challenges to the authenticity of the Kensington Stone are: (1 ) Its use of Arabic number placement: that is, decimal placement, and (2 ) Its use of the symbol for 10. Professional archeologists and epigraphers maintain that genuine runic inscriptions did not use these Arabic innovations. In the present article, R. Nielsen, University of Denmark, demonstrates with actual, well-established runic inscriptions that the above criticisms are without foundation. Such notation and convention were employed. In fact, the use of Arabic innovations actually supports the authenticity of the Kensington Stone. (Nielsen, Richard; "The Arabic Numbering System on the Kensington Rune Stone," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 15:47, 1986.) Reference. For more on the controversy surrounding the Kensington Stone, see our handbook Ancient Man. Details at: here . From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... more sophisticated than those found in fish. When the platypus goes foraging underwater, a furry groove closes, covering its eyes and ears, and the nostrils on the bill are sealed shut. It becomes a high-tech predator -- despite all those snide remarks about its primitive nature. The poison spurs on the back legs of the male platypus are nothing to fool around with. They can cause humans severe pain and weeks of paralysis. And a dog can lose its life when a platypus clamps its legs around its muzzle and drives in its spurs. But, ask evolutionists, how did this poison apparatus get on the hind legs? The supposed ancestors of the platypus, the reptiles, modified their salivary glands for venom delivery. How did the platypusses break from this evolutionary mold and innovate? It's not consistent with the text! The fossil record reveals that a platypus-like creature lived long before the Age of Mammals. These early platypusses had teeth in the adult phase, whereas their modern relatives replace their baby teeth with horny plates -- another innovation. Therefore, far from being a hodgepodge of parts left over from bird and reptile evolution, the platypus has actually pioneered several zoological features. Very curious is the fact that the platypus is in many ways like the beaver -- a very, very distant relative both in distance and position on the Tree of Life. Both platypus and beaver are furry, aquatic creatures with webbed feet and a large, flat tail. We have saved the strangest part for the end! Platypusses, being Monotremes (one ...
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... No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biology's big bang Representatives of three body plans (phyla): jellyfish (coelenterata); aphid (arthropoda); eohippis (chordata); The title refers to the so-called "Cambrian explosion," that period that began some 570 million years ago, during which all known animal phyla that readily fossilize seem to have originated. The biological phyla are defined by characteristic body plans. Humans, for example, are among the Chordata . Some other phyla are the Arthropoda (insects, crustaceans), the Mollusca (clams, squids), the Nemotada (roundworms), etc. All of these phyla trace their ancestries back to that biologically innovative period termed the Cambrian explosion. Even at the taxonomic level just below the phylum, the class (i .e ., the vertebrates), most biological invention seems to stem from the Cambrian. J.S . Levinton, in a long article in the November 1992 Scientific American, explores the enigma of the Cambrian explosion. Did some unknown evolutionary stimuli prevail 570 million years ago that made the Cambrian different from all periods that followed? Or, has something damped evolutionary creativity since then? Levinton holds that biological innovation has continued unabated at the species level since the Cambrian explosion, but that new body plans; that is, new phyla; have not evolved for hundreds of millions of years. Therefore, something special and very mysterious -- some highly creative "force" - ...
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... puzzling Cambrian Explosion. (Kirschvink, Joseph L., et al; "Evidence for a Large-Scale Reorganization of Early Cambrian Continental Masses by Inertial Interchange True Polar Wander," Science, 277:541, 1997. Also: Sawyer, Kathy; "Global Shift May Have Sped Evolution," Washington Post, July 25, 1997.) Comment. O.K ., but those much more recent frozen mammoths are still hard to explain. If a chunk of seafloor can founder once, the same thing might have happened twice -- say, just a few thousand years ago. But why should large chunks of seafloor sink so suddenly? Neither reference touches on this! K. Wise has pointed out that actually the Cambrian Explosion did not see the greatest increase in biological innovation. The earlier Archaean Explosion produced 17 new phyla of bacteria employing an extraordinary range of different metabolisms. Although some 38 new phyla did emerge from the Cambrian Explosion, they utilized only one type of metabolism. (Wise, Kurt P., "The Archaean Explosion," CEN Technical Journal, 10:315, 1996.) Comment. What triggered the more innovative Archaean Explosion? Reference. Our Catalog Inner Earth contains a long section entitled "Problems in Measuring and Interpreting Paleomagnetism." This book is described here . This 90 pole shift was synchronous with the Cambrian Explosion of new life forms. Of course, North America really looked quite different then. See Astonomy for a Martian pole shift. From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R ...
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... Mammal Hairlessness BMA15 The Greening of Sloths BMA16 Polar-Bear Hairs as Light Pipes BMA17 Sudden Blanching of Mammal Hair BMA18 Mammalian Callosities BMA19 Skin Masks BMA20 Extensive Scarification of the Skin BMA21 Microwave Emission from Mammals BMA22 Bat Faces: Remarkably Varied and Bizarre BMA23 Nictitating Membranes in Mammals BMA24 Eye Oddities among the Mammals BMA25 The Inheritance of Eye Injuries BMA26 Ear, Mouth, and Nose Valves in Mammals BMA27 Displaced Nostrils BMA28 Unexpected Functions of Noses and Nostrils BMA29 Nasal Features with Unknown Functions BMA30 Curious Teeth and Dentitions BMA31 Marching Teeth BMA32 Microbats and Megabats Have Strikingly Different Dentitions BMA33 "Unperfection" in Strap-Toothed Whales BMA34 Questionable Utility of Mammalian Tusks BMA35 Toothlessness in Mammals BMA36 Questionable Utility of Some Horns and Antlers BMA37 Horns Correlated with Toes and Stomachs BMA38 Horn and Antler Curiosities BMA39 Remarkable, Usually Paralleled, Innovations in Mammalian Extremities BMA40 Parallelisms in Mammalian Extremities BMA41 The Existence of Functional Wings on Mammals BMA42 Atavism in Mammalian Extremities BMA43 Parallelisms and Lack Thereof in Prehensile Tails BMA44 Break-Off Tails BMA45 Propulsive Tails BMA46 Mammalian Dorsal Fins BMA47 The Remarkably Long Neck of the Giraffe BMA48 Curious Affinities in the Arrangements of Genitals BMA49 Unusual Pouches on Mammals BMA50 Spurs on Mammals BMA51 Odor Convergence BMA52 Whole-Body Vibrations of Mammals Fetal Elephants Have Aquatic Features Seal Whiskers Detect Water Movements Whale Beaks Are Sound Pipes Koalas Have Human-Like Fingerprints Some Bats Have Adhesive Thumbs BMB BEHAVIOR BMB1 The Adaptedness of Marsupials BMB2 Mammals Resist Conditioning by Behaviorists BMB3 Mammal Activity Correlated with the Moon BMB4 Anomalous Altruism: Hard to Find BMB5 Mammal Intelligence: Anecdotal Evidence BMB6 Evolutionary Overshoot in Mammalian Intelligence BMB7 Progressive Learning Improvement in Successive Generations of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology More evidence of precolumbian contacts from asia Deflating a paradigm: brazil's pedra furada Astronomy Life forms in meteorites? Sunspots and planetary alignments Biology Those selfish genes may also be intelligent! Lake victoria's cichlid fishes: can random mutations explain them? Hair rarity The glow below Geology Earthquakes and mima mounds The motor of the world* Geophysics Heard above cayuga's waters A BLUE FLASH Unclassified An innovative computer Are we reall robots? Nominative determinism ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blondes In Ancient China Authorities on ancient Chinese civilization have usually considered it to have been completely isolated from European influences for millennia -- a homegrown culture characterized by unique cultural and technological innovations. This classical picture of ancient China will have to be modified after the recent unearthing of mummified Caucasians up to 4,000 years old in China's northwestern province of Xinjiang. These dried corpses have the long noses, deep-set eyes, and long skulls typical of Caucasians. Some even have blonde hair! Some 113 such corpses have already been excavated at Qizilchoqa, one of four sites discovered so far. It is clear that we are dealing with permanent settlements and not merely a few lost Europeans. "Besides the riddle of their identity, there is also the question of what these fair-haired people were doing in a remote desert oasis. Probably never wealthy enough to own chariots, they nevertheless had wagons and well-tailored clothes. Were they mere goat and sheep farmers? Or did they profit from or even control prehistoric trade along the route that later became the Silk Road? If so, they probably helped spread the first wheels and certain metal-working skills into China." V. Mair, a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, has been spearheading the research on these mummies for the U.S . He asserts that, contrary to the general belief, there was a substantial two- ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are parasites really the masters?All animals harbor parasites; and some parasites even have their own parasites. The usual effect of a parasite upon its host is debilitation, often to the point of death. But parasites have to reproduce, and some settle for the modification of their hosts in ways that improve their chances. Parasites can change the size, color, and even the behavior of their host. The object is usually to encourage a specific predator to eat the host so the parasite can continue its life cycle. A classic example is the lan-cet fluke which infests ants and then sheep. The problem is that sheep don't normally eat ants, giving the flukes a chance to switch vehicles. So, the innovative flukes somehow force the ants to crawl to the tops of plants and lock themselves there with their jaws. The next hungry sheep that comes along has his meal seasoned with ants. The bulk of the present article deals with thorny-headed worms, which are not as endearing as the lancet flukes. These parasites are merely bags of reproductive organs attached to a thorny probiscus, by which they attach themselves to the intestinal walls of vertebrates. Living in a sea of processed nutrients, the worms don't even have a digestive tract. Part of the life cycle of this parasite is spent in arthropods (insects, crustaceans). As with the lancet fluke, the thorny-headed worm's big challenge is getting the arthropod eaten by a vertebrate. In most instances, it ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Basalt Synthesis Invented Over 3,000 Years Ago!Basalt is a blackish volcanic rock that is hard and durable. In nature it sometimes occurs in long prisms of hexagonal cross section. In fact, ancient Micronesians quarried multiton basalt prisms to build their fantastic megalithic complex of 92 artificial islets at Nan Madol. (SF#45) The inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia had no basalt quarries at hand. Indeed, building stone of any kind was exceedingly scarce. What the Mesopotamians of the second century B.C . did have in abundance was alluvial silt. From this unpromising material they were able to make their pottery, writing tablets, and art objects. However, for grinding grain and engineering structures they needed something harder and stronger. Their innovative solution was: artificial basalt made from silt. They simply melted the silt and let it cool slowly. Sounds simple, but three remarkable intellectual and technical advances were required: The Mesopotamians first had to recognize that silt could be melted. This could not have been obvious in 1000 BC. Next, they had to develop hightemperature (1 ,200 C) smelters that were much larger than those they used for metallurgical purposes. Finally, they had to discover that slow cooling was needed for the growth of large crystals in the cooling melt. (Of course, they had no microscopes to see the crystals. So, it had to have been something learned from experience.) That the Mesopotamians were able to synthesize basalt can be seen at Mashkanshapir about 80 kilometers south of Baghdad. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Something Rotten At The Core Of Science H.F . Horrobin is a long-time critic of the anonymous peer-review system used in the scientific community. Most anomalists will readily subscribe to his complaint: The core system by which the scientific community allots prestige (in terms of oral presentations at major meetings and publication in major journals) and funding is a non-validated charade whose processes generate results little better than does chance. Given the fact that most reviewers are likely to be mainstream and broadly supportive of the existing organization of the scientific enterprise, it would not be surprising if the likelihood of support for truly innovative research was considerably less than that provided by chance. (Horrobin, David F.; "Something Rotten at the Core of Science," Meta Research Bulletin, 10:17, June 15, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... riddled with tiny tunnels. containing highly concentrated minerals." The channelled nature of this bone make it very brittle, making it unlikely that it is used as a ram in mating bouts. Zioupos and Currey propose that this uniquely structured bone is really an acoustical pipe for the beaked whales' sonar signals. (Barnett, Adrian; "Do Whales Talk through Brittle Beaks?" New Scientist, p. 20, May 10, 1997.) Comment. Acoustical pipes were also invented by close relatives of the beaked whales, the dolphins. With the dolphins, it is the lower jaw that has been converted into a "sound pipe" for receiving sonar echoes. Dugongs, too, possess squamosal bones filled with oil that are probably also connected with sound detection. Evolution has been highly innovative -- three times, in different ways -- in designing acoustical pipes in marine mammals! This is very impressive for a method that begins with a random process. More details in BMO7-X1 in Mammals II . This strap-toothed whale is one of the beaker whales. The teeth of this male prevent it from opening its mouth more than a couple of inches. Blaineville's beaked whale has two large, leaf-like teeth projecting upwards and forwards. These grotesque teeth are often covered with barnacles! From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ! Gifted mathematicians with so-called photographic memories cannot perform such mental feats using known methods for identifying primes. What do the calculating prodigies know that the rest of us do not? Better algorithms; that is, calculating methods? Margolis expands on this: "All this suggests some relatively simple, subconscious algorithms which have not, as yet, been explicitly formulated. Research in this direction might well result in new mathematical insights. "It need not be surprising that mathematical insight is more fundamental than language. Even a primitive animal brain is 'wired" to perform exceedingly complex computations essential for survival in an unpredictable environment. The latest 'smart' weapons are rudimentary compared with a humble gnat. Mathematics could be a by-product of these functions. Language is a comparatively recent evolutionary innovation and it is quite possible that conscious manipulation of abstract symbols has not caught up with an innate ability to perceive quantitative relationships." (Margolis, Joel; "What Gnats Know," New Scientist, p. 58, January 30, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Prisoners Of The Boundary Layer Wings were an inspired evolutionary development. They permit the geographical dispersal of many species, especially insects. But nature, ever-innovative, has other aeronautical techniques up her sleeve. Consider the tiniest insects that do not possess wings. It is difficult for large animals like ourselves to realize that these tiny creatures are actually prisoners of the so-called "boundary layer" of air hugging all surfaces. The thin boundary layer is stagnant very close to the surface. Any tiny in-sect wishing to take advantage of wind-dispersal to propagate the species farther afield must somehow breach this layer. Some of the scale insects have in their instar phases developed the trick of rearing up on their hind legs, penetrating the boundary layer, and presenting a high-drag surface to the wind. (Many climb along plant surfaces inside the boundary layer to exposed areas before exhibiting this behavior.) The wind plucks them off the plant and carries them off to new territories. The authors think this may be convergent evolutionary strategy for many minute insects. (Washburn, Jan O., and Washburn, Libe; "Active Aerial Dispersal of Minute Wingless Arthropods.....," Science, 223:1088, 1984.) Comment. The fact that these insects are shaped like airfoils (i .e ., aircraft wings) is also interesting. Scale insects (first instar phase). ...
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... some special weapons and behaviors. Some cuckoo chicks evict host eggs or chicks by squirming under them and positioning them in a specially configured hollow on their backs. Then, pushing upward and outward to the rim of the nest, they dump their cargo over the edge. Other brood parasites are more direct and bloodthirsty. "Nestling African honeyguides have bill hooks to stab and kill their nestmates and the brood parasitic American striped cuckoos have independently evolved hooks and pincers to kill." (Payne, Robert B.; "Brood Parasitism in Birds: Strangers in the Nest," BioScience, 48:377, 1998.) Comment. The hollow in the cuckoo's back and the deadly hook on the honeyguide bill disappear once their grisly work is done. Both strategies require bizarre, coordinated innovations in both weapons and behavior. These could, in principle at least, be the work of random mutation and natural selection -- but were they? Is there something we are missing in our theories? Euroasian cuckoo chicks maneuver under host eggs and chicks and dump them over the edge of the nest. Their backs have a neatly designed depression that just fits their potential competitor. (From: Biological Anomalies: Birds) From Science Frontiers #119, SEP-OCT 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the day. The MIT maze-running rats were hooked up to equipment that recorded the neuron-firing patterns in the rats' hippocampus where memories are processed. The patterns were the same when the rats were dreaming and when running the maze during waking hours. From the patterns, it was even possible to tell exactly where a rat dreamed it was in the mazes. Whether the rats worked out better maze solutions in their dreams and thereby made their dreaming worthwhile could not be determined from the article. Simple memory-review does not seem to have much survival value. (Anonymous; "Lab Rats Found to Dream of Mazes, Researchers Say," Baltimore Sun, January 25, 2001.) Humans conceptualize and create while dreaming. A few anecdotes suggest that human dreaming may be innovative. The following three oft-told tales are truthfully no more convincing to a scientist than many UFO anecdotes. When carbon atoms danced through the dreaming brain of A. Kekule, they led the waking Kekule to conceive the structure of the benzene molecule. I. Lowe awoke from a dream one night, jotted down a few notes, and fell back to sleep. On waking, he could not decipher his scrawl. Happily, the next night the dream recurred. Lowe raced to his lab, performed the experiment outlined in his dream, and thereby developed a new theory of brain activity. In 1869, D. Mendeleyev was puzzling over the disparate properties of the 63 elements then known. Was there any pattern? One night he fell asleep and in a dream the elements fell ...
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... (Monte Verde, Chile); in Australia, all dates exceeding 24,000 years are found along the southern coast.* The "artifact gaps" are therefore clearly established! R.G . Bednarik, in a recent paper in Antiquity, offers a related observation: "It is generally agreed that both regions have been settled from the north, yet no trace has been found of the first settlers in either North America or northern Australia. In northern Australia one finds groundedge axes at up to 23,000 b.p ., which have no counterparts in the probable catchment area of the first colonizers, Indonesia; while in North America the earlist human settlers used elaborate projectile points, which have no counterparts in the final Pleistocene of eastern Siberia. When and where did such innovations then evolve?" Bodnarik's aolution to this double dilemma assumes that the first colonizers in both cases did indeed come from the north-- -some 40,000 years ago in both Australia and North America - but that their invasion paths were confined to the low coastal areas. Then, as the Pleistocene ended and the ice sheets melted, the sea level rose to obliterate the signs of earliest occupation. Therefore, if archeological digs could be conducted under a few hundred feet of water along the continental shelves, the artifact gap could be filled! (Bodnarik, Robert G.; "On the Pleistocene Settlement of South America," Antiquity, 63:101, 1989.) Comments. Dredges have brought up elephant teeth from the continental shelf of earthern North Ameriva, ...
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... would, therefore, seem to be a bad evolutionary gambit. But, C. Koch and F. Crick may have an answer. They speculate that: It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible. (Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis; "The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.) Questions. Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps that "dreamwork" from which solutions to problems appear fully formed upon wakening? The quotation from the Nature article presumes that consciousness does have survival value, else it would not have evolved. What sort of highly innovative genetic changes would lead to such a remarkable brain function? Did consciousness evolve in small Darwinian steps or in some grand, lucky mutation? Did any nonhuman animals progress beyond their inheritance of zombie agents? From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... . The larger cup is oriented due south. The disk is set in the stone pavement of a small terrace that is slightly elevated above the level of the Central Court. This strange monolith, which dates circa 1,900-1 ,750 BC, has been a puzzle to scholars since its discovery in 1926 by French excavators. C.F . Herberger's thesis is that the disk is a lunisolar clock. The 33 small cups provide a convenient and symmetrical division of the 99 lunations of the 8-year cycle. By moving markers, one could have a fairly accurate lunisolar clock. The 34th. cup, by virtue of its larger size, would announce the need for an intercalcated month. This sort of clock, even though arrived at empirically, represents a remarkable innovation for a period almost 4,000 years ago. (Herberger, Charles F.; "The Mallia Table: Kernos or Clock?" Archaeoastronomy, 6:114, 1983.) Diagram of the Mallia disk, with intercalation cups in black. Diameter: about 3 ft. From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Can you guess where this quotation comes from?THE GRADUALIST'S DILEMMA "The basic article of faith of a gradualist approach is that major morphological innovations can be produced without some sort of saltation. But the dilemma of the New Synthesis is that no one has satisfactorily demonstrated a at the population genetic level by which innumerable very small phenotypic changes could accumulate rapidly to produce large changes: a process for the origin of the magnificently improbable from the ineffably trivial. This leads to skepticism about the microevolutionary approach. Perhaps, as Waddington put it: 'the real guts of evolution -- which is, how do you come to have horses and tigers, and things -- is outside the mathematical theory.'" Did you guess a creationist publication? Sorry! (Thomson, Keith Stewart; "Macroevolution: The Morphological Problem," American Zoologist, 32:106, 1992.) (And just the other day, we read that evolution was a proven fact!) From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... respond with a skewed train of 1s and 0s -- even when the group in unaware of its presence. Rowe reports that eleven group experiments have been carried out in which FGE seemed to be present according to participants. During these periods of group resonance, often hours long, the random number generator produced results that were two, sometime three standard deviations from the mean. Rowe concluded that FGE is a real and robust phenomenon that can be measured. It is "an extra sense above the five common senses." (Rowe, William D.; "Physical Measurement of Episodes of Focused Group Energy," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 12:569, 1998.) *Keifer, Charles F., and Senge, Peter M.; "Metonic Organizations: Experiments in Organizational Innovation," in Visionary Leadership , Framingham, 1982. As quoted in the above reference. Comments. If it is real, the implications of FGE are enormous. Any physical measurement or computer calculation can be skewed by FGE, perhaps not intentionally! Understandably, mainstream scientists cannot accept FGE or psychokinesis, for they undermine the objective measurements that science depends upon. We venture that FGE might also transpires at the level of the individual. We all have days when all goes well and the entire world seems in tune. Further, FGE could easily include animals, as with a horse and its rider in a "resonating" rodeo performance. From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... part of the electromagnetic spectrum that other deepsea fish could not perceive. It would be as if this species had radar but the others did not! Well, three genera of dragon fish do have organs (photophores) that emit far-red light, and their eyes are correspondingly red-shifted by new visual pigments. Thus, these dragon fish can communicate with each other without being detected by other species. When hunting, they can prowl the depths with lights on, illuminating prey surreptitiously. Lab tests indicate that these dragon fish can detect a meal much father away than possible with their lateralline sense. (Partridge, Julian C., and Douglas, Ron H.; "FarRed Sensitivity of Dragon Fish," Nature, 375:21, 1995) Comment. Note that the innovative spectral shift had to occur synchronously in both eyes and bioluminescent organs to be useful; i.e ., have survival value. From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... somewhat differently. Consider that in the 3 minutes allotted for each move, Deep Blue could evaluate 20 billion moves. This means that it could examine every possible move and countermove for twelve sequences ahead and, in addition, selected lines of attack for 30 sequences. Kasparov was obviously doing no such computation. Yet, he won two, drew two, and lost only one game. IBM's A.J . Hoane, Jr., remarked that chess geniuses like Kasparov "are doing some mysterious computation we can't figure out." Hoane's use of the words "mysterious computation" tells us that he is a reductionist. The implication is that everything mental can be reduced to manipulating those 1s and 0s. In reality, Kasparov's brain may have been innovating, working out new strategies, discerning Big Blue's weaknesses. These "higherlevel" functions are needed when the problem (chess) is too complex for a computer to evaluate all possible moves. (A computer can always win or draw at checkers -- a simpler game.) Of course, we do not know how "higher-level" functions are "mechanized" -- perhaps they are not, and there is "something else" going on in the human brain. Another interesting fact, incidental to the Kasparov match, is that Big Blue. Blue, when faced with identical chess boards, will sometimes make different moves! Maybe even Big Blue's behavior is not always reducible to 1s and 0s. (Horgan, John; "Plotting the Next ...
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... looks pretty much the same as today's universe, the implication is that mass, the source of gravitational sculpting, is scarce. But this is at odds with the cosmic expansion rate which implies a much higher density of matter. (Appenzeller, Tim; "Ancient Galaxy Walls Go up; Will Theories Tumble Down?" Science, 276:36, 1997.) Comment. The existence of galaxy walls, like so many astronomical constructs, depends upon the assumption that the red shifts of galaxies are proportional to their recessional velocities and, additionally, their distances and ages. So much rides on this one assumption. The same situation prevails in biology, where everything is founded on the assumption that random mutations and natural selection can together generate any degree of complexity, sophistication, and innovation seen in nature. The history of science tells us that many paradigms have fallen because they depended upon faulty assumptions. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Meanders MSH7 Stone Circles: General Characteristics MSH8 Recumbent Stone Circles MSH9 The Megalithic Yard; A Megalithic Standard of Length? MSH10 Geometrical Sophistication of Stone Circles MSH11 Occult Influences on the Design of Stonehenge MSH12 Physical Phenomena Associated with Stone Circles MSH13 Psychical Phenomena Concentration at Stone Circles MSH14 Integration of Stone Circles and the Environment MSH15 Large-Scale Organization of Stone Circles MSH16 Stone Circles Outside Britain and Ireland MSH17 Stone Circles as Eclipse Predictors MSH18 Stonehenge's Remarkable Rectangle MSH19 Did the French Build Stonehenge? MSH20 Geometrical and Geographical Anomalies of Stone Rectangles MSH21 Calendar Sites MSH22 Medicine Wheels: An Old World Connection? MSH23 Woodhenges MSI ANCIENT FURNACES, SMELTERS, HEARTHS MSI1 Ohio's Furnace-like Structures MSI2 Giant Neolithic Cooking Hearths in Britain and Ireland MSI3 Evidence for Anomalously Early Iron-Smelting in Subsaharan Africa MSI4 Innovative Iron-Smelting Technology in Africa MSK ANCIENT COMPLEXES Nan Madol Zimbabwe Mystery Hill Regional Siting MSM SHELL MOUNDS, CAIRNS, EARTHEN MOUNDS MSM1 Giant Shell Mounds MSM2 The Shell Keys of Florida MSM3 Curious Cairns and Rock Piles MSM4 Cairn Lines MSM5 Notable Earthen Mounds: A Survey MSM6 Lines and Arrays of Earthen Mounds MSM7 Enigmatic Mound Complexes MSO CARVED ROCKS, SPHERES, COLUMNS MSO1 Boulders with Triangular Holes MSO2 Large, Precisely-Crafted Stone Spheres MSO3 Carved Columns in an Ocean Trench MSO4 Curious Arrays and Groupings of Stone or Wooden Columns MSO5 The Latte Stones of the Marianas MSO6 The Ancient Iron Pillar at Delhi MSO7 The Cement-Like Cylinders of New Caledonia MSO8 Unusual Gnomons MSO9 Stone Chairs MSO10 Curious Distribution of Large Stone Jars MSO11 Enigmatic Configured Rocks MSO12 The Haamonga Stones; A Trilithon on Tonga MSO13 Tiahuanaco ...
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