First Blog

Today’s Biology Lesson.   … from the Quantum World. To me this is all brand new.   Nothing like this was taught when I took biology class. A. You know many birds migrate long distances each year.   What is not well understood is how.   But it is generally assumed they use the earth’s magnetic field – somehow.   This is now explained using modern physics, particularly quantum physics.   It is through the process of quantum entanglement , where two distant photons (light particles) are instantly entangled with each other no matter the distance between them.   Already observed only recently in the physics lab, it is now apparently so in the biology lab for a species of Robin, and the way the photons of light entangle depends on the magnetic field. And this is how the bird chooses its flight direction. BTW, a one-eyed robin could not migrate because it couldn’t get direction information. B. You know smells, and you know not a lot of molecules are needed to stimulate a smell. Be

Reasoned by analogy, we present the theory of memes .   The modern theory of memetics (memes) is all about explaining why we behave as we do.   Based on a cultural analog of the biological gene, it has quite a large following among professional researchers – mostly in the social sciences. Let’s look at it more closely.   Warning: Be skeptical, knowing this is currently a big time theory. Yet no evidence and no observations!  For reason by analogy see http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/07/rasoning-by-analogy.html ______________ The theory of memetics , or theory of memes, dating from the recent 1989 book, The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, proposes the rapid increase of social structure is a consequence of a culture or system (memes) of behaviors that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another.   They have been likened to biological genes.   In his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge , which elaborates upon the fundamental role of memes in uni

June 24, 2016 The Constant Conundrum of Science - and Lately for Us A ll Most scientists envision the world where their theories are taught to all children at the appropriate time in their education.   They believe in standardized instruction of their theories.   To most, this is the ultimate affirmation of truth; such theories are carried to the next generation increasing their likelihood of survival in the test of time..  At any rate, this seems to be current thinking among practitioners and researchers in many subjects – that their accepted theory has reached something of an ultimate maturity – that future changes will not be revolutionary but at most mildly evolutionary – that we are within only a few discoveries of the final truth. Remarkably, it is an artifact of our modern era for scientists to believe that we have the final and ultimate theory.   We are there, they believe, with just a few more details to fill in. Indeed, the entire 18 th and 19 th cent