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The post Legislative Alchemy: “Naturopathic Doctor” licensing is bad medicine for Florida first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Drones aren't yet licensed to carry passengers, but some may already be airlifting wounded personnel off the battlefield and could be employed for smuggling people

Researchers in Munich have used the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to capture five images of one and the same supernova in a single picture. The gravity of two foreground galaxies has deflected the light from a supernova far in the background along different paths to Earth.

The question of whether or not we have free will has been pondered by philosophers, psychologists, theologians, neuroscientists, and by many of us in our own conversations and thoughts. Nearly two thousand years ago, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus declared, “You may fetter my leg; but not Zeus himself can get the better of my free will.”1 But Epictetus also believed in a deterministic world where each event is determined by preceding causes. How can this apparent contradiction be resolved?

In the 1940s, Bertrand Russel saw no reason that human volitions would not also be determined in the same way that inanimate processes are determined. Further, he saw the determined nature of volitions as incompatible with a person being the true source of his own actions. Russell supposed that an evil scientist could, by use of psychoactive drugs, manipulate a person to perform certain actions. And this hypothetical manipulation did not seem to Russell so different from normal life, where people are manipulated to do what they do by natural causes outside their own control.2

Fifty years after Russell published his critique of the Stoic notion of free will, several other philosophers made the same argument.3, 4, 5 Today, the continued quandary contributes to a sustained lack of consensus on free will. According to surveys, most people—including most philosophers—believe in some form of free will, most under the rubric of compatibilism.6, 7 Novelist and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer summed up the dilemma, “We must believe in free will, we have no choice.” 

However, the debate still rages in the world of academic philosophy, in a broader audience reached by podcasts and popular books written by scientists, and among readers of Skeptic. Here I will try to convince you that free will is real and not an illusion. I’ll argue that far from being exemplars of rationality and skepticism, the main arguments against free will make unjustifiable logical leaps and are naïve in the light of cutting-edge scientific findings. 

Throughout the philosophical literature,8 resolving the question of whether or not we have free will has often revolved around two criteria for free will: 

1. We must be the true sources of our own actions. 
2. We must have the ability to do otherwise. 

I argue that humans meet both criteria through two concepts: scale and undecidability. 

Scale and the True Sources of Our Actions 

In an article in The Journal of Mind and Behavior,9 I argued that many of our actions are caused by our wills; that is, by our conscious desires and intentions. This is not disputed by most (what I’ll term) free will deniers. They more often dispute that our wills are free, not that we have wills and that our actions often follow from our wills. Sam Harris, one such determinist with a large general audience, has said that the subjectively felt intention to act is the proximate cause of acting. Harris makes the same basic claim as renowned scientist Francis Crick,10 philosophers such as Bertrand Russell11 and Derk Pereboom,12 and many others. They claim that in addition to the proximate cause (the will), our actions have ultimate causes lurking behind them that are the relevant causes to consider when judging whether or not our wills are free. The ultimate causes beyond and beneath the surface of our wills, they argue, make them unfree. What are these ultimate causes? Harris identifies genetics and environmental influences as “the only things that contrive to produce” his particular will.13 Molecules beyond DNA have also been offered as ultimate causes of our decisions. Biologist Jerry Coyne argued that, “Our brains are made of molecules; those molecules must obey the laws of physics; our decisions derive from brain activity.”14 Robert Sapolsky, a prominent neuroendocrinologist, is publishing a book this year, detailing many such mechanisms that, it is claimed, obviate the role of willed choices.15

My mind does not exist as a molecule nor as a historical epoch, nor as a socioeconomic class. Yet my mind does exist.

What’s wrong with this line of reasoning? Consider the following question as an analogy: Are apples red? Suppose we all agree that apples have color. The question is whether the color is red or non-red. To answer the question, determinists would look beyond the proximate color of the apple. Realizing that the apple is nothing but atoms, they would examine many of the carbon atoms on the surface of the apple. They find that not a single carbon atom is red. Since none of the atoms are red, and the apple is nothing but atoms, they would conclude that the apple can’t be red. The error is that though they agree the apple has a color, they try to examine the nature of the color at a scale (a carbon atom is smaller than the wavelength of red light) where color is incoherent. The fact that they found no redness at that scale shouldn’t lead them to conclude anything about the color of the apple. 

Likewise, the fact that determinists find no personal authorship or freedom in the actions of molecules shouldn’t lead them to conclude anything about the nature of the will. We agree that we have wills, that we have subjectively experienced intentions that influence our actions. The question is whether our will is free or unfree. To look at molecules for the answer is a scale mistake. DNA and neurotransmitters observed at the molecular scale exhibit no will whatsoever. With that knowledge, is it compelling that they exhibit no free will? No. That should tell us that determinists are looking at the wrong scale to find answers about the will, just as looking for answers about redness at a scale where color is not meaningful. 

The right scale for finding answers to the question of apple redness is the apple scale, not the atom scale. The right scale for finding answers to the question of freedom of the will is the agent scale, not the molecule scale. Searching the molecule scale is just one example of this error. There are many other wrong scales where a confused determinist might look for answers about the will. He or she may zoom out temporally into an irrelevant timescale, including the time before the will in question existed. In the above analogy, this would be like conceptualizing the apple as merely a step in a process of agricultural industry. Since agricultural industry is not red, should we conclude that the apple is not red? The question about the will can only find its answers from a scale where the will exists as a will. Expanding the timescale to include the time before the person was born renders the question incoherent. 

If we keep our analysis in the scale where the individual agent exists, not zooming too far in nor too far out in space, time, or level of organization, then the primary and ultimate cause of my actions is me. The will emerges from the complex interactions of many small parts. It’s literally not true to say that it’s caused by any particular small part. It is caused by many small parts, but only when taken together all at once. And that’s the same thing as the whole person. So my thoughts and actions are deterministically caused by me. The molecules of which my brain is made are simply irrelevant to this fact. So I am the true source of my own actions, and there are no other “ultimate” causes. My mind does not exist as a molecule nor as a historical epoch, nor as a socioeconomic class. Yet my mind does exist. René Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” convinces me of this.16 In order to claim that my choices are really caused by a molecule or a historical epoch, one must refer to the dynamics of a scale where I (that is, my mind) cannot be found. Eliminating the mind from the analysis is not a valid way to answer a question about the mind. 

The Ability to Do Otherwise 

There is a temporal asymmetry in the question of whether I could have done otherwise. In the question’s typical form, it is backward-looking. It asks about what could have been in the past, and, at first, it seems like a coherent question. I did one thing yesterday, and we wonder if I could have done something else. But what if we wanted to figure out whether or not I’ll have free will tomorrow? From that temporal angle, the question of the ability to do otherwise stops making sense. In a forward-looking sense, the question becomes manifestly nonsensical. Can I do otherwise in the future? Otherwise? Other than what? Other than the thing I will do? The question stipulates that I will do a certain thing, and simultaneously asks whether or not I can avoid doing that thing. The stipulation contained within the question makes the answer trivial. No, of course I can not do something other than the thing I will do. In order for the question to have any significance in the forward-looking tense, it must be modified. The question can not directly stipulate that I will do a certain thing. The question must ask whether or not I can do something other than what I’m expectedto do, not other than what I will do. 

The will emerges from the complex interactions of many small parts. It’s literally not true to say that it’s caused by any particular small part.

Human choice is temporally asymmetric and must be analyzed as such. This point could be missed without properly situating our analysis at the correct scale. An inappropriate focus on the dynamics of little particles could obscure the truth. The laws of physics that describe or govern the interactions of particles do not specify a direction of time. If we could watch a video of two protons colliding, we would have no way to know whether the video was being played forward or in reverse. This is called time reversal symmetry. This symmetry holds true in a wide variety of particle interactions.17 Time appears asymmetric only at scales where emergent phenomena transpire. Large collections of particles obey the second law of thermodynamics, which is not time reversal invariant. As astrophysicist Matt O’Dowd put it, “Zoom in to individual particle interactions and you see the perfect reversibility of the laws of physics. But zoom out, and time’s arrow emerges.”18 A consideration of scale leads to a recognition of temporal asymmetry in human choice. 

In analyzing the ability to do otherwise, we should consider only a forward-looking ability because choices, by their nature, are forward-looking. We don’t deliberate or make choices about the past. Choices are always about something, and those objects of choice always lie in the future, thus choices are always forward-looking. At the time when a choice is actually made, there is as of yet no “what” as in “Could have done other than what?” I have not already made the choice, so there is no established action to have done otherwise. There can only be expectation of what I will do. If my actions are in principle perfectly predictable, then I do not have the ability to do otherwise in a forward-looking sense. If my choices are in principle not predictable, given total knowledge of the present world, then I do have the ability to do otherwise in a forward-looking sense, which is the only sense that makes any sense. Given the different dynamics found at different scales, the ability to do otherwise needs to be understood as temporally asymmetric; that is, as always forward-looking; as the ability to do something which is in principle not predictable. We do have that ability, and it derives from our self-referential nature. 

Self-Reference and Undecidability 

The fact that I am the relevant cause of my own actions comes with another important implication: I am a causally self-referencing entity. If a molecule were the relevant cause of my action, this would not be true in the same way. The molecule has no capacity for self-reflection, but I do. I can ask myself, “What will I do? What could I do? What should I do? What do I want to do? What would I do if I wanted to do X and should do Y?” Self-referential questions like these affect the choices that I make; and those choices change the self-referential questions that I ask. 

At the relevant scale, self-reference is causally important. I am a system which analyzes its own inputs, character, and potential outputs; generates new outputs based on those analyses; and feeds those new outputs back into itself as inputs which affect the outputs, which affect the system’s character. I am an output of and an input for my own processing. Framing the human self-referential nature in this way brings us to the concept of undecidability. 

A system that exhibits undecidable dynamics cannot be predicted, given complete knowledge of its present state. Computer scientists and mathematicians have proven that this fundamental unpredictability shows up in some algorithmic computations, mathematical systems, and dynamical systems (including physical systems).19 Though an unpredictable dynamical system may evoke the concept of chaos, undecidability is not chaos; it is a different sort of unpredictability. IBM research scientist Charles H. Bennett makes the difference clear: 

For a dynamical system to be chaotic means that it exponentially amplifies ignorance of its initial condition; for it to be undecidable means that essential aspects of its long-term behaviour—such as whether a trajectory ever enters a certain region—though determined, are unpredictable even from total knowledge of the initial condition.20

If a system exhibits undecidability, then it is unpredictable even given total knowledge of all of its constituent parts. Undecidability makes deterministic systems fundamentally unpredictable in principle, not as a result of merely lacking precise measurements. If humans can exhibit undecidability, then we meet the second main criterion for free will: the forward-looking ability to do otherwise. Scientists recently made such an argument feasible by explicating what features of a system give rise to undecidable dynamics. In 2019, Mikhail Prokopenko and his colleagues conducted a comparative formal analysis of recursive mathematical systems, Turing machines, and cellular automata. They come to a clear conclusion: 

As we have shown, the capacity to generate undecidable dynamics is based upon three underlying factors: (1) the program-data duality; (2) the potential to access an infinite computational medium; and (3) the ability to implement negation.21

If humans do have these three properties, then we meet the criteria for undecidable dynamics, which means we can take actions that are fundamentally unpredictable, which means we have the ability to do otherwise in a forward-looking sense, which means we have free will. 

First, consider program-data duality, which in this context is the ability for self-reference. The word “duality” simply refers to the typical distinction between program and data with which we are all familiar. A human at time 1 has a certain overall state of mind, coinciding with a certain overall physical state. The state at time 1 is a program, in that it entails implicit rules about what the system would do, given certain types of data. The streams of perceptions taken in at time 2 are data, which get processed according to the implicit rules. In addition to processing basic sense data, this duality allows for a program (or implicit set of rules encoded in the state of a human) to process other programs as data. For example, a human can process ideas, hypothetical scenarios, mathematical operations, and representations of the self as data (thus self-reference). 

The question about the will can only find its answers from a scale where the will exists as a will. 

The next requirement for undecidability is the potential to access an infinite computational medium. The computational medium is the substrate on which the state of the system is represented. In a computer, the computational medium would be the memory and storage. The set of all possible states of the system is called the state-space. For example, the state space of a computer would be the set of all possible configurations of its memory and storage. If we knew that a certain system had an infinite state-space, we could infer that the system has access to an infinite computational medium. 

It can be informally proven that humans have an infinite state-space. How many different thoughts is it possible for a human to have? That question includes sub-questions, such as how many things is it possible for a human to see? The state of your visual perception is one small part of your overall state. Think of the number 74. Now think of the number 74 with your eyes closed. Those two occasions of thinking of 74 occupied two very different points in your state-space because of the difference in visual perception. 

To roughly estimate how many overall states are possible while thinking of 74, we would need to do something like multiply the number of possible visual perceptions by the number of possible auditory perceptions by the number of possible sensations of heat and cold by the number of possible gradations of feeling sadness or happiness, and so on. Also, you may think of 74 while remembering, for example, the time you thought of 106 or 107. And the next time you think of 74, that will be yet another point in your state-space, since you’ll recall that you’ve thought of 74 before. There may be an infinite number of possible states in which you might think of 74. And there are many conceivable numbers other than 74, and many things to think about other than numbers. 

An obvious objection might be that a human and his brain are physically finite. In what sense can an organ that fits inside a skull be infinite? As a starting point, consider the 100 billion neurons that make up the brain. As a simplification, a neuron can be considered to be “firing” or “not firing.” So a simplified brain has 100 billion binary cells. Such an array of cells could instantiate 2^100,000,000,000 distinct patterns of on-or-off activation. That’s a big number. For comparison, there are estimated to be roughly 10^80 atoms in the observable universe.22 The number of atoms in the universe is an infinitesimally small number compared to the number of activation patterns possible in a simplified brain. And what about a real brain? A real brain is made of neurons which are not simply on or off. Some neurons show gradations in voltage and neurotransmitter release, meaning that they have many possible states between “on” and “off.”23

Undecidability makes deterministic systems fundamentally unpredictable in principle, not as a result of merely lacking precise measurements.

Besides neurons, there are many other variables in the brain that are not captured by the simplified on/off variable. Each neuron can vary in the amount of neurotransmitter in its vesicles ready for release, and the state of the receptors on its soma and dendrites (that is, to what degree they’re blocked by other molecules). There can also be variation in the amount of neurotransmitter that is floating free at any moment in the space between any two neurons. There are minute variables that will likely never be measured yet do, theoretically, make a causal difference. For example, in what spatial direction is each neurotransmitter molecule oriented? A neurotransmitter molecule must fit into a receptor in order to carry on a signal. For the molecule to fit, it must be facing a certain direction relative to the receptor. So the spatial orientation of the molecule before binding must have some nonzero effect on the binding affinity. How many different patterns of analog spatial orientation might trillions of neurotransmitter molecules be capable of? That alone may be infinite. The variable of “firing” or “not firing” does not capture any of these variables. So the actual number of possible overall brain states is some large exponent greater than 2^100,000,000,000 which is a large exponent greater than the number of atoms in the universe. 

Whether the human state-space is technically infinite or merely practically infinite (larger than any other number computed for any purpose in all of science), it will not be exhausted in the meager 100 years of a human lifespan. This means that the self-referential loops of processing do not need to stop at any predetermined iteration or level of abstraction. So for the purpose of analyzing the choices of a human, the state-space and computational medium are functionally infinite. 

The last element required for undecidability is the ability to implement negation. Negation in this context refers to the ability of a logical system to produce an output which is exactly contrary to the processing which led to the output. It is equivalent to the liar paradox, which is exemplified in a statement such as “everything I say is a lie,” or more formally, “this statement is unprovable.” The liar paradox is a self-referential statement, which can not be judged to be true or false without a contradiction. Self-reference is fundamental to this paradox because the statement refers to its own validity. If humans can implement this paradoxical logic into their thinking, then humans meet this requirement for producing undecidability. The fact that humans came up with the liar paradox thousands of years ago is evidence that humans can perform the logical operation of negation. 

Conclusion 

All three factors underlying the capacity to generate undecidable dynamics are present in humans. First, we exhibit program-data duality when we process ideas, hypothetical scenarios, mathematical operations, and representations of ourselves as objects of thought. Next, we have the potential to access an infinite computational medium. This is demonstrated by the fact that we can think of any one of an infinite number of objects of thought, which implies an infinite state-space, which implies an infinite computational medium. Finally, we have the ability to implement negation, demonstrated by the inception of the liar paradox in the minds of humans. If these three elements are sufficient to generate undecidable dynamics, then humans are capable of generating undecidable dynamics, which means we cannot be accurately predicted. And that means we have the ability to do otherwise in the forward-looking sense. 

Figure 1. Relational map of concepts. The truth of each concept supports the truth of the concepts downstream from it. This diagram illustrates how the concepts described throughout this article contribute to the overall reality of free will.

Figure 1 shows the relationships between the concepts discussed in this article. An understanding of the human agent at the scale where conscious humans actually exist leads to recognition of the self as the source of one’s actions, recognition of the relevance of temporal asymmetry to human choice, and recognition of self-reference as causally relevant to human actions. Self-reference, in combination with access to an infinite computational medium and the ability to implement negation results in undecidable dynamics. This entails the ability to do otherwise in the forward-looking sense, which is the only sense that makes any sense when temporal asymmetry is taken into account. The resulting total picture is that we (humans) meet two criteria for real free will: the forward-looking ability to do otherwise and being the source of one’s own actions. 

Viewing human agents as whole humans instead of as molecules makes it clear that humans are the cause of their own actions, and also leads to a focus on the human features such as self-reference, that generate undecidable dynamics. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus was right. Neither Zeus, Bertrand Russell, nor the scientists recapitulating the latter’s argument 77 years later can diminish our free wills.

Satellite imaging is increasingly important to every field from crop monitoring to poverty reduction. So it’s no surprise that there have been more and more satellites launched to try to meet that growing demand. But with more satellites comes more risk for collision - and the debris field that comes after the collision. A new paper in Advanced in Space Research from John Mackintosh and his co-authors at the University of Manchester looks at how we might use mission design to mitigate some of the hazards of increasing the number of satellites even more

Star dust is at the root of everything that exists, and is produced in large quantities around Wolf-Rayet binaries. But there are some puzzling observations of dust grain sizes that require explanations. New research shows why different observations have found different dust grain sizes.

This morning a friend who works in the department office called me and said “there are two ducks in the pond.” I instantly knew that this would be a male/female pair of mallards scoping out the pond as a potential nesting and rearing site. Within one minute I grabbed my camera and my container of adult duck food (I saved it from last year; I have plenty and it’s still good), and ran down to the pond.

Sure enough, there was a pair of mallards at the far (south) end.  Moreover, then swam near me when I whistled, though they didn’t come right up to me. This suggests that these are the mallards knew me, though, based on bill patterns in the hen, I don’t think they are Esther and Mordecai from last year.

Those ducks were named because they arrived on the Jewish holiday of Purim, and, sure enough, that holiday is tomorrow.  These are again Jewish ducks and will have to be named accordingly.

I am so happy. There is no guarantee they’ll stay, but food is thin on the pond, and I am making sure they know it is a place to get a nice meal. After filling their tummies, they retired back to the south end for a rest.

Photos. First, the pair (name suggestions welcome, especially Jewish-themed names—but not Mordecai and Esther):

The hen:

The hen eating (out of focus). They were hungry!

The drake, dripping water from his bill after having eating a food pellet (I give them only the best):

The hen’s bill:

This is Esther from last year. The bill pattern of today’s hen is clearly different, so the hen we have now is not Esther. But there’s no guarantee that this one will breed here (remember, Esther was our first ground-nesting female). Note that today’s duck lacks Esther’s black markings on the top and tip of her bill, and those should have remained over a year.

Stay tuned for 2026 Duck Adventures.

Originally I was going to call this post “The New York Times coddles faith again,” but there is not all that much coddling in this review of Christopher Beha’s new book Why I am not an Atheist. 

What puzzles me is that the review is on the cover of the NYT’s latest Sunday book section. That position is usually reserved for important or notable books, but Timothy Egan’s review doesn’t make the book seem that interesting. Could it be that the cover slot came from the book being about . . . . God? At any rate, given that Beha’s book came out February 17, the fact that its Amazon ranking is only 1,562 (very low for a new book on the benefits of faith), and there are only 8 reviews (all 5-star reviews, of course), is not a sign that this is a barn-burner that will fill the God-shaped lacuna in the public soul.

Beha has previously given an excerpt of his book in the NYer, which I discussed in my recent post  “A New Yorker writer loses faith in atheism.”  I found Beha’s arguments lame, and I summarized the book this way, as well as provided information on the author.  From my post:

Even the title of this New Yorker article is dumb: “faith in atheism” is an oxymoron, for a lack of belief in gods is not a “faith” in any meaningful sense. But of course the New Yorker is uber-progressive, which means it’s soft on religion. And this article, recounting Christopher Beha’s journey from Catholicism to atheism and then back to a watery theism, is a typical NYer article: long on history and intellectual references, but short on substance. In the end I think it can be shortened to simply this:

“Atheism in all its forms is a kind of faith, but it doesn’t ground your life by giving it meaning. This is why I became a theist.”

So far as I can determine, that is all, though the article is tricked out with all kinds of agonized assertions as the author finds he cannot “ground his life” on a lack of belief in God. But whoever said they could?  But it plays well with the progressive New Yorker crowd (same as the NY Times crowd) in being soft on religion and hard on atheism.  The new generation of intellectuals need God, for to them, as to Beha, only a divine being can give meaning to one’s life.

Christopher Beha, a former editor of Harper’s Magazine,  is the author of a new book, Why I am Not an Atheist, with the subtitle Confessions of a Skeptical Believer. The NYer piece is taken from that book

You can read the Sunday NYT review by clicking on the screenshot below, or find it archived for free here.

Here’s the cover highlighting the book (thanks to Greg for sending me a photo of the paper version he gets).  Stuff like this roils my kishkes:

Reviewer Tinothy Egan is somewhat lukewarm about the book, even though he avers that he is a believer and had his own search for faith as well as an inexplicable faith epiphany. The NYT identifies him this way:

Timothy Egan is the author of “A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith,” among other books, and a winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction.

So both author and reviewer, as well as the MSM (including the NYT), are rife these days with either promotions of religious books or softball reviews of them.  And all this manages to center on the search for meaning in these dire times, a search for meaning that always winds up filling the “God-shaped hole” in our being. That is something Egan apparently documents in his own book and is, of course, the subject of Beha’s book.

As I noted when reviewing Beha’s New Yorker piece, he went back and forth from a youthful Catholicism to a materialistic atheism and then found his way back to God again, always tormented by the fact that he saw an angel who spoke to him when he was 15.  As reviewer Egan says:

As someone who also saw something inexplicable (a long-dead saint opening her eyes from a crypt in Italy), I preferred the teenage Beha who was filled with religious wonder. Not to worry. By the end of the book, he returns to the angel with an expanded view. It was both miracle and real. “I know what ‘caused’ these visitations, from a strictly material standpoint, but I also know what they in turn caused — a lifelong journey that I am still on.”

Not to worry! That statement alone speaks volumes. But Egan continues:

In between are several hundred pages that make up that journey, almost all of it through the mostly atheistic philosophers of the Western canon. Unlike a traditional pilgrimage, this book is an odyssey of the mind. Beha debates the old masters: Descartes, Kant, Locke, Mill, Hobbes, Camus, Nietzsche and many, many others, but he starts with a poke at the “New Atheists” Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and the like — all of them now passé, in his view.

This tells you two things: the reviewer is soft on spiritual experiences, since he himself had one (see the link three paragraphs back), and that the author bashes the New Atheism as being “passé”, a cheap shot which doesn’t at all give New Atheism credit for pushing along the rise of the “nones” and making criticism of religion an acceptable thing to discuss.

But Beha is still somewhat critical of the scholastic tenor of the book, so it’s not a totally glowing review:

Beha is not a stone thrower or even much of a picker of fights. He reveres the great minds, to an obsessive degree. He’s the guy you wanted as your college roommate in the pre-A.I. era. Or maybe not. He’s done all the reading and even wrote a memoir about it, “The Whole Five Feet,” recounting the year he consumed all 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics series. Just looking at the list makes most of us tired.

He climbed that mountain, so we don’t have to. But, alas, at times in his new book he gets lost in the clouds. Here’s a sample, discussing Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher: “Kant is here invoking two binaries we’ve already discussed. The first is that between a priori and a posteriori truth; the second is that between analysis and synthesis.”

But Beha is sincere, honest and likable on the page. I found his personal story more engaging than his intellectual one. He started to doubt his faith at 18 when he nearly lost his twin brother to a car accident. He suffered from depression and life-threatening cancer, drank too much and took too many drugs. (He was an atheist for a long time.)

But as for the things I highlighted in my own take on Beha’s NYer article—things like the “faith in science” that we supposedly have, and the “romantic idealism” that is coequal to science in its inability to apprehend universal truths—of these things Egan says nothing. Nor does he point out that many people (I’m one) have found satisfaction without God, though many of us don’t have a God-shaped hole nor are actively looking for meaning.  Instead, Egan’s take is anodyne, for one simply cannot get away with pushing nonbelief in the New York Times. What you can do is bash atheism in general and New Atheism in particular.

Egan:

Ultimately, atheism failed [Beha], as it did some in the French Revolution who briefly converted the Notre-Dame Cathedral into the spiritually barren Temple of Reason. The religion of nonreligion can be like nonalcohol beer: What’s the point?

I have to interject here to note that “nonreligion”—atheism—is not religion, in the same way that not drinking is a form of alcoholism.  The trope that atheists have “faith” is simply ridiculous. What they have is a failure to be convinced of a phenomenon when there is no evidence for it. But I digress. Egan continues his review’s peroration:

Beha is not interested in trying to sway those who’ve given up on God. He simply wants to explain what moved him back to the faith of his fathers, “listening to the whispering voice within our souls.” There’s no Road-to-Damascus conversion. He’s not blinded by the light. It’s more about his often miserable life getting better with the right woman, a Catholic confession, regular attendance at Mass. And that woman — “she was the reason I believed in God” — isn’t even a believer. She’s a lapsed Episcopalian.

If Beha doesn’t necessarily win his argument with Russell, give him credit for following the imperative of all sentient beings — to deeply consider the mystery of ourselves in an unknowable universe.

“I don’t believe I will ever see things clearly; not in this mortal life,” he concludes. “The best we can hope for is to be looking in the right direction, facing the right way.”

The proper response to this conclusion is “meh”.

Estimating a mass for a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) is perhaps the single most important thing to understand about it, after its trajectory. Actually doing so isn’t easy though, as the mass for objects in the tens to hundreds of kilometers in size are too small to have their mass calculated by traditional radio-frequency tracking techniques. A new paper from Justin Atchison of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and his co-authors proposes a method that could find the mass of asteroids even on the smaller end of that range, but will require precise coordination.

Physicists are scrambling to understand why dark energy is weakening. In a surprising twist, we must now reconsider the possibility that our reality contains extra dimensions

Last year, our most detailed map of the universe yet suggested our understanding of dark energy has been wrong for decades. The shock result is reigniting the search for a better cosmic story   

Black holes that turn matter into energy could explain dark energy and answer two other cosmic questions. Now, the challenge is to find them

This is a New Scientist special package about shock results that have upended cosmology. What do they mean for our models of the universe, and what are the alternative explanations?

I put something like this up years ago, but it’s a good way to see, with just a few clicks, what happened to Iran after the “Revolution”. Let’s taken women’s dress, a touchstone of misogyny and theocratic oppression.  Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, it was a pretty free country in that respect, and everyone could dress how they wanted.

To see that, do a Google Image search for “Iranian women, 1970”. I’ve done it for you: click here.  And this is the first images you see (click photo to enlarge):

And the “after” page. Click “Iranian women, 2000” (again, just go here).  This is 21 years after the “Revolution.”  You’ll see this.

I didn’t manipulate the search in any way save put in what’s above, and I’ve used the first four rows of photos for both.

I don’t think I need to comment on the change, which speaks volumes about the oppression of women in that country.  Oh, and why the cry for change is “Women, Life, Freedom.”

As millions turn to ChatGPT and other AI chatbots for therapy-style advice, new research from Brown University raises a serious red flag: even when instructed to act like trained therapists, these systems routinely break core ethical standards of mental health care. In side-by-side evaluations with peer counselors and licensed psychologists, researchers uncovered 15 distinct ethical risks — from mishandling crisis situations and reinforcing harmful beliefs to showing biased responses and offering “deceptive empathy” that mimics care without real understanding.

Putting silicate rocks from mine waste on fields could improve crops and limit global warming, but some researchers question where all that rock is going to come from

This is the last full batch I have, though I’m saving singletons and the like for a melange post. But today is our first post (as I remember) that features carnivorous plants, from reader Jan Malik. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

A few species of carnivorous plants grow in New York and New Jersey, primarily in swamps or bogs where it is difficult for plants to obtain nitrogen and phosphorus. Compounds of both elements are highly soluble in water and are poorly retained in waterlogged, low-pH soil. So far, I have found two species, each using a different strategy to catch its prey.

• Sundew (likely Drosera intermedia).
  “A small plant growing in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. While there are other Drosera species in the Eastern USA, this one has leaves spaced along a short stem rather than a ground-hugging rosette. The plant must receive a rich payoff for the resources spent producing mucus and protease enzymes, as the remains of digested victims were obvious on many leaves. Research suggests that nitrogen from captured invertebrates can account for 30% to 70% of the plant’s total uptake, depending on prey density.”

• The “Expensive” Glisten.
  There must be something in the glistening droplets of mucilage on these tentacles that attracts insects. It looks like a lavish investment, but mucilage is mostly water with a small amount of polysaccharides to provide stickiness. The “expensive” enzymes are only produced after a victim is captured. I wonder if this secretion occurs only in the leaf where the victim is immobilized or systemically throughout the plant. In this shot, it even looks like the plant accidentally produced a web of sticky mucilage strands (on the right), mimicking a spiderweb.

• Digestion in Progress.
  An example of a fresh victim: a species of crane fly being digested. By plant standards, this process is quite fast; in a couple of days, little will remain except for fragments of chitin.

• Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea).
  Photographed in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, NY, this species is a less “active” predator than the sundew. Both plants form traps from modified leaves, but pitcher plants form jugs that fill with rainwater. When small invertebrates (or occasionally small salamanders) fall in, they drown. Unlike the sundew, the pitcher plant generally doesn’t produce its own enzymes (except in very young pitchers); instead, it relies on a micro-ecosystem within the water—protozoa, mosquito larvae, and bacteria. These organisms decompose the victims, eventually releasing nitrogen and phosphorus for the plant to absorb through the leaf wall.

Carnivorous plants have a dilemma: how to capture invertebrates but let the pollinators live and do the job. The Purple pitcher plant soles it in the most logical way, by extending stems of its flowers so that they are far away from entrances to the pitchers. Apparently, that is the investment that pays off for the plant.

• Durability vs. Chemistry.
  Pitcher leaves are green in June but eventually turn deep purple. These plants are more cold-hardy than sundews and are likely the most northern-reaching carnivorous plants in North America. In the Adirondacks, they survive harsh winters buried under snow for half the year, and their leaves can remain active traps for several seasons. While Droserainvests in “biochemical weapons,” Sarraceniainvests in durable structures. Nutrient uptake is slower in pitchers but comes at a lower metabolic cost.

• The Downward Path.
  A close-up of the barbs on the lower lip of the pitcher trap. These guide victims downward, aided by scent and secreted nectar. Because they are downward-pointing, a victim has a difficult time climbing out, especially given the waxy, slippery surface of the leaf. Functionally, these barbs serve the same purpose as the sundew’s mucilage—preventing escape—but they are much “cheaper” energetically since they are part of the permanent leaf structure.

A recent study shows pretty clearly that highschoolers benefit from a little extra sleep. We will get to the study in a bit, but first I want to note that this information is not new. Teenagers tend to stay up late, and yet we make them get up super early to be at class, often by 7:00 AM. This is not good for their health or their learning. So why do we do it?

The primary reason is logistical, which is tied to cost. School systems have tiered start times for elementary, middle school, and high school because this allows them to use the same fleet of buses and drivers for all three. Starting high school later, at the same time as middle school, would mean increasing the size of the fleet. There are other stated reasons, but honestly I think this is the real reason and everything else is a backend justification. The other reasons are more tradeoffs, that benefit some people but not others. For example, a parent with a long commute could drop off their highschooler on the way to work. There is more time for after school clubs, sports, and jobs. While some older teens may get home early to watch their younger siblings until their parents get home.

This all points to a main reason our civilization is frustratingly sub-optimal (to be polite). The default is to follow the pathway of least resistance  – everyone just does what’s best for themselves, with people in power doing their best to solidify more power, with vested interests putting the most consistent effort into making the system work for their narrow interest. What is often lacking is any kind of systemic planning, and when that does occur (even with the best intentions) the law of unintended consequences often results in a net wash or even detriment. The world is complex, and we are just not very good at managing that level of complexity. What we need are institutions that can accumulate evidence-based institutional knowledge to incrementally make things work better. But that’s a lot of work, and it’s too easy for vested interests to sabotage such efforts.

I’m not trying to be nihilistic – nihilism is part of the problem, and is often used as a weapon by those vested interests to short circuit attempts to make things work better for everyone.  But we have to understand the nature and scope of the problem, and we need the energy and dedication to sustain efforts to make things work better. Such efforts can work, and historically they have made things better. But it’s a constant struggle.

OK, back to the study. In this study they gave students the option to start class up to an hour later. For example, school would officially start at 8:30, but also offered an optional module at 7:30 for those who wanted to come early and end early. The found:

“Under the flexible model, 95% of students used the later-start option. The median SST was delayed by 38 minutes (n = 711, β = .57, 95% confidence interval [.53, .62], p < .001, R2β = .52), with corresponding significant delays in wake times and increased sleep duration on school days. Among the paired subsample, SST delay was significantly associated with increased school day sleep duration (n = 205, β = .51 [.05, .94], p = .03, R2β = .02). No worsening was observed. Improvements included reduced problems falling asleep, fewer students with clinically low health-related quality of life, and higher scores in mathematics and English.”

Now that I am retired I have personally experienced (yes, this is just anecdotal) the benefits of sleeping in longer. I no longer even set an alarm – I wake up when I feel like it. I am still working basically full time doing all my science communication activities, but mostly on my own schedule. My sleep quality and daytime alertness have significantly improved. I highly recommend it. But more importantly – the evidence clearly shows that this is generally true – being able to sleep in longer results in better sleep and performance.

So it seems like a no-brainer – why can’t we do this? I think the key here is flexibility, which can be paired with increased flexibility at work, especially for parents. Flexible work start times and the ability to work from home, even if only 1-2 days a week, results in a huge improvement in life satisfaction. Then families will have the ability to make their schedules work. Let’s prioritize sleep, health, and educational effectiveness first, and make the system work for these goals. It makes no sense for a school system to sacrifice the well-being and education of their own students in order to meet their own logistical needs.

The obvious response to this question is – well, it’s all about money. We have to be realistic. School systems operate with limited budgets and have to make the most with the resources they have. If they have to maintain a larger bus fleet, where will that money come from? I get it. This is reality. My question is – who made this decision? Did we as a society, or even just the affected parents, make this decision collectively with adequate information to understand the implications of their decision? We may just have to accept the fact that running an effective school system is more expensive than we might want it to be, and cutting costs in this way is simply not an acceptable option.

If we prioritize the health and education of students, I think we will find there are other elements of the system that can accommodate. This is where municipal planning becomes even more integrated. Investing in public transportation and subsidizing it for students, for example, will give students more options and reduce the strain on a dedicated school bussing system. Facilitating carpooling among students is another option. More parental flexibility helps. Make schools more local and walkable/bikeable, and organize safe group walks to and from school. Optimize and disperse drop-off areas to limit bottle necks and reduce drop-off congestion.

This requires thoughtful planning, but mostly an unwillingness to simply sacrifice students to simplify logistics and reduce costs.

 

 

The post Flexible School Start Time first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Fungus-farming ants have evolved a remarkable solution to the danger of excess carbon dioxide inside their nests – which could inspire ways for humans to capture CO2

The most comprehensive study to date has revealed what we need to eat throughout the day to sleep well that night