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Astronomers have found another super-Earth. It's about 10 times more massive than Earth, and orbits in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star about 2475 light-years away. These massive Earth-like planets hold key information about how planets form and evolve.

Carbon stored in landscapes for thousands of years is leaching back into the atmosphere via rivers, and human activity may be to blame

I’ve been meaning to post this for some time; it’s a letter from a petulant Wall Street Journal reader who’s respondong to my op-ed about the KerFFRFle: my clash with the Freedom from Religion Foundation about whether, as one of its fellows wrote, “A woman is whoever she says she is.” The reader thinks that this self-identification is a perfectly good definition of “woman” as opposed to the gamete-based definition that most biologists hold.

The psychologically-based definition implies that the objective reality of who you are is exactly who you think you are.  I won’t go over that well-trodden ground except to say again that there are lots of people who claim to be things or people that are not objectively true, like all the religious people who claim to be prophets.  But just check the Oxford English definition for “woman,” and you won’t find anything based on self-conception. Instead, you find this:

I guess the OED hasn’t caught up to progressive wordsmithing!

At any rate, David Opderbeck, a professor of law at Seton Hall University, had a rather confused response in the WSJ, which I’ve put below. I’ll have a few words about it after you read it:

What is the sweating professor trying to say? First, Dr. Opoderbeck doesn’t seem to realize that the conflict is about the biological definition of “woman”, and so he claims that there can be many definitions of woman, presumably including men who say they are women.

Now this part I don’t understand at all:

. . . . . when they otherwise vigorously deny that there is any objective reality to traditional ontological categories. A “human,” for dogmatic materialists such as Mr. Coyne, after all, is nothing but a random configuration of matter, without substance, intentionality, teleology, mind or being beyond the entirely contingent fact that matter happens to have configured itself in a certain way in this moment of evolutionary time.

How do we chop through this thicket of verbal weeds? Of course I accept that there is an objective reality to an individual human, and of course a human can be defined as a member of a group, Homo sapiens, having certain biological traits (note the similarity to “woman”).  As for the claim that reality has to involve teleology about material objects that “happen to have configured themselves in a certain way at this moment of evolutionary time,” it’s opaque if not ludicrous.  There is no teleology in evolution, and matter does not “configure itself.” If that were true, I’d configure myself into the young Robert Redford. But all this confusing verbiage, I detect a whiff of religion, And that supposition is supported by the observation that Opderbeck got his master’s degree at Fuller Theological Seminary, and has written some books with a theological bent:

His first two books, Law and Theology: Classic Questions and Contemporary Perspectives (Fortress Press 2019) and The End of the Law? Law, Theology, and Neuroscience (Wipf & Stock / Cascade 2021) received broad acclaim. His third book, Faithful Exchange: The Economy as It’s Meant to Be, a theological assessment of economic paradigms informed by rule of law principles, will be released by Fortress Press in 2025. In addition to his appointment at the Law School, he is Affiliated Faculty in Seton Hall’s Department of Religion.

Theology is, as Dan Barker observed, a subject without an object, and “theological assessments of economic paradigms” seems a very weird thing to do.

But never mind. In his second paragraph, Opderbeck supports the FFRF self-conception definition, meaning that he also supports whatever brain chemistry that makes some individuals objectively fat because, although they have anorexia and are skeletal, nevertheless think that they’re fat.  Or whatever brain chemistry makes a person think that they are Jesus reincarnated. Yes, they must be Jesi.

Opderbeck’s ignorance is best revealed when he claims that the gamete-only doctrine is “arbitrary” and that I think it’s “best for society”.  It’s not at all arbitrary, but comes from biologists observing animals and plants over more than two centuries, and observing that, yes, all species have only two types of reproductive systems. One evolved to make small mobile gametes (males) and the other large immobile ones (females). That’s hardly arbitrary. As for that definition being best for society, that’s like saying that recognizing that Saturn goes around the Sun is arbitrary, but recognizing that is good for society.  These claims would be true only under the construal that recognizing the truth is good for society. But clearly that’s not what Opderbeck means.

In fact, I myself am not sure what Opderbeck means, except that he’s cooked up a hash of words that imply that reality is, objectively, what you think it is; that biology is driven by teleology; and that an objective recognition of gamete types that maps perfectly onto what biologists have recognized forever is nevertheless just “arbitrary.”

All I can say is, “Lawyer, stick to your courtroom.”

 

The glymphatic system flushes out waste products from the brain – now scientists have found a way to boost it in mice, which could open treatment possibilities for neurodegenerative diseases

Once thought to have originated in cows and spread through dust, the surprising evolutionary story of tuberculosis reveals why it's so hard to stamp out this ancient disease, writes Carl Zimmer

Computer simulations of high-energy particles are pushing the boundaries of what we can learn about the interactions that happen inside particle colliders

The latest Jesus and Mo strip, called, “trite,” is correctly captioned “The idiocy of theodicy.”  Indeed, this is the kind of babble you encounter when you read “sophisticated theology”, as interpreted by folks like Alvin Plantinga or, now, Ross Douthat.  I’m amazed that people actually get paid to make up this kinds of palaver.

We continue with Ephraim Heller’s safari journey through Tanzania. Ephraim’s notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them:

Brief introduction: These photos were taken on safari in Tanzania in April 2025. Most are from the Serengeti National Park with a few from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Today’s photos focus on cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus).

A cheetah enjoying the sunrise over Lake Ndutu:

Cheetah mom with her five cubs:

The start of the hunt: acceleration:

The chase. The cheetah ignores the adult zebra and wildebeest, targeting the baby wildebeest:

A different cheetah on a different hunt, but still targeting a baby wildebeest:

Sisters on the Serengeti:

Solo mom prowling:

Another mom looking for game, two cubs in tow:

Cheetah at sunset:

I probably mentioned that I’m doing an Arctic cruise in about a month, and the last stop is Reykjavik, Iceland. (Since I’ve been to Antarctica four times, this trip will make me officially bipolar.)

Rather than fly home immediately, I decided to spend an extra five days in Iceland because the country sounds so interesting and beautiful.  I will be free there from the morning of July 19 until the afternoon of the 24th, and I have my guidebook.  If you’re a reader (or learn about this somehow) and want to say hello, I’d be glad to meet you.  If you want to say hi, have a beer, or give me advice, please either contact me by email or leave a note in the comments.  I find that my travels are vastly enriched when I spend some time with the locals.

So-called “health influencers” – self-appointed health gurus spreading their unvetted opinions about health through social media, have apparently decided that seed oils are bad for you. Our chief health guru, RFK Jr, even blames seed oils for the obesity epidemic (based on the flimsiest of evidence and logic, which is his MO). I’m not exactly sure where this demonizing of seed oils […]

The post Seed Oils Are Not Bad For You first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Most widely used adhesives are toxic and derived from petroleum, but researchers have come up with a safe, recyclable alternative made from xylan, a component of plant cell walls

AI may be limited by a lack of taste, touch and smell which prevents it from fully understanding concepts in the same way as humans - suggesting that more advanced models may need to have a robot body

When the New Horizons spacecraft swept past Pluto and Charon in 2015, it revealed two amazingly complex worlds and an active atmosphere on Pluto. Those snapshots redefined our understanding of the system. Now, new observations using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) taken over the space of a week, show that Pluto's atmosphere is completely different from any other one in the Solar System.

As the years go by, the chance of Europa hosting life seems to keep going down. But it's not out of contention yet.

Astronomers have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects are likely to be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later this year.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos are waiting in line at public drinking fountains in Sydney to have their daily drinks of water in the latest example of cultural evolution in urban birds

New research demonstrates that with collaboration between stakeholders, Australia can fully decarbonize its domestic and energy export economies by 2060 -- a feat requiring $6.2 trillion USD and around 110,000 square kilomters of land -- while avoiding harm to important areas for biodiversity outcomes, safeguarding agricultural activities, and respecting Indigenous land rights.

When an RSV vaccine became available for use during pregnancy, it offered a natural experiment between various countries to see how it compared to a one-time antibody injection

The effects of artificial intelligence on adolescents are nuanced and complex, according to a new report that calls on developers to prioritize features that protect young people from exploitation, manipulation and the erosion of real-world relationships.

A new study found exposure to specific tiny particles in air pollution during pregnancy are associated with increased risk of various negative birth outcomes.