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Richard Dawkins is a public intellectual of some renown, although not without his controversies. So it is noteworthy when he writes an article claiming that the chatbot Claude is likely conscious. I found the article fascinating, not because I agree with his core claim or feel that he has contributed anything significant to the conversation, but because it seems to represent a scholar and deep thinker writing about a topic in which he lacks specific expertise. I also see no evidence in the article that he engaged meaningfully, or at least adequately, with a topic expert. As a result he makes some thoughtful and instructive errors.

He begins with a discussion of the Turing test, which has long been discussed as an early thought experiment about how we might determine if an AI is actually conscious. Dawkins essentially accepts the Turing test and write:

“It was one thing to grant consciousness to a hypothetical machine that — just imagine! — could one day succeed at the Imitation Game. But now that LLMs can actually pass the Turing Test? “Well, er, perhaps, um… Look here, I didn’t really mean it when, back then, I accepted Turing’s operational definition of a conscious being…””

He feels saying that LLMs have passed the Turing test but still not accepting them as conscious is moving the goalpost. However, the Turing test was never generally accepted by AI experts or philosophers as a true test of consciousness. Rather, it was understood that such a test really is only a measure of a machine’s ability to imitate human speech. I wrote about it in 2008, writing: “Ever since Alan Turing proposed his test it has provoked two still relevant questions: what does it mean to be intelligent, and what is the Turing test actually testing.” I went on to write:

“But I can imagine a day in the not-too-distant future when such AI can pass a Turing test. The algorithms will have to become much more complex, allow for varying answers to the same question, and make what seem to be abstract connections which take the conversation is new and unanticipated directions. You can liken computer AI simulating conversation to computer graphics (CG) simulating people. At first they appeared cartoonish, but in the last 20 years we have seen steady progress. Movement is now more natural, textures more subtle and complex. One of the last layers of realism to be added was imperfection. CG characters still seem CG when they are perfect, and so adding imperfections adds to the sense of reality. Similarly, an AI conversation might want to sprinkle some random quirkiness into the responses.

The questions is – will sophisticated-enough algorithms running on powerful-enough computers ever be conscious? What Loebner is saying, and I agree, is that the answer is no. Something more is needed.”

Basically, the limitation of the Turing test is that it is looking only at output, and therefore there is no way to distinguish the output of true consciousness from a really good simulation. This is not a new idea, and no one is moving the goalpost. We need to know something about how a computer is working to conclude whether or not it is conscious. What LLM experts will tell you is that these chatbots are just really good autocompletes – they are mimicking language, and since language is how we communicate thoughts, this creates the powerful illusion that they are mimicking thought, but they aren’t. They do not think, they do not truly understand.

But I get it – I have been using these chatbots frequently, often just to test their ability, and they are improving quickly. The output is incredibly impressive. But they are also fragile, in the way that narrow AI often is. Reading the examples of Dawkins’ conversations, he seems to have fallen for the illusion, enhanced by the typical AI sycophancy that experienced users can immediately recognize. But more importantly, he did not try to break the fragile AI illusion in an effective way. In essence, he was not really testing his hypothesis but looking for evidence to support it, without realizing this was what he was doing. There are now classic and often funny examples online. I just recreated a great one, confirming that it is still relevant. My prompt: “If I want to wash my car and the carwash is 100 meters away, should I walk or drive there?” Chat GPT’s response: “From a purely energy/emissions standpoint, walking almost certainly makes more sense.” That was its final recommendation – walk. But if I prompt, “I want to wash my car. The carwash is 100 meters away. Should I drive or walk.” Its answer: “You should probably drive — otherwise your car won’t get to the carwash.” Why should such a subtle difference in my prompt completely change the answer? Because the thing is not thinking – it’s a language algorithm.

Dawkins did exactly the wrong thing to test Claude’s consciousness – asking it deep philosophical questions. That may seem like a good idea, but it isn’t. Such questions are the low-hanging fruit for mimicking thought through language, because you can make statements that seem deep but they aren’t truly challenging the AI’s ability to think. Remember, these LLMs are trained on massive data sets. They are therefore just reflecting what’s out there on the internet. If you want to really challenge an AI, get technical and specific and you will see how fragile it is. This is improving, and will likely improve to the point that it will get harder and harder to break, and eventually maybe even impossible, but that does not mean it is thinking.

Here is an analogy – imagine watching a clumsy magician. You can see how the tricks are done, and it is all through slight of hand, misdirection, and physical tricks. As the magician’s skill improves, the tricks get harder and harder to detect. Expert magicians are so good, even a keen and intelligent observer cannot see how the tricks are done – but that does not mean that at that point the magician is performing actual magic. It’s still all tricks – they are just really good.

Dawkins writes: “So my own position is: “If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?” Again, this is an old question long answered. My own answer is, you have to know something about the process that is creating the responses. I know other humans are truly conscious in the way that I am because they have brains like I do. I cannot know if a robot or AI is truly conscious without knowing something about the underlying process (see my many articles on the topic).

Next Dawkins goes on to ask an interesting philosophical question – “But now, as an evolutionary biologist, I say the following. If these creatures are not conscious, then what the hell is consciousness for?” Dawkins calls creatures that can do everything an animal can do without consciousness “competent zombies”. What I find curious is that Dawkins gives no evidence he knows this is a philosophical question that is decades old. In 1970 Keith Campbell raised the notion of an “imitation man” in his book Body and Mind. In 1996 philosopher David Chalmers even used the same term Dawkins uses, calling such entities philosophical zombies, or “p-zombies”. Dawkins then appears to recreate some of the standard responses, to why evolution did not just create p-zombies or competent zombies.

Dawkins does reference TH Huxley, who speculated consciousness could be an epiphenomenon (so he did know this was an old question, but perhaps not the more modern discussions). Or it could be that, in order for behavior to be optimized, creatures need to really experience pleasure and pain. Or, he speculates, evolution might solve the problem of behavior either with or without consciousness, and Earth life just happened to go down the path of consciousness.

I wrote about this specific question in 2017. In addition to the hypotheses Dawkins states, I also included:

“Problem solving could also benefit from the ability to imagine possible solutions, to remember the outcome of prior attempts, and to make adjustments and also come up with creative solutions.

Consciousness might also help us distinguish a memory from a live experience. They are both very similar, activating the same networks in the brain, but they “feel” different. Consciousness may help us stay in the moment while accessing memories without confusing the two.

Attention is another critical neurological function in which it seems consciousness could be an advantage. We are overwhelmed with sensory input and the monitoring of internal states and memories. We actually use a great deal of brain function just deciding where to focus our attention and then filtering out everything else (while still maintaining a minimal alert system for danger). The phenomena of consciousness and attention are intimately intertwined and it may just not be possible to have the latter without the former.

Some have argued that consciousness also helps us synthesize sensory information, so that when we experience an event the sights and sounds are all stitched together and tweaked to form one seamless experience.

And finally we get to the hypothesis addressed by the current study – that consciousness allows for faster adaptation and learning (which would certainly be an adaptive advantage).”

So no – I do not think Claude or any LLM is conscious. They are not designed to be, and they don’t have the function to be. They are really good language mimicking machines, and it is very easy for humans to anthropomorphize and fall for the illusion that sophisticated speech equals sophisticated thought. But LLMs remain fragile, like all narrow AIs. They partly seem conscious because they are riding the coattails of actual conscious beings – humans. Having trained on the output of billions of humans, they are really good at copying the style, form, and substance of our conversations and speech. Dawkins in the not the first person to fall for this – famously Blake Lemoine, a former Google employee, also did and used some faulty logic to argue for the consciousness of LaMDA.

This also, in my opinion, reflects a common human vanity – we all think we are much more creative and original than we actually are. We all make the same “witty” comments, which is why, if you are on the receiving end of them, it can be maddening that everyone makes the same observation and yet thinks they are the first one to do so. Our thoughts, our creative output, our ideas are mostly derivative. We are products of our culture and our environments in ways that we are not even aware of. So a machine that is also completely derivative, and just reflecting what is already out there, has an easy time mimicking human thought – a far easier time than we may want to believe.

The post Richard Dawkins Discovers AI and Philosophy first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip is new, is called “page,” and comes with this note: “‘They’ won’t understand this one.”

Once again Mo instantiates precisely what he is decrying: a common theme of the strip.

Welcome to Thursday, May 7, 2026, and both the National Day of Prayer and the National Day of Reason. What is one to do? I vote for the latter. that it’s also National Cosmopolitan Day, celebrating the made famous by the t.v. show “Sex and the City”, an episode of which appears below. The video features not only the drink and a rich guy trying to pick up Samantha, but also DONALD TRUMP, for crying out loud. I’m pleased at having found it!

Wikipedia describes the drink as “a cocktail made with vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed or sweetened lime juice. The traditional garnish is a lime slice but a twist or wedge can be used instead. Other variations substitute lemon or orange.” I’ve never had one, but the ladies on the show were drinking them constantly.

It’s also National Roast Leg of Lamb Day, and National Tourism Day.

I have only a few scattered readers’ wildlife photos, so please send in any good photos you have.

There’s a Google Doodle celebrating K-pop, an dire genre of music; you can see the YouTube animation by clicking on the screenshot below:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 7 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Suicides first:  The government released the text of a suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein and found by his cellmate. Here’s the image from the WSJ credited to “the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York”:

From the NYT:

A federal judge has released a suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein that was sealed for years as part of the criminal case of his cellmate.

“They investigated me for month — FOUND NOTHING!!!” the note begins, adding that the result was charges going back many years.

“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continued.

“Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!” the note reads.

“NO FUN,” it concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”

Mr. Epstein’s cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, said he discovered the note in July 2019 after Mr. Epstein was found unresponsive with a strip of cloth wrapped around his neck. Mr. Epstein survived that incident, but he was found dead weeks later at age 66 in the now shuttered Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan.

The note was made public on Wednesday by Judge Kenneth M. Karas of Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y., who oversaw the cellmate’s case. The judge acted after The New York Times petitioned the court last Thursday to unseal the document and published an article in which Mr. Tartaglione described the note and how it came into his possession.

The Times has not authenticated the note, which was placed on the court docket Wednesday evening. The note repeats a saying — “bust out cryin” — that Mr. Epstein wrote in emails. It included another phrase — “No fun” — that Mr. Epstein also used in emails, as well as in a separate note found in his jail cell at the time of his death.

This was on the evening news last night, and they added that it appeared to be in Epstein’s handwriting. The news made a big deal of it, but I don’t see why. All it does, if real, is support the notion that Epstein killed himself, and that won’t add much to investigations of the victims of his enterprise.

*Obituaries: Ted Turner died at 87. How many of today’s young folk even know who he was, or how influential he was?

Ted Turner, the swashbuckling media titan who helped shape the modern cable-television industry, ushering in the era of 24-hour news with CNN while building other major networks that bear his name, died Wednesday at age 87, according to a spokesman.

Adventurous and impulsive, Turner made a mark in many walks of life. He was a sailor, a conservationist who was one of the largest U.S. landowners, and a major philanthropist who helped set a model for generous giving by billionaires.

He was best known for turning the billboard-advertising company he inherited from his father into Turner Broadcasting System, an Atlanta-based television and movie giant that he eventually sold in 1995 to Time Warner. Turner joined the company and stayed with it through its ill-fated January 2000 merger with America Online before leaving in 2003.

As Turner battled rival media titans like Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone in the 1980s and 1990s, they collectively brought cable TV into the mainstream, fostering an explosion of investment, new channels and consumer subscriptions.

At TBS, he seized on breakthroughs in satellite technology to turn a local Atlanta TV station into a national “superstation.” That network and TNT became cable TV counterparts to what were then the big three broadcast networks—ABC, CBS and NBC.

Starting in the 1980s, CNN redefined how breaking news is covered on television, with round-the-clock updates and live reports during major events like the first Iraq war in 1990, the O.J. Simpson murder trial and natural disasters. Programs like “Larry King Live” and “Crossfire” were early signs that talk shows and commentary would have a major role in cable TV.

. . .He at turns kept a bear and an alligator as pets, was adamantly antireligion, and, as he admitted himself, had a knack for putting his foot in his mouth.

Turner said in a 2018 interview with CBS that he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder that he said made him tired and forgetful. Turner, labeled “Captain Outrageous” for his erratic behavior, had once been thought to have bipolar disorder. He told CBS that was a misdiagnosis, and that his confusion and the “euphoric highs and dark lows” he was known for were symptoms of the dementia.

From the WSJ

You might recall that he was also once married to Jane Fonda.

*It’s Noon in Israel predicts that “The Islamic Republic ‘will not survive 2026’.”

It’s Wednesday, May 6, and according to my colleague at Channel 12, Barak Ravid, within 48 hours, the U.S. expects Iran’s response to a framework that brings both sides closer to a deal than at any point during the war. The proposed pact trades an Iranian uranium enrichment freeze for U.S. sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, and a mutually reopened Strait of Hormuz. This framework is strictly an interim measure; if the final negotiations collapse, a return to all-out war is entirely possible.

Still, it is unfortunate timing. Last night, a very senior Israeli intelligence source estimated that if the status quo blockade remains, the Islamic Republic “will not survive 2026.” Predicting the complete collapse of a half-century-old theocracy within the next eight months sounds like a bold gamble—until you look at the math.

The Iranian rial is in freefall, crashing to 1.8 million to the U.S.dollar. That is a 25 percent plunge from the exchange rate that triggered mass protests just this past January—and it’s only getting worse. To prevent mass starvation, the government is propping up a heavily subsidized exchange rate of 285,000 rials per dollar just to import basic food supplies. The wider economy is faring no better. Even before the blockade, non-oil trade had plummeted by 50 percent. The much-touted economic “pivot to China” has failed entirely, trade is down 80 percent, and regional hubs for evading sanctions, like the UAE, have slammed their doors shut. Two million Iranians have lost their jobs already, and that number is expected to skyrocket.

But the most devastating blow has landed on the regime’s lifeblood: oil.

Right now, Iran has 184 million barrels of oil sitting uselessly on the water. Roughly 60 million of those barrels are physically trapped inside the blockade zone across the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The other 124 million are anchored near China, but buyers are too terrified of secondary U.S.sanctions to touch them. Between stalled oil and frozen petrochemical exports, the blockade is draining the regime of an estimated $400 million to $500 million every single day.

Worse, this blockade is rapidly evolving into an existential crisis for Iran’s energy sector. Once Iran’s onshore and floating storage tanks reach 100 percent capacity—which is expected within 15 to 60 days—the state will be forced to physically shut in active oil wells. For mature oil fields, capping wells amounts to a death sentence, as the underground pressure required to extract the oil dissipates. If this happens, Iran could permanently lose 300,000 to 500,000 barrels per day of production capacity. That is $9 billion to $15 billion in annual revenue wiped out.

Iran currently has a surplus of men with guns and a deficit of loyalty. The only things bridging that gap are fear and cash—and when the latter runs out, the former loses its edge. In a desperate bid for survival, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has begun cannibalizing the state, hoarding whatever liquidity remains at the cost of the rest of the system. Some regular army units and police forces have now gone unpaid for months.

These are not the ingredients for a peaceful transition. The regime will inevitably resort to massacres to keep its grip on power, but there comes a point where desperation will simply override fear. The ultimate result remains the same: the death of the Islamic Republic.

The end of 2026 is far, far away, and I think, given the pressure bearing on Trump to end the war, Segal is in my view overoptimistic.  I wish he were right, but I’m not confident.

*More religious mishisgass from The Free Press, which is constantly touting religion: “These two Catholics see signs of God in UFOs“. One of the Catholics is, for crying out loud, Ross Douthat, described as one of “the most thoughtful and provocative writers in America”.  Provocative, yes, thoughtful, well, I don’t think so.The other Catholic (see below) is “perhaps the only scholar of religion who has been taken to see the possible physical remains of an alien starship.” (There’s also a 44-minute video.) The interviewer is Will Rahm:

As we close out this four-part series about what everyday Americans should think about UFOs, we are joined by two people who have put a lot of thought into the religious aspect of all this: Diana Pasulka and Ross Douthat.

Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, is the author of American Cosmic, which examined UFOs as both a religious and nuts-and-bolts technological phenomenon. She has visited the scene of a supposed UFO crash site in New Mexico looking for the elusive hard evidence of intelligent life beyond our planet. A practicing Catholic, Pasulka also combed through Vatican archives looking for clues as to what these things might be. Her new book, out in July, is The Others: UFOs, AI, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny..

. . .WR: What does the Catholic Church make of UFOs?

DP: Catholicism already has a category called the preternatural. So they do look at nonhuman intelligence all the time. There are apparitions of the Virgin Mary. People have experiences that they would consider to be angel events. There are saints who levitate. And so the Catholic Church assesses these on a case-by-case basis. And they have a well-formed category for understanding nonhuman intelligence, be it extraterrestrial or interdimensional. And this is called the preternatural.

Pope Benedict XVI has actually written about this. His categories are natural, supernatural, or preternatural. And the supernatural is of God, things that are of divine origin, which Catholics believe in. Natural is natural: what we see is the world, science, things like that. But then there’s a category that’s called the preternatural. And the preternatural has to do with things that are not necessarily from God but are in between.

“Catholicism already has a category called the preternatural. . . they have a well-formed category for understanding nonhuman intelligence.” —Diana Pasulka

That category would include the Virgin Mary apparitions that are not yet approved by the church. The preternatural has to do with angels and fallen angels, both of which the church believes in. A lot of American Catholics today would say, “yeah, sure, angels exist,” but it’s not like they encounter an angel or see an angel. But this category of UFOs then opens up this idea of perhaps people are having experiences that are preternatural. This falls directly within Catholic theology.

RD: Most Catholics are pretty comfortable with a set of categories that are real but invisible. And it would be a shift, let’s say, if the church said, “And by the way, some of these preternatural beings can show up on Air Force cameras.” That would not be impossible, but it would be a different mode of thinking about these things than most Catholics have right now.

It goes on, but the gist is that both Catholics don’t see UFOs as a problem for their faith because they fit into the preternatural/supernatural spectrum.  And they are pre-programmed to believe things with little or no evidence, anyway.  What I most wanted to know (and I didn’t listen to the podcast) was what Pasulka saw at the UFO “crash site.” And how did they know it was a UFO crash site? And what about those possible physical remains of an alien starship.”  What were they? It would also be fun to ask the Catholics why Jesus didn’t contact the aliens, who would then be Christians.

*When the NYT’s Bret Stephens writes a column called “A Democrat who makes me listen,” I’m going to read it, as I’m still groping in the dark for a good Democratic Presidential candidate.  Stephens suggests one.

This should be a season of electoral hope for Democrats. Donald Trump’s disapproval ratings are reaching new highs. The war with Iran is overwhelmingly unpopular. As of early May, Polymarket gives the party a 51 percent chance of winning the Senate and an 83 percent chance of taking the House.

But Americans still harbor deep doubts about Democrats: A recent Pew survey shows only 39 percent have a favorable view of the party, against 59 percent who don’t. And Democrats are deeply divided about whether to steer centerward or move further left.

Jake Auchincloss — it’s pronounced AW-kin-kloss — is one of the most thoughtful voices in this conversation. The 38-year-old Harvard and M.I.T. graduate and Afghan war veteran, where he served as a Marine officer, is now in his third term as the representative from Massachusetts’s Fourth Congressional District, which stretches from the wealthy Boston suburb of Newton to the working-class city of Fall River.

Politically, he’s often described as moderate, even somewhat right-leaning when it comes to fraught issues like Israel. But as he made clear over two in-depth interviews with me, his thinking is not neatly categorizable on a simple centrist-to-progressive x-axis.

What Auchincloss and other Majority Democrats have in common is a determination to meet voters where they are. That includes acknowledging mistakes like the Covid-era school closures and the Biden administration’s lax border enforcement. Mainly, though, it’s about championing working- and middle-class concerns against the interests of what he calls “an ossified American aristocracy.” And it’s about restoring an old type of patriotism, based on foundational American ideals, against the blood-and-soil patriotism championed by the likes of JD Vance.

There’s then an interview with Auchincloss, and you can see that the man is deeply smart and thoughtful.  I have space for only two Q&As:

Stephens: You’re aware of the need for deep capital markets, for a culture of risk-taking and innovation. If you were having a conversation with a young Democratic Socialist, explain to that person where he or she goes wrong.

Auchincloss: Free enterprise is a core way that you make manifest our thesis as a party that every individual has inherent dignity and equality and that they should be able to pursue their happiness in the world. Because if you want to go start a socialist commune, you can. Go to a socialist country and try to start a capitalist commune, it doesn’t work out so well.

So what’s a Democratic case for how capitalism should work? To me, it’s an understanding that markets work, markets can be impaired by government overregulation, and markets can be impaired by corporate monopolization. And while that is pretty obvious to most economists, it’s somehow become a partisan football in a way that’s just not productive. . .

. . . Stephens: You have been, much more so than most of your caucus, outspoken in your defense of Israel’s right to defend itself. Do you worry that the Democrats are becoming an anti-Israel party? And do you worry about the antisemitic current running in at least some parts of the progressive left?

Auchincloss: Yes, about the antisemitic current running in parts of the Democratic left, and the antisemitic current running on the MAGA right. We have a horseshoe phenomenon here. Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes are much more influential in their party than any antisemitic hashtags are in the Democratic Party, and we should be cleareyed about that. It’s unacceptable on both sides, and it needs to be called out by political leaders of their own parties when it happens on both sides.

. . .Stephens: Let’s pivot to foreign policy: Iran.

Auchincloss: This president owns the fact that we’ve replaced one hard-line regime with a younger, more-hard-line regime. We have yielded to Iran a new strategic deterrent in the Strait of Hormuz. The highly enriched uranium is still at large. And the regime has been given the ideological tailwinds of having been seen globally withstanding more than 13,000 strikes and surviving.

I think we come out of this in a position where Iran is operationally degraded, no doubt, but strategically stronger. And this president is thereby the first president in American history to single-handedly start and lose a war by himself.

Auchincloss’s “solution,” though, assuming that we do lose the war in his sense, isn’t something that appeals to me. It’s this: “we have to have a point of view about how to build back from strategic failure. My core argument would be that it has to be based on knitting together NATO with the Abraham Accords through energy, defense and infrastructure.”  And how, exactly, is that going to prevent Iran from promoting terrorism in the Middle East and keep it from getting nuclear weapons? Yes, I’ll keep an eye on Auchincloss, but he doesn’t stand out to me yet.

*Finally, from the UPI’s odd news, we have a man pulling a ten-ton bus with his neck:

A 49-year-old athlete from Aruba earned his 10th Guinness World Records title by pulling a bus a distance of more than 65 feet using his neck.

Egmond Molina used a rope around his neck to pull the 21,737-pound bus on Jan. 9, and Guinness World Records has now confirmed he officially broke the record for the heaviest vehicle pulled by the neck.

The previous record of 17,769.26 pounds was set by Ukrainian Dmytro Hrunskyi in 2024.

“With the rope compressing my airway, I must generate force while carefully controlling my breathing under intense strain. It becomes a psychological battle to remain composed while the body is under severe stress,” Molina told Guinness World Records.

The strongman’s previous Guinness World Records titles include the fastest 20-meter bus pull with one finger, 33.32 seconds; the fastest 20-meter tram pull with teeth, 39.9 seconds; the fastest hot water bottle burst, 2.87 seconds; and the most crown cap bottles opened with both hands in 30 seconds, 6 bottles.

Molina said his records are dedicated to his children, Nigel, Egmond Junior, Benjamin and Adelinda, as well as the youth of Aruba.

Here’s the feat:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Szaron is trying to get rid of mosquitoes one at a time:

Hili: What are you after?
Szaron: I’m trying to cut down the mosquito population.

In Polish:

Hili: Na co polujesz?
Szaron: Próbuję zredukować populację komarów.

*******************

From Funny and Strange Signs:

From Meow Incorporated (remember that Newton invented the catflap):

From Things with Faces; some happy eggs:

From Masih, calling attention to the very sick Nobel Peace Laureate in Iranian custody. As I suspected, Iran is trying to kill her without making it obvious.

Disgusting and should be condemned at every turn. https://t.co/GNrHrntx9I

— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) May 5, 2026

From Luana; a panacea:

WTF? pic.twitter.com/JoWrRvKG0E

— Headshok1962 (@Headshok1962) May 4, 2026

Emma’s solution to the hantavirus ship epidemic:

It strikes me that there are enough private villas in the world, with fully stocked in-room bars and whatever food and legal entertainment you want provided, to effectively quarantine 200 people for several weeks with zero non-compliance. pic.twitter.com/VJAx6kMQFF

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) May 6, 2026

An appropriate response to Brenton’s suggestion:

Funny isn’t it how no-one is looking to stab Iranians or Russians unless they denounce those regimes ? https://t.co/Y6eFoctrRx

— Simon Schama (@simon_schama) May 2, 2026

One from my feed; the performative nature of land acknowledgements (this references Canada):

The all time best parody of Canadian Land Acknowledgement rituals.

Brilliant! pic.twitter.com/TMdn55VgJp

— Marc Emery (@MarcScottEmery) May 6, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrivedd in Auschwitz. He was six years old and would be 89 today had he lived. https://t.co/QNKHtgcZtC

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 7, 2026

Two from Dr. Cobb. First, they managed to sequence the genome of a forty-year-old specimen of Drosophila—with carnivorous, aquatic larvae!

Here is a banger! Our new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social is out! We have used museomics to sequence a 45yr old specimen of Drosophila enhydrobia, a rare and most unusual fly whose larvae are aquatic(!) and predatory(!). Very cool, big success. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S…

— Marcus Stensmyr (@marcusstensmyr.bsky.social) 2026-05-05T15:41:20.058Z

And a live puffin cam from the Farne Islands:

x

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A guide to walking, a look at the world’s Google searches and a deep dive into the secrets of our DNA are some of the topics tackled by the popular science books out this month

There may be undisclosed ingredients in your hyaluronic acid supplement.

The post Hyaluronic Acid Adulteration first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A device made using a tiny bead floating in a beam of light can measure extremely small pressures and could help find a mysterious kind of neutrino

In a major breakthrough, scientists have experimentally confirmed a universal growth law in two dimensions using a quantum system of fleeting light–matter particles. The finding strengthens the idea that wildly different processes—from crystals to living systems—may all follow the same hidden rules.

Cumberland, B.C. is reimagining its coal mining past as a clean energy opportunity. Water trapped in abandoned mine tunnels could be used in a geothermal system to heat and cool buildings efficiently and with minimal emissions. The project could lower energy costs, support new development, and attract businesses. It’s a striking example of turning industrial leftovers into a sustainable community asset.

A bold step toward returning humans to the Moon is underway with Blue Origin’s uncrewed MK1 “Endurance” lander, designed to test the technologies that future astronauts will rely on. Built in partnership with NASA, the mission will showcase precision landing, autonomous navigation, and advanced cryogenic propulsion—key capabilities for operating on the lunar surface. It will also carry cutting-edge NASA instruments to study how rocket plumes interact with the Moon and to improve navigation accuracy from orbit.

A powerful new electromagnetic thruster has taken a major step forward after a successful high-energy test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Fueled by lithium vapor and driven by intense magnetic forces, the experimental engine reached record-breaking power levels—far beyond anything currently used in space. Glowing hotter than molten lava and firing inside a specialized vacuum chamber, the thruster hints at a future where spacecraft could travel farther and more efficiently than ever before.

A powerful new electromagnetic thruster has taken a major step forward after a successful high-energy test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Fueled by lithium vapor and driven by intense magnetic forces, the experimental engine reached record-breaking power levels—far beyond anything currently used in space. Glowing hotter than molten lava and firing inside a specialized vacuum chamber, the thruster hints at a future where spacecraft could travel farther and more efficiently than ever before.

New Curtin University-led research has used a radio telescope that spans the Earth to snap images that measure the immense power of jets from black holes, confirming scientists’ theories of how black holes help shape the structure of the Universe.

“If only you believed in miracles.” 
—Red Octopus, Jefferson Starship 

Over a quarter century ago, “The Texas Miracle” was mentioned by presidential candidate George W. Bush as a model for educational reform. What was this Texas Miracle? It wasn’t a miracle in the same sense as an apparition of the Virgin Mary—last witnessed in 1531 in Mexico. Rather, it was observed that the Houston Independent School District had apparently experienced significant gains in student achievement simply by holding school administrators accountable for their students’ test performance. The Houston superintendent, Rod Paige, was later appointed by President Bush to be Secretary of Education. Sadly, the miracle turned out to be a hoax. Administrators were able to improve test scores by increasing the numbers of students who were categorized into special education so their scores would not be included in the overall average.1 Such a strategy to increase average scores by omitting the lowest scores is called left truncation of the score distribution.2 Note how the same strategy would boost life expectancy by only polling the living.

Ten years later, the El Paso Miracle involved a similar strategy. Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia had 9th grade low scorers transferred, dismissed, retained, or allowed to skip ahead to their junior year to keep them from taking the state-mandated 10th grade achievement test. To raise graduation rates, students received full course credit for taking a two-hour weekend class. Garcia spoke about his desire to become state education commissioner. Then he was arrested.3 We note that in the biblical past, those chosen to bestow miracles were very special people and were often canonized4 for their efforts (e.g., Acts 19:11 tells us that God’s miracles came through the hands of Paul). We know of no one who has compared Rod Paige or Lorenzo Garcia to St. Paul. 

We have little hope that using evidence to debunk such claims will eradicate the audience for a good miracle.

The idea of being able to summon a miracle to solve the age-old problem of poor and minority students scoring low on achievement tests has near universal appeal. Such miracles are, in Samuel Johnson’s delicious observation, “the triumph of hope over experience.” The same observation helps to explain the gush of enthusiasm in the public media immediately following reports of educational miracles. Over a century of experience in educational reform has taught us that unbelievable improvements in average student performance either (a) did not happen, or (b) were due to a strategy of limiting who was included in the assessment. Yet, because such smoke-and-mirrors miracles tend to be easier and cheaper than boosting student performance through smaller classes, better instruction, etc., we have little hope that using evidence to debunk such claims will eradicate the audience for a good miracle. The best we can hope for is a visible increase in skepticism and a demand for associated empirical evidence to support the claimed miracle. Experience has taught us that the smaller the reported effect of an intervention on the grand enterprise of education, the more likely it is to be true. 

The Latest Miracle 

The latest educational miracle is the “Mississippi Miracle”—the miraculous turnaround of a state that only recently consistently ranked near the bottom of all states in education. Mississippi now leads the country as the fastest improving school system.5 The most recent 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results reported that Mississippi now ranks in a tie for 7th among all states in 4th grade reading, whereas in 2015, only three states scored lower than Mississippi. The rankings, when statistically adjusted, are even more impressive. 

Once an educational laughingstock … after adjusting for demographics such as poverty and race, Mississippi ranks number one …6

Indeed, how can a state that has long been plagued by being in either first place in undesirable rankings (poverty, obesity, infant mortality rates, corporal punishment) or last place in desirable ones (education test scores, median household income, teacher salaries) now be lauded as a role model for other states to follow in the education of their children? 

When adjusting for poverty, Mississippi has moved to the top of all states not only in 4th grade reading but also math.7 Even kids who are not economically disadvantaged have improved.8 But success is not limited to the wealthy or White. The question is who hasn’t improved? Hispanic students in Mississippi now outperform Hispanic students in all other states. Black students in Mississippi rank third among Black students in all states. And, even more surprising, the improvements in NAEP scores have occurred for students at every percentile ranging from the lowest performers to the very highest. This is unusual as educational interventions typically improve performance for either the low performers but not so much for the high performers, or for the high performers but not the lowest. In fact, Mississippi was the only state to improve 4th grade NAEP reading scores for the bottom 10 percent of students from 2013–2024.9 No typical aptitude by treatment interactions here where one group of learners improves more than others. This is simply amazing considering that the intervention was designed to benefit struggling readers. Again, such large, universal effects raise red flags as smaller ones are the norm in education. 

Is the Mississippi Miracle finally the educational messiah for which many have been waiting that will reverse the curse of past educational miracles? Almost 700 years ago, the Shroud of Turin was proclaimed to be the same burial shroud that covered Jesus of Nazareth. Such a claim was subsequently examined by several experts to determine its authenticity. The Mississippi Miracle deserves a similar close inspection. Some believe that the impressive results are simply a result of strict accountability and weaker teacher unions that, it is often claimed, prioritize job security over student learning.10

Experience has taught us that the smaller the reported effect of an intervention on the grand enterprise of education, the more likely it is to be true. 

Others have pointed to Mississippi’s 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA) as the cause of the observed changes. The LBPA emphasizes training teachers in the “Science of Reading,” identifying and providing help to students with reading deficiencies, and holding students back in the 3rd grade if they don’t meet a minimum score on the 3rd Grade Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) student achievement test in English Language Arts (ELA), or MAAP-ELA (i.e., the gate). Two of the architects behind the implementation of LBPA have since leveraged the Mississippi Miracle to secure prominent positions outside of the state. Carey Wright was Superintendent of Education from 2013 to 2022 and now has the same role in Maryland, where yet another miracle has been recently reported.11 Phil Bryant, governor from 2012 to 2020, was recently appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the NAEP. 

The success attributed to the LBPA, and in particular, the 3rd grade retention policy, is influencing other states who are scrambling to follow suit (e.g., Arkansas,12 Utah,13 Indiana, Ohio,14 and Nebraska15). Oklahoma is even considering retaining struggling readers as early as first or second grade.16 The House Appropriations Committee held a hearing in February 2026 to learn more about state-level policies.17 Is retention the key component of the miracle? Retention has always been controversial due to the negative social-emotional effects that retained students experience.18 Some also question whether retention improves later reading performance.19 If not retention, is it the teacher training in the science of reading and the four years of reading initiatives (K–3) that are responsible for most of the gains? What exactly should other states rush to replicate if they hope for similar results? 

The best way to untangle what is going on would be to design an experiment where Mississippi kindergartners are randomly assigned to the following four conditions through the 3rd grade: (1) new-and-improved reading initiatives with no 3rd grade retention, (2) the old reading instruction with no 3rd grade retention, (3) new-and-improved reading initiatives with 3rd grade retention, and (4) old reading instruction with 3rd grade retention. After four years, this design would allow us to answer three questions concerning the effects of LBPA components on 4th grade NAEP reading performance: (1) do the reading initiatives work? (e.g., 1+3 outperforms 2+4), (2) does retention work? (e.g., 3+4 outperforms 1+2), and (3) is the effect of either reading initiatives or retention mediated by the other? (e.g., the new reading initiatives only show an advantage when kids are retained). Such large-scale experiments are costly but important as we witnessed with the Tennessee Class Size Experiment in the 1980s.20 In the absence of experimental evidence that would allow for causal conclusions, we are left considering various plausible reasons for the apparently improved NAEP score that a randomized experiment could easily rule out. Unfortunately, these other possible reasons cannot be confirmed, just like the claim that the Mississippi Miracle was caused by the LBPA’s improved reading initiatives, retention, or both, cannot be confirmed. But the latter causes can be disconfirmed along with other plausible causes. We now present seven such possible reasons for Mississippi’s impressive rise in 4th grade NAEP reading rankings. (See supporting figures and tables.21) 

1. Recent improvement reflects continued momentum prior to LBPA. 

So did the miracle begin in 2015 with the implementation of LBPA? Mississippi NAEP scores had been improving long before then. From 2005 to 2015, NAEP reading scores increased ten points (204 to 214). Since then, they have increased only five points. Perhaps the Barksdale Reading Institute, a $100 million investment founded in 2000, deserves most of the credit. Would scores have continued to increase without the LBPA? Without a randomized experiment (including a control group that did not receive the LBPA) we can’t know without making heroic assumptions. But the trend for ten years before LBPA was certainly increasing. 

When this left truncation of the score distribution occurs, the overall average increases … all of the observed gain in performance can be accounted for by the retention policy with three points left over.2. Retention Prevents Low-Scoring 3rd Graders from taking the 4th Grade NAEP 

The LBPA passed in 2013 but was not fully implemented until 2015. Beginning in the spring of 2015, all 3rd graders were required to achieve at least a score of 2 (out of 5) on an annual state reading assessment to advance to the 4th grade. This had the effect of preventing a sizable portion (5.6 percent) of the lowest scoring 3rd graders in 2016 from taking the NAEP in 2017. When this left truncation of the score distribution occurs, the overall average increases. Using the formula we derived earlier,22 removing the bottom 5.6 percent would yield an improvement in average score of about four points. Mississippi’s 4th grade NAEP reading score average increased by only one point from 2015 to 2017. So all of the observed gain in performance can be accounted for by the retention policy with three points left over. One implication of those extra points is that the rest of the LBPA aside from the retention policy actually lowered scores a little. The same goes for the four-point increase from 2017 to 2024. With the new retention policy holding back over 9 percent of 3rd graders in 2018–19 and 2021–22 based on low reading ability, the NAEP increases should be higher. 

Of course, Mississippi had been retaining 3rd graders for all sorts of reasons long before 2015. But the criteria changed in 2015 to focus just on the reading score. Similar to what happened in Houston and El Paso, low scorers were held back and prevented from participating in the 2015 NAEP. Gavin Newsom has pointed out that, based on basic statistical theory, the retention policy inflates the NAEP results.23

3. Increased exemption rates temper LBPA effects. 

But what about the sustained level of performance and five-point increase since 2015? Several defenders of the Mississippi Miracle have claimed that retention alone cannot explain the successes since 2015 because retention rates have actually decreased while scores continue to improve.24 Table 1 displays data for Mississippi 3rd graders taking the gate test since 2014. Retention rates have decreased twice—first after the implementation of LBPA in 2015 and then again after the minimum score on the gate test was increased (from 2 to 3) in 2019. If one only looks at the retention rates, it seems that the retention policy is not the sole cause of the NAEP improvements because decreased retention rates are associated with higher scores. That would also imply that the K–3 reading initiatives were the cause of improved student performance. But were they? Or is it only smoke and mirrors that lead us to believe that they are? 

According to the LBPA, a 3rd grade student who does not pass the gate test (score 3 or higher since 2019) may still be promoted by the school district for “good cause.”25 These causes include promoting those who have (a) previously been retained twice, (b) passed an alternative assessment, or (c) been identified as having either a disability or (d) limited English proficiency. In contrast to retention rates, the percentage of students who have received a good cause exemption has increased since the minimum score was raised in 2019. Both retention and exemptions are indicators that students are deemed “not ready for 4th grade.” This means that the overall percentage of 3rd graders (retentions plus exemptions) who are not passing the gate test is not decreasing. Thus, the LBPA reading initiatives do not appear to be reducing the percent of 3rd graders who score low on the state reading test. 

4. Increased Accommodations = Increased Performance 

One might argue “So what?” The kids who receive the exemptions still have to take the 4th grade NAEP reading test the following year. It appears that the good cause exemption category largely responsible for the increase in exemptions has been diagnosing students who don’t pass the gate as having disabilities. This is similar to what happened in Houston. But rather than prevent them from taking the test, Mississippi has increased the percentage of disability-labeled students who are allowed to take the NAEP with accommodations such as extended time, taking breaks during testing, cueing to stay on task, preferential seating, or testing in a separate session compared to everyone else being tested in a packed large room. Such accommodations typically benefit all students’ test performances regardless of disability status.26 The most common accommodation is extended time. The relation between extra time and the amount of boost to a test score is sometimes complex,27 but the question is never “did the accommodation boost scores?” but rather “how much of a boost?” 

From 2003 to 2024, the percentage of Mississippi 4th graders classified as having disabilities for the NAEP increased from 9 to 20 percent. This increase was second only to West Virginia. The percentage who were tested with accommodations increased from one to 12 percent.28 It is hard to imagine that such testing accommodations would not have some positive effect on scores. 

5. The miracle did not extend to later reading assessments. 

Any salt-worthy miracle would also increase students’ reading ability in parallel with the increases in their reading scores. Thus, greatly improved student reading ability demonstrated in increased 4th grade scores should also show up later when the same students are tested for reading proficiency. Mississippi is one of eight states that require all 11th graders to take the ACT as a state accountability test. Despite the fact that 11th graders in 2025 would have been exposed to three years of LBPA from 2015–18, Mississippi’s rank among the states with regard to scores on the ACT reading subtest has not improved. In both 2018 and 2025 only Nevada did worse among those eight states. 

Mississippi ranks last in teacher pay. Does anyone really believe we should push for lower teacher pay to achieve miraculous results?

Since 2005, Mississippi’s 4th grade NAEP reading scores have increased 15 points, but 8th grade NAEP scores have increased by only two points. Eighth-graders tested in both 2022 and 2024 would have been exposed to the full four years of the K–3 LBPA intervention. Thus, as has been noted,29 the effect of the miracle had apparently run its course by 8th grade. Granted, compared to the U.S. overall, Mississippi has not experienced as much of a decline in 8th grade NAEP reading scores since 2019. But in 2020 the COVID pandemic caused a major disruption to education and not all states responded by closing down schools to the same degree. 

6. Reduced Learning Loss from Increased In-Person Instruction 

We can see how this was manifested in Mississippi by starting with the COVID pandemic that hit in 2020. States differed dramatically in terms of how long schools were shut down to be replaced by remote instruction.30 Whereas Oregon, Maryland, and California students spent about 20 percent of the 2020–21 school year in school, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana students spent around 75 percent of the school year in school. Learning loss was likely greater for those students forced to spend more time learning remotely than in person. This was confirmed by the NAEP trends from 2019 (pre-COVID) to 2024 for the two sets of states. Oregon’s, Maryland’s, and California’s scores decreased, whereas Alabama’s, Mississippi’s, and Louisiana’s scores did not decrease. Reduced learning loss from COVID could explain part of Mississippi’s improved ranking in NAEP scores since 2019 and the “southern surge” overall. 

7. Statistical Score Adjustment with Close to 100 Percent Poverty 

Next let us discuss what happens to Mississippi’s NAEP scores when they are adjusted for poverty. First, we note that a policy of retention to prevent low scoring students to take the test is but the other side of the adjustment coin. When scores are adjusted, some proportion of student scores are not counted. This is obvious from the results. If a state’s ranking improves after adjustment it can only mean that some of its lower scoring students are not being counted. The greater the gain, the more students of low performance are being ignored. If the adjustment is being done on the basis of the size of the student population in poverty, the state benefits by increasing its poverty level as much as possible. As stated earlier, Mississippi now ranks first for both 4th grade reading and math when adjusted for poverty and race. How did this happen? Mississippi’s Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL) rate, an indicator of poverty, amazingly, almost miraculously, was 99.7 percent in 2022, up from 74.9 percent in 2014–15. The next highest state was Nevada with 81 percent. Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana’s average increase was about 3 percent over the same time period. What changed? The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), enacted in 2010, allows high-poverty schools to serve breakfast and lunch free to all students without collecting household FRL applications. In CEP schools, districts may report all enrolled students as eligible for free lunch regardless of each student’s household income because everyone receives free meals. 

The Urban Institute, which adjusted performance on the 2024 NAEP, uses FRL and it is highly variable across states.31 It appears that Mississippi took full advantage of the CEP whereas other states did not. Mississippi’s FRL increased almost 25 percent from 2019 to 2022, but it does not have an actual poverty rate that is considerably higher than other states. Using FRL rate to statistically adjust NAEP scores for poverty inflates the adjusted scores for Mississippi greatly. 

Conclusion 

The Mississippi Miracle has received widespread publicity. There are few willing to question the emperor’s new clothes; instead many are scrambling to adopt Mississippi’s educational policies. Any proclaimed miracle deserves close inspection combined with a good dose of skepticism. The present examination reveals seven possible, non-LBPA, reasons for the impressive improvement in ranking attributed to Mississippi’s 4th grade NAEP reading scores since 2015: (1) an earlier trend of improvement that began in 2003 simply continued, (2) the 3rd grade reading gate prevented low scorers from taking the 4th grade test, which raised the overall average, (3) an increasing number of exemptions given to 3rd graders reveals no improvement in 4th grade readiness, (4) an increasing percentage of 4th graders are being classified as having disabilities and receiving NAEP testing accommodations that likely improve scores, (5) similar miraculous gains have not been observed for 8th grade NAEP or 11th grade ACT reading scores, (6) reduced learning loss during the pandemic due to high in-person instruction rates compared with most other states, and (7) an exceptionally (and inaccurately) high poverty rate used to statistically adjust scores inflated rankings. Thus, the LBPA may not play a large role in improved NAEP scores as other have suggested.32

Forty years ago, Connecticut’s Education Enhancement Act increased funding for teachers so that five years later, salaries had increased 62 percent to become the highest in the nation. By 1998 Connecticut 4th graders scored the highest (232) on the NAEP reading test, a 10-point increase since 1994. The percent of 8th graders scoring proficient or higher was also first in the nation. Connecticut’s White, Black, and Hispanic students outscored their counterparts in the other states (Wise, 2019).33 Sound familiar? This was the Connecticut Miracle. 

The miracle was lauded by the top education scholars.34, 35 But like all education miracles, it did not last. Connecticut reverted its policies back to national norms and soon experienced national results. By 2005, the 4th grade NAEP reading scores had dropped six points. In 2024, Connecticut’s reading score had dropped down to 219—tied for 7th place with … Mississippi! Mississippi ranks last in teacher pay.36 Does anyone really believe we should push for lower teacher pay to achieve miraculous results? 

Suppose someone walks into a cold house and is faced with two options. The more expensive one is turning up the furnace and heating the entire house. The cheaper one is holding a lighted match under the thermostat. Similarly, boosting a state’s NAEP scores can be done in two ways. The more expensive one is improving the entire educational system starting with prenatal care, daycare, full-day kindergarten, teacher aides, etc. The cheaper one is reducing the impact of low-scoring students by retaining them or reclassifying them as special education, or by adjusting the overall score by giving lower weight to the low-achieving groups so their influence is vastly diminished. The latter solution may give the appearance of a miracle but sooner or later everyone realizes that the house is still cold. 

Given what we have found with our deeper dive into the Mississippi Miracle, we must conclude that enthusiasm surrounding a rush by other states to replicate the Mississippi model be tempered with hard won empirical wisdom. We ought to not blindly yield to the entreaties of the supporters of the Mississippi Miracle (so aptly described in Acts 26:14). 

We wish to acknowledge the assistance of the following University of Texas at Arlington graduate students: Nasja Aude, Cole Davis, Veronica Erives, and Jaclyn Foster.

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