ArchiveArticles
Dune Part Two Succeeds Brilliantly — But Dooms Plans for Part III
The difficulty is that the changes made for the film have warped the core story so much that it’s going to be nearly impossible to follow the source material from here on out.
Wrestling with AI: Making More and Better Disciples
AI may have "knowledge," but it lacks wisdom.
Neuroscientist: How the Brain-as-Computer Myth Led Science Astray
Michael Merzenich explains neuroplasticity — how the brain organizes itself in detail — to Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth
The Singularity — When We Merge With AI — Won’t Happen
Futurist predictions depend on the assumption that the human brain is like a machine, says, computer scientist Erik Larson. But it isn’t
We’re Slowly Learning About China’s Extensive Hacking Network
China’s state-backed hackers have embedded malware within U.S. programs used to manage clean drinking water, the power grid, and air traffic, among others
Canada Prepares Harsh New Online Harms Bill to Fight “Hate”
Canada is a comparatively peaceful country, so onlookers might puzzle over the assumption that draconian measures are needed to fight poorly defined “hate.”
Jean Twenge: Gen Z Isn’t Reading
Zoomers were born into smartphones, not Shakespeare
Sora: Life Is Not a Multiple-Choice Test
With Sora, as with other generative AI developments, some are quick to proclaim that artificial general intelligence has arrived. Not so fast.
When Government Manages the News Business: Canada Tried That…
Any comprehensive censorship regime requires that the government begin by managing the news business
Programmer: How We Know Computers Won’t Surpass the Human Mind
Winston Ewert points out that we can only devise a “halting detector” less powerful than the ones our own minds have
Confronting IVF: Human Embryos Are Persons With a Right to Life
We humans are persons even when we are non-sentient and dependent on others
Over a Cliff? It’s That Bad for Venture-Backed Startups?
Jeffrey Funk and Gary Smith think that much high-tech today is not producing value. Chatbots? Their “main successes have been in generating disinformation and phishing scams”
American Beauty and the Power of Media
A scene from the 1999 film on finding beauty in the mundane
Programmers: Why Materialism Can’t Explain Human Creativity
Eric Holloway and Robert Marks explain why it’s unlikely that the mind that enables human creativity is merely the product of animal evolution
Neuroscientist: Human Brain More Complex Than the Models Show
The weird “homunculus” — the way the brain maps the body — was pioneer neurosurgeons’ best guess nearly a century ago
Can Informational Realism Help Sort Out the Mind–Body Problem?
According to William Dembski, informational realism asserts that the ability to exchange information is the defining feature of reality
Are IVF Human Embryos “Children”? A Recent Court Decision
Neurologist Steven Novella claims that the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that they are “children” under the law “essentially referenced god”
Do New Findings Make Fine-Tuning of the Universe Harder to Deny?
To judge from this episode of Closer to Truth, cosmologists like Alan Guth are finding it harder than ever to rule out intelligent design of the universe