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Skeptics from sixteen countries gathered at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague September 7-9, 2001, to attend the 10th European Skeptics Congress. This congress of the European Council of [...]

On October 4, 2007, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly approved a resolution recommending that its member governments oppose the teaching of creationism as science. In June, an earlier attempt [...]

We confront the following popular views: that mind or life are algorithms; that thinking, or more generally any process other than computation, is computation; that anything other than a working brain can have thoughts; that anything other than a biological organism can be alive; that form and function are independent of matter; that sufficiently accurate simulations are just as genuine as the real things they imitate; and that the Turing test is either a necessary or sufficient or scientific procedure for evaluating whether or not an entity is intelligent. Drawing on the distinction between activities and tasks, and the fundamental scientific principles of ontological lawfulness, epistemological realism, and methodological skepticism, we argue for traditional scientific materialism of the emergentist kind in opposition to the functionalism, behaviourism, tacit idealism, and merely decorative materialism of the artificial intelligence and artificial life communities.

Abstract: In its plesiomorphic state the insect ommatidium consists of eight retinula cells forming a fused rhabdom. It has long been observed that, in contrast to this pattern, Heteroptera have open rhabdoms. However, there has so far been no comprehensive and comparative study of heteropteran ommatidia. For this reason, we investigated the rhabdom structure in 36 species from all higher groups of Heteroptera, as well as from Coleorrhyncha and Auchenorrhyncha as outgroup representatives. In addition we surveyed the data of earlier authors, which brings the number of examined species to a total of more than 70. All examined Heteroptera do have open rhabdoms, with a system of six peripheral and two central rhabdomeres. Outgroup comparison shows that the open rhabdom is an autapomorphy of the Heteroptera. As for the rhabdom structure within the Heteroptera, we found further autapomorphic patterns in Corixidae (Nepomorpha), Gerromorpha, and Leptopodomorpha. Finally, the Cimicomorpha and Pentatomomorpha share a special pattern of the two central rhabdomeres, which we call V-pattern. This is a new synapomorphy of these two taxa.

The fundamental concepts of genome, genotype and phenotype are not defined in a satisfactory manner within the biological literature. Not only are there inconsistencies in usage between various authors, but even individual authors do not use these concepts in a consistent manner within their own writings. We have found at least five different notions of genome, seven of genotype, and five of phenotype current in the literature. Our goal is to clarify this situation by (a) defining clearly and precisely the notions of genetic complement, genome, genotype, phenetic complement, and phenotype; (b) examining that of phenome; and (c) analysing the logical structure of this family of concepts.

This article replies to a number of criticisms levelled at us by Tom Settle, Hugh Lacey, Michael Poole, Brian Woolnough, John Wren-Lewis, and Harold Turner in a series of comments on our paper entitled ‘Is religious education compatible with science education?’ By offering counter-arguments and by clarifying certain misunderstandings, we show that these criticisms fail to affect our position.

This paper tackles a highly controversial issue: the problem of the compatibility of science and religion, and its bearing on science and religious education respectively. We challenge the popular view that science and religion are compatible or even complementary. In order to do so, we give a brief characterization of our conceptions of science and religion. Conspicuous differences at the doctrinal, metaphysical, methodological and attitudinal level are noted. Regarding these aspects, closer examination reveals that science and religion are not only different but in fact incompatible. Some consequences of our analysis for education as well as for education policy are explored. We submit that a religious education, particularly at an early age, is an obstacle to the development of a scientific mentality. For this and other reasons, religious education should be kept away from public schools and universities. Instead of promoting a religious world view, we should teach our children what science knows about religion, i.e., how science explains the existence of religion in historical, biological, psychological and sociological terms.

The continuing discussion of the species problem suffers from the lack of a coherent ontological theory as a basis for determining whether species have an ontological status. It has attempted to apply a full-fledged metaphysical theory to the species problem: the ontology of Mario Bunge. In doing so a few ontological fundamentals including system, individual, real and conceptual object, and law are briefly introduced. It is with the help of these fundamentals that an analysis of the species-as-individuals thesis is carried out, concluding that species are not individuals (things), but natural kinds, and that they have no ontological status. In contradistinction to the traditional view of natural kinds involving possible worlds metaphysics and semantics a notion of natural kind is given in terms of the state space approach and of nomological equivalence.

This paper examines - from a realist perspective - the influence of phenomenalism and its offshoot, operationalism, on concept formation in biology, as well as its implications for science education. To this end, the basic tenets of phenomenalism, versus those of realism, are expounded. The influence of phenomenalism and operationalism on current biology is criticized for leading to the confusion of cause with symptom - a mistake known as the operationalist fallacy. This fallacy consists in accepting pseudodefinitions, i.e., the so-called operational definitions such as ‘An acid is a substance that turns litmus paper red’, and pseudoexplanations such as ‘The weather got worse because the barometer reading dropped’. Many instances of this confusion can be found in science. This analysis, however, focuses on biology; it starts with more or less blatant examples, such as behaviorism and the concepts of genotype and homology, turning then to much less obvious examples, such as the definition of selection in terms of differential reproduction, the concept of a species as a reproductive community, the concept of isolating mechanisms, and thus the relational concept of biospecies. While it is maintained that operationalist fallacies are always to be avoided in science, it is discussed whether at least some of them are permissible in science education.