Occam’s Razor says the simplest explanation is the best. While it’s application has many subtleties, it tells us that the best model of theory is the one that’s most elegant and invokes the fewest extraneous explanations.
Johnjoe McFadden is a professor at the University of Surrey in the UK and we discuss simplicity and the mind-bending world of quantum biology.
Website: https://johnjoemcfadden.co.uk/
Podcast link: https://evo2.org/podcasts/johnjoe-mcfadden-occams-razor-and-quantum-biology/
Don’t miss James Shapiro’s new piece in Aeon: How did Darwin’s 20th century followers get evolution so wrong?
Dean Radin wondered whether trained meditators could influence the outcome of a quantum mechanics double-slit experiment. He wanted to test if conscious observation by experienced meditators could influence the outcome: particle vs. wave. Read more »
In a recent blog post I said cells, like humans, are quantum observers. I proposed that by focusing their attention, they shift physical outcomes. This occurs the same way inside a cell as it does in a lab in the Double Slit Experiment: Read more »
What makes cancer cells so smart that in Stage 4 they can thwart almost any treatment anyone throws at ‘em?
For that matter… what is it that makes any form of life smart at all?
What is the “magic” that enables life itself to plan, build and organize? Rocks and snowflakes and sand dunes don’t do any of that. But life does. Read more »
The profession of biology is deeply conflicted about purpose. It seeks to explain life as a physical and mechanical phenomenon. To reduce the organism to the parts that compose it.
Yet life is intrinsically intentional. Our standard models of physics and chemistry leave no space for this most fundamental attribute of life.
This has brought biology to an impasse. We cannot solve this without Quantum Mechanics. Read more »
The Birth of a Whole New Field of Scientific Inquiry?
Last time I told you about how our search for an evolutionary theory of viruses had hit a dead end.
Then one day I got an email from Bill Miller:
“Dear Perry, Arthur and Frantisek, I’ve written this here 80-page paper on virus evolution. I’d like you guys to help me finish it up and co-author it with me.”
Arthur Reber is a psychologist in Vancouver, František Baluška is a cell and plant biologist in Germany and the most ‘rock star’ scientist of the group by far.
All of us agreed to Read more »
One Trail Dead-Ends While Another Blazes into View
Last time I showed you some diagrams that gave me some eye-opening insights into viruses, DNA, and ethernet packets!
At the same time I was musing on those diagrams, I got in touch with a scientist who was about to publish a paper that he said would prove COVID-19 was engineered in a lab. Read more »
The Journey to Natural Virus Evolution
In 2019 I hired publicist Kelly Sullivan to fire up interest in my $10 Million Origin of Life Prize.
Then nine months later, we all know what happened.
So, two weeks into lockdown, Kelly says, “Perry, the media doesn’t want to see anything unless it’s about viruses. Surely, you must have something you can say about that?”
I said, “Um, no. But I’ll make you a promise: Read more »
Last time I asked you to imagine composing a mashup of the Beatles’ song “Hey Jude” with the Rolling Stones’ song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” with your friends. (Read Part 1 here).
I asked…
Who wrote that mash up? Read more »
