Romans 1:22
"There’s a lesson in the following stories: what science says today can be wrong tomorrow. The items are from different branches of science to show that overconfidence in consensus touches almost all areas of human thought. Lesson: When you hear them say, “Now we know,” hold on to your skepticism.
Mars’ ‘young’ volcanoes prove more complex than scientists once thought (The Gist, Geological Society of America, 11 Feb 2026). It wasn’t a single eruption. It’s complicated. Magma moves. It evolves.
Rethinking climate change: Natural variability, solar forcing, model uncertainties, and policy implications (Phys.org, 11 Feb 2026). If what Nicolas Scafetta claims in this “rethink” article is closer to the truth than the consensus on climate change, it could upset a global applecart. He’s discounting the human-caused role and criticizing measurements, claiming that “global climate models still fail on natural variability at all scales.” It’s amazing he hasn’t been canceled yet, or called a “science denier.” His thoughts are pre-published in the April 2026 issue of Gondwawa Research, and he is a geoscientist at the University of Naples.
Deep-sea fish larvae rewrite the rules of how eyes can be built (The Conversation, 11 Feb 2026). Visual receptors in the retina used to be neatly divided into rods and cones. Studies of deep sea fish showed that science needs to add “rod-like cones” to the mix. Several genera adapt to the darkness of the deep in larval stages with these hybrid receptors. The authors point out, by the way, that most of the monstrous, creepy denizens of the deep with big eyes and threatening teeth are small: about hand-size or thumb-size.
Europe’s “untouched” wilderness was shaped by Neanderthals and hunter-gatherers (Aarhus University via Science Daily, 11 Feb 2026). Other paradigms about Neanderthals are also shifting this month toward personhood: “Neanderthals and early humans may have interbred over a vast area” (New Scientist, 2 Feb)—i.e., they were fully human. “Neanderthals took reusable toolkits with them on high-altitude treks through the Alps” (Phys.org, 21 Jan)—i.e., they were smart, strong, and inventive.
‘Textbooks will need to be updated’: Jupiter is smaller and flatter than we thought, Juno spacecraft reveals (Live Science, 4 Feb 2026). Some revisions and updates can be forgiven when better data becomes available, but the science of measurement is sometimes not as clear-cut as we are led to believe.
“Textbooks will need to be updated,” study co-author Yohai Kaspi, a planetary scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a statement. “The size of Jupiter hasn’t changed, of course, but the way we measure it has.“
The new value will have implications for theories and models, and even worldviews. “This research helps us understand how planets form and evolve,” Kaspi said. Where have we heard about things “forming and evolving” elsewhere? Oh yes: everywhere. Please, Dr Kaspi, tell the world when the understanding arrives.
This brain discovery is forcing scientists to rethink how memory works (Univ of Nottingham via Science Daily, 3 Feb 2026). Score one for the lumpers against the splitters. “A new brain imaging study reveals that remembering facts and recalling life events activate nearly identical brain networks. Researchers expected clear differences but instead found strong overlap across memory types.”
If scientists would ditch evolution and the evolutionary timeline, though, I suspect a sizeable percentage of such revisions would evaporate."
"There’s a lesson in the following stories: what science says today can be wrong tomorrow. The items are from different branches of science to show that overconfidence in consensus touches almost all areas of human thought. Lesson: When you hear them say, “Now we know,” hold on to your skepticism.
Mars’ ‘young’ volcanoes prove more complex than scientists once thought (The Gist, Geological Society of America, 11 Feb 2026). It wasn’t a single eruption. It’s complicated. Magma moves. It evolves.
Rethinking climate change: Natural variability, solar forcing, model uncertainties, and policy implications (Phys.org, 11 Feb 2026). If what Nicolas Scafetta claims in this “rethink” article is closer to the truth than the consensus on climate change, it could upset a global applecart. He’s discounting the human-caused role and criticizing measurements, claiming that “global climate models still fail on natural variability at all scales.” It’s amazing he hasn’t been canceled yet, or called a “science denier.” His thoughts are pre-published in the April 2026 issue of Gondwawa Research, and he is a geoscientist at the University of Naples.
Deep-sea fish larvae rewrite the rules of how eyes can be built (The Conversation, 11 Feb 2026). Visual receptors in the retina used to be neatly divided into rods and cones. Studies of deep sea fish showed that science needs to add “rod-like cones” to the mix. Several genera adapt to the darkness of the deep in larval stages with these hybrid receptors. The authors point out, by the way, that most of the monstrous, creepy denizens of the deep with big eyes and threatening teeth are small: about hand-size or thumb-size.
Europe’s “untouched” wilderness was shaped by Neanderthals and hunter-gatherers (Aarhus University via Science Daily, 11 Feb 2026). Other paradigms about Neanderthals are also shifting this month toward personhood: “Neanderthals and early humans may have interbred over a vast area” (New Scientist, 2 Feb)—i.e., they were fully human. “Neanderthals took reusable toolkits with them on high-altitude treks through the Alps” (Phys.org, 21 Jan)—i.e., they were smart, strong, and inventive.
‘Textbooks will need to be updated’: Jupiter is smaller and flatter than we thought, Juno spacecraft reveals (Live Science, 4 Feb 2026). Some revisions and updates can be forgiven when better data becomes available, but the science of measurement is sometimes not as clear-cut as we are led to believe.
“Textbooks will need to be updated,” study co-author Yohai Kaspi, a planetary scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a statement. “The size of Jupiter hasn’t changed, of course, but the way we measure it has.“
The new value will have implications for theories and models, and even worldviews. “This research helps us understand how planets form and evolve,” Kaspi said. Where have we heard about things “forming and evolving” elsewhere? Oh yes: everywhere. Please, Dr Kaspi, tell the world when the understanding arrives.
This brain discovery is forcing scientists to rethink how memory works (Univ of Nottingham via Science Daily, 3 Feb 2026). Score one for the lumpers against the splitters. “A new brain imaging study reveals that remembering facts and recalling life events activate nearly identical brain networks. Researchers expected clear differences but instead found strong overlap across memory types.”
If scientists would ditch evolution and the evolutionary timeline, though, I suspect a sizeable percentage of such revisions would evaporate."
CEH
