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By the standard of other substances, the properties of ice are bizarre, yet ice is so perfectly suited to our purpose that if it didn't exist we should have to invent it. With few exceptions, the solid phase of matter is more dense than the liquid phase; water. alone among common substances, violates the rule. As…
the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. The British physicist Michael Faraday warned of the powerful temptation to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in the…
A hundred years earlier, a very popular dinosaur mistakenly got named twice. The first time it was called "Apatosaurus" or "deceptive lizard" and nobody much cared, because the name was dull and the fossil wasn't all that spectacular, but later discoveries were more dramatic and looked different enough that scientists…
We should think of it like this - evolutionary theory describes how design is created by the competition between replicators. Genes are one example of a replicator and memes another. The general theory of evolution must apply to both of them, but the specific details of how each replicator works may be quite…
The leading principle of the Utopian religion is the repudiation of the doctrine of original sin; the Utopians hold that man, on the whole, is good. That is their cardinal belief. Man has pride and conscience, they hold, that you may refine by training as you refine his eye and ear; he has remorse and sorrow in his…