24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
The Nominal Fallacy
The nominal fallacy is the error of believing that the label carries explanatory information.
An instance of the nominal fallacy is most easily seen when the meaning or importance of a term or concept shrinks with knowledge. One example of this would be the word “instinct.” “Instinct” refers to a set of behaviors whose actual cause we don’t know, or simply don’t understand or have access to, and therefore we call them instinctual, inborn, innate. Often this is the end of the expl...Stuart Firestein explains why naming is not explaining.
03 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Humanity has Reached the Hatching Point
To begin our position-fixing
aboard our Spaceship Earth we must first acknowledge that the
abundance of immediately consumable, obviously desirable or
utterly essential resources have been sufficient until now to allow us
to carry on despite our ignorance. Being eventually exhaustible and
spoilable, they have been adequate only up to this critical moment.
This cushion-for-error of humanity's survival and growth up to now
was apparently provided just as a bird inside of the egg is provided
wi...Thinking of our Earth as an egg, we have been living on the yolk so far. We are reaching the point, by burning our fossile fuels off and exceeding the production capacity of our agriculture, where our intellect must launch us into the stars.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Questions Without Answer
Daddy,' she says, 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?'
Steadfastly, even desperately, we have been refusing to commit ourselves. But our questioner is insistent. The truth alone will satisfy her. Nothing less. At long last we gather up courage and issue our solemn pronouncement on the subject: 'Yes!'
So it is here.
'Daddy, is it a wave or a particle?' 'Yes.'
'Daddy, is the electron here or is it there?'
'Yes.'
'Daddy, do scientists really know what they are talking about?'
'Yes!' Folksonomies: questions conundrums
Folksonomies: questions conundrums
Example of an inquisitive child asking the hard questions of science.
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Hen's Teeth
Some atavisms can be produced in the laboratory. The most amazing
of these is that paragon of rarity, hen’s teeth. In 1980, E. J. Kollar and
C. Fisher at the University of Connecticut combined the tissues of two
species, grafting the tissue lining the mouth of a chicken embryo on top
of tissue from the jaw of a developing mouse. Amazingly, the chicken
tissue eventually produced tooth-like structures, some with distinct roots
and crowns! Since the underlying mouse tissue alone could not prod...An experiment from 1980 that stimulated hens to grow teeth by triggering a gene holdover from their ancient reptilian ancestors.