30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Means of Quantifying Violence
Now let’s turn to the present. According to the most recent edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2,448,017 Americans died in 2005. It was one of the country’s worst years for war deaths in decades, with the armed forces embroiled in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Together the two wars killed 945 Americans, amounting to 0.0004 (four-hundredths of a percent) of American deaths that year.57 Even if we throw in the 18,124 domestic homicides, the total rate of violent deat...Folksonomies: violence quantification
Folksonomies: violence quantification
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notes02 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Cognitive Neoteny in Modern Humans
The boy-genius can be seen as a specific instance of psychological neoteny which is apparently adaptive in modernizing cultures, and it occurred early in science because science is one of the most ‘modern’ and advanced social systems [2]. ‘Neoteny’ refers to the biological phenomenon whereby development is delayed such that juvenile characteristics are retained into maturity. It represents a relatively fast and simple way of evolving adaptations – for instance modern humans in Western Europe ...
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2 Perpetual education and change has pushed humans into a perpetual state of youthful cognition. Our brains remain childlike in order to continue to learn and adapt to our ever-changing modern environment.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Supernova the Western World Didn't See
Almost 1000 years ago, Chinese astronomers observed a new star visible in the daytime sky, which they called a “guest star.” This supernova created what we now observe telescopically as the Crab Nebula. It is interesting that nowhere in Western Europe was this transient object recorded. Church dogma at the time declared the heavens to be eternal and unchanging, and it was much easier not to take notice than to be burned at the stake. Almost 500 years later, European astronomers had broken fre... 1 notes
notesBut was recorded in China. An explanation for why it wasn't seen in Europe is that observers would probably be burned at the stake.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Time Fertile in Sciences is Scarce in Human History
For out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends, you can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences or favorable to their development. In times no less than in regions there are wastes and deserts. For only three revolutions and periods of learning can properly be reckoned: one among the Greeks, the second among the Romans, and the last among us, that is to say, the nations of Western Europe. And to each of these hardly two centuries can justl... 1 notes
notesFor out of the five and twenty centuries over which the memory and learning of men extends, you can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences or favorable to their development.
04 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Science Saves Lives
Even at its best, pre-modern medical practice did not save many. Queen Anne was the last Stuart monarch of Great Britain. In the last seventeen years of the seventeenth century, she was pregnant eighteen times. Only five children were born alive. Only one of them survived infancy. He died before reaching adulthood, and before her coronation in 1702. There seems to be no evidence of some genetic disorder. She had the best medical care money could buy.
Diseases that once tragically carried off...You can pray over a sick person, or give them medicine. All the ways medical science has reduced mortality.
29 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
The Rationale for Doomsday Chests
After the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, much of what we consider "civilization" ceased to be. Literacy, medicine, science, agriculture, engineering, astronomy, governance, all went into decline or regression for the hundreds of years which we now call "The Dark Ages".
During this period monasteries were practically the only repositories of scholarship and learning. One historian notes that monks were not only the best educated members of society, by far, but were often the only...During the Dark Ages, the Human race came precipitously close to losing all knowledge permanently when the black plague almost wiped out the scholarly religious classes.
