12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
The Fraud of Agriculture
Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution was a great leap forward for humanity. They told a tale of progress fuelled by human brain power.Evolution gradually produced ever more intelligent people. Eventually, people were so smart that they were able to decipher nature’s secrets, enabling them to tame sheep and cultivate wheat. As soon as this happened, they cheerfully abandoned the gruelling, dangerous, and often spartan life of hunter-gatherers, settling down to enjoy the ... 1 
notes
notes07 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
How Los Angeles Regulates Air Pollution
Los Angeles is not really a city of skyscrapers. All around those skyscrapers is a flat expanse of one- and two-story buildings. This low-density urban development means you have to drive to get around in LA. Los Angeles’ sprawl is considered a classic case of failed urban planning.Los Angeles’ sprawl is considered a classic case of failed urban planning. Its public transportation has not been developed or utilized to its fullest potential. This has caused an inevitable increase in car o... 1 notes
notesDespite increased traffic.
29 OCT 2014 by ideonexus
How to Argue with a Creationist
Nye did not win, because he was fighting the wrong war.
Nye argued like a scientist. He presented the evidence, gave logical explanations, and generally relied on demonstrable facts. He did a flawless job, but changed absolutely no-one's mind, because anyone who cares about science, reason and evidence already accepts evolution.
Ham didn't even really argue. He just riled people up for a crusade - it was the evil liberal commie atheists trying to teach satan's lies, and him and his book of ... 1 notes
notesDon't use science, use religious rhetoric.
21 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Intelligence in Animals, Humans and Machines
To build software that is deemed intelligent, it’s helpful to begin with a definition of intelligence. Intelligence can be simply defined as a set of properties of the mind. These properties include the ability to plan, solve problems, and in general, reason. A simpler definition could be that intelligence is the ability to make the right decision given a set of inputs and a variety of possible actions.
Using this simple definition of intelligence (making the right decision),
we can apply ...
1 All have shared intelligences, but some have more than one kind of intelligence. What makes humans special is that we have multiple kinds of intelligence: language communication, problem solving, kinesthetic, etc.
23 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Be Careful What You Worship
The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my de...Folksonomies: mindfulness cognizance
Folksonomies: mindfulness cognizance
Be mindful, don't accept the default settings that society constructs for us.
19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
The Death of Socrates
The burning of the Pythagorean school had already signalized the war, not less ancient, not less eager, of the oppressors of mankind against philosophy. The one and the other will continue to be waged as long as there shall exist priests or kings upon the earth; and these wars will occupy a conspicuous place in the picture that we have still to delineate.
Priests saw with grief the appearance of men, who, cultivating the powers of reason, ascending to first principles, could not but discover...Folksonomies: history philosophy
Folksonomies: history philosophy
1 notes
notesRetaliation from the priesthood.
28 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Using Santa Claus as a Teachable Moment
But as our son Connor began to exhibit the incipient inklings of Kringledoubt, it occurred to me that something powerful was going on. I began to see the Santa paradigm as an unmissable opportunity—the ultimate dry run for a developing inquiring mind.
My boy was 8 years old when he started in with the classic interrogation: How does Santa get to all those houses in one night? How does he get in when we don’t have a chimney and all the windows are locked and the alarm system is on? Why do... 1 notes
notesTell the child the fantastic story about Santa Claus, but answer their skeptical questions truthfully.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Shelley's Declaration of Rights
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.
G OVERNMENT has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being.
2 IF these individuals think that the form of government which they, or their forefathers constituted is ill adapted to produce their happiness, they have a right to change it.3 Government is devised for the security of rights. The righ... 1 notes
notesA revolutionary pamphlet on liberty.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Science Protects us from Child-Rearing Pseudoscience
We want certainty, and that leaves us open to fraud. Mothers used to lie awake listening to their babies scream because the experts said not to pick the baby up or to feed "off schedule." They might well have felt that bloodletting would have been preferable.
One benefit of knowing the science is a kind of protective skepticism. It should make us deeply suspicious of any enterprise that offers a formula for making babies smarter or teaching them more, from flash cards to Mozart tapes to Bet... 1 notes
notesLike Baby Einstein videos and doctors who say the baby should be allowed to cry alone all night.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
Limbaugh Attacks Science and Academia as
You know, folks, the two universes here -- The Universe of Lies, The Universe of Reality -- they don't overlap anymore. And this is even bigger than global warming, which was my point yesterday. It's about everything that the left is involved in. What this fraud, what the uncovering of this hoax exposes, is the corruption that exists between government and academia and science and the media. Science has been corrupted. We know the media has been corrupted for a long time. Academia has b...Folksonomies: irrationalism
Folksonomies: irrationalism
Science, academia, government, and media form four pillars of a web of lies in Limbaugh's world, while the world he describes, the world of conservative talk radio, Fox News, and Conservapedia, is reality.
