25 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Exercise Nourishes Organs
As an organ is exercised, circulation is more particularly directed to it and is more readily performed in it. Consequently, all its secretions and excretions increase. The more an organ is exercised, the more it is nourished. Folksonomies: exercise
Folksonomies: exercise
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notesMy increasing circulation to them.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
St. Augustine on Christian Explanations for Origins
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, t... 1 notes
notesRemarkably insightful statement from 426 AD about how Christians look foolish when they try to apply the literal interpretation of Genesis to the natural world.
24 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Beginnings of the Theory of Evolution
From thus meditating on the great similarity of the structure of the warm-blooded animals, and at the same time of the great changes they undergo both before and after their nativity; and by considering in how minute a portion of time many of the changes of animals above described have been produced; would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold t... 1 notes
notesErasmus Darwin sees evolution, demonstrating the idea of evolution was prevalent at the time; Darwin simply figured out an algorithm for what made it happen.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
A Clock Stopped at the Moment Feynman's Wife Died
Sometimes we can actually pin down the explanation of a weird coincidence. A great American scientist called Richard Feynman tragically lost his wife to cancer, and the clock in her room stopped at precisely the moment she died. Goose-pimples! But Dr Feynman was not a great scientist for nothing. He worked out the true explanation. The clock was faulty. If you picked it up and tilted it, it tended to stop. When Mrs Feynman died, the nurse needed to record tl the time for the official death ce... 1 notes
notesBut he traced the phenomenon to a faulty mechanism in the clock that triggered when the nurse picked it up to record the time of death.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Working with a Black Box Problem and Star Trek
The job of computer scientists, of course, is to design the programs that let electronic computers accomplish those impressive feats of thinking and knowing. The computer scientists have to figure out how to make programs that get to the right kind of output from the right kind of input. But our job as cognitive psychologists is rather different and even harder. We are more like archaeologists than engineers.
Actually, it's a familiar Star Trek story. We have landed on a planet that already... 1 notes
notesWhen we are exploring a black box, we are like the archaeologists in Star Trek.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
How To Enjoy Science
But you do not have to be a scientist to experience this sort of satisfaction. Nor do you have to make a profession of science to develop scientific attitudes, which will make you a better and a happier citizen. Research in the broadest sense is more a habit of mind and a method of approach to problems than a specific technique. Certainly there is nothing esoteric about it (as I hope this book has demonstrated about clinical psychological research, at least). You can develop this sort of atti...
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1 Why let scientists have all the enjoyment?
17 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Commercial Culture is Full of Misdirections and Evasions
T.H. Huxley's formulation was
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.
Clement, Hume, Paine and Huxley were all talking about religion. But much of what they wrote has more general applications - for example to the pervasive background importunings of our commercial civilization: there is a class of aspirin commercials in which acto... 1 notes
notesCarl Sagan reviews the silly rhetoric in medicine commercials.
19 APR 2011 by ideonexus
The Culture of Scientists
This is the light by which the working of society is to be examined. And in order to keep the study in a manageable field I will continue to choose a society in which the principle of truth rules. Therefore the society which I will examine is that formed by scientists themselves: it is the body of scientists.
It may seem strange to call this a society, and yet it is an obvious choice; for having said so much about the workings of science, I should be shirking all our unspoken questions if I...Scientists form a culture, a virtuous culture, as Bronowki describes it.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Death is Not a Law of Biology
It is one of the most remarkable things that in all of the biological sciences there is no clue as to the necessity of death. If you say we want to make perpetual motion, we have discovered enough laws as we studied physics to see that it is either absolutely impossible or else the laws are wrong. But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. This suggests to me that it is not at all inevitable, and that it is only a matter of time before the biologists ...There is no law of biology that says things have to die.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Science Must Confront Religion
The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right so long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue that I needed to understand the problem. As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from modern society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their ow... 1 notes
notesSo long as it doesn't, it can be ignored--but Feynman might be wrong about this.
