19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Death is Not Assured
The organic perfectibility or deterioration of the classes of the vegetable, or species of the animal kingdom, may be regarded as one of the general laws of nature.
This law extends itself to the human race; and it cannot be doubted that the progress of the sanative art, that the use of more wholesome food and more comfortable habitations, that a mode of life which shall develope the physical powers by exercise, without at the same time impairing them by excess; in fine, that the destruction...
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1 Through perpetual improvement through the sciences, humans may not ever attain immortality, but we may extend our lives indefinitely.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Brain's the Thing
I consider the differences between man and animals in propensities, feelings, and intellectual faculties, to be the result of the same cause as that which we assign for the variations in other functions, viz. difference of organization; and that the superiority of man in rational endowments is not greater than the more exquisite, complicated, and perfectly developed structure of his brain, and particularly of his ample cerebral hemispheres, to which the rest of the animal kingdom offers no pa... 1 
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notesThat contains all our operations and distinguishes us from the other animals.
17 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
The Third Blow to Man's Ego
In the course of centuries the naïve self-love of men has had to submit to two major blows at the hands of science. The first was when they learnt that our earth was not the centre of the universe but only a tiny fragment of a cosmic system of scarcely imaginable vastness... the second blow fell when biological research destroyed man's supposedly privileged place in creation and proved his descent from the animal kingdom and his ineradicable animal nature… But human megalomania will have suff...Not the center of the Universe, not above the animals, and now not even in control of his own mind.
07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Aliens to Humans as Humans to Chimpanzees
know what you're thinking: we're smarter than bacteria.
No doubt about it, we're smarter than every other living creature that ever walked, crawled, or slithered on Earth. But how smart is that? We cook our food. We compose poetry and music. We do art and science. We're good at math. Even if you're bad at math, you're probably much better at it than the smartest chimpanzee, whose genetic identity varies in only trifling ways from ours. Try as they might, primatologists will never get a chim... 1 notes
notesIf small genetic differences separate us from our closest evolutionary relative, then alien brains could easily be vastly superior to ours
09 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Look at the Total Form
If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal kingdom an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the study of man. For no one can look at the elements of the human frame—blood, flesh, bones, vessels, and the like—without much repugnance. Moreover, when anyone of the parts or structures, be it which it may, is under discussion, it must not be supposed that it is its material composition to which attention is being directed or which is the object of the discussion, but ra... 1 notes
notesAristotle from "Parts of Animals". Appears to be arguing that the parts of a biological being do not matter, but rather the animal in totality.
29 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Altricial Versus Precocial Infants
Not all babies are the same. Human babies are rather helpless, interested mostly in food, sleeping, eating, defecating, and comfort. Compare human babies with newborn deer. When fawns are born, they immediately stand up and soon are able to run away from danger. Scientists call these two types of babies in the animal kingdom altricial and precocial. Altricial infants are born helpless, usually after a short gestation or pregnancy, and their brains tend to be not quite finished. Precocial babi... 1 notes
notesTwo evolutionary strategies for animal infants, born ready versus born helpless but capable of growing into a more advanced state ultimately.
