30 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
Specialization is for Insects
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. 1 
notes
notes27 APR 2013 by ideonexus
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child rem...Folksonomies: science spirituality
Folksonomies: science spirituality
1 Examples of how such a person can provide comfort and consolation.
09 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Life is an Act of Endless Creativity
Life is an act of endless creativity. With all its simmering tragedy and occasional catastrophe, a human life is an amazing thing to contemplate and experience. None of us had any special plan laid out for us when we were born. By abandoning the idea that and say, "What's done is done. Now how can I make the best of the here and now?" Life is never static. Despite catastrophic tragedies, life has persisted in evolving new varieties of unimaginable forms. I find comfort in the narrative of evo... 1 notes
notesWhen we create, we are part of the story.
09 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is Conservative
A discovery in science, or a new theory, even when it appears most unitary and most all-embracing, deals with some immediate element of novelty or paradox within the framework of far vaster, unanalysed, unarticulated reserves of knowledge, experience, faith, and presupposition. Our progress is narrow; it takes a vast world unchallenged and for granted. This is one reason why, however great the novelty or scope of new discovery, we neither can, nor need, rebuild the house of the mind very rapi... 1 notes
notesIt only reveals a very narrow part of reality, and we must accept that we cannot understand most of it, but we can know more and more.
28 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Religion has Much to Offer Parents
Religion has much to offer parents: an established community, a predefined set of values, a common lexicon and symbology, rites of passage, a means of engendering wonder, comforting answers to the big questions, and consoling explanations to ease experiences of hardship and loss. But for most secularists, these benefits come at too high a price. Many feel that intellectual integrity is compromised, the word “values” too often turned on its head, an us-versus-them mentality too often reinf... 1 notes
notesBut the community and comfort comes at too high a cost for many secularists.
09 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Pursuit of Knowledge Comes from Being Free
For it is owing to their wonder that men now both begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of wonders)...Folksonomies: pursuit of knowledge
Folksonomies: pursuit of knowledge
1 notes
notesFrom Aristotle's "Metaphysics". We pursue science not for Utilitarian ends, but for itself.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The Taung Child's Horrible Demise
The
first Australopithecine to be discovered, and the type specimen of the genus, was the so-called
Taung Child. At the age of three and a half the Taung Child was eaten by an eagle. The evidence is
that damage marks to the eye sockets of the fossil are identical to marks made by modern eagles on
modern monkeys as they rip out their eyes. Poor little Taung Child, shrieking on the wind as you
were borne aloft by the aquiline fury, you would have found no comfort in your destined fame, two
and ...Killed by a bird of prey.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
We Must Apply the Scientific Method to Ourselves
If it is to be applied consistently, science imposes, in exchange for
its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden: we are enjoined, no
matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and
our cultural institutions scientifically and not to accept uncritically
whatever we're told; to surmount as best we can our hopes,
conceits and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really
are. Can we conscientiously and courageously follow planetary
motion or bacterial genetics wherever th... 1 notes
notesSkepticism must extend to ourselves, our culture, and our institutions.
