23 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Invoking God to Explain Ignorance is Unproductive
Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God's handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout. ut a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when ...22 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
What People Can Achieve Grows Exponentially
The mathematics of cooperation of men and tools is interesting. Separated men trying their individual experiments contribute in proportion to their numbers and their work may be called mathematically additive. The effect of a single piece of apparatus given to one man is also additive only, but when a group of men are cooperating, as distinct from merely operating, their work raises with some higher power of the number than the first power. It approaches the square for two men and the cube fo...Folksonomies: civilization collaboration
Folksonomies: civilization collaboration
When they collaborate.
29 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Empirical Mind-Cure
There are plenty of persons to-day — “scientists” or “positivists,” they are fond of calling themselves — who will tell you that religious thought is a mere survival, an atavistic reversion to a type of consciousness which humanity in its more enlightened examples has long since left behind and outgrown. If you ask them to explain themselves more fully, they will probably say that for primitive thought everything is conceived of under the form of personality. The savage thinks tha...Science looks for empirical evidence, and religion has some empirical evidence for the positive effects of religion on the mind.