12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
Human Myth-Making is Crucial to Modern Society
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it important? After all, 1 
notes
notes09 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
The HANDY Model is Based On Predator-Prey Cycles
As indicated above, Human And Nature DYnamics (HANDY) was originally built based on the
predator-prey model. We can think of the human population as the predator", while nature
(the natural resources of the surrounding environment) can be taken as the prey", depleted by
humans. In animal models, carrying capacity is an upper ceiling on long-term population. When
the population surpasses the carrying capacity, mechanisms such as starvation or migration bring
the population back down. However, ... 1 notes
notes02 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Cognitive Neoteny in Modern Humans
The boy-genius can be seen as a specific instance of psychological neoteny which is apparently adaptive in modernizing cultures, and it occurred early in science because science is one of the most ‘modern’ and advanced social systems [2]. ‘Neoteny’ refers to the biological phenomenon whereby development is delayed such that juvenile characteristics are retained into maturity. It represents a relatively fast and simple way of evolving adaptations – for instance modern humans in Western Europe ...
2 
2 Perpetual education and change has pushed humans into a perpetual state of youthful cognition. Our brains remain childlike in order to continue to learn and adapt to our ever-changing modern environment.
07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Why the Pioneer Anomaly is Worth Investigating
In the short run, knowing the gravitational constant to one more decimal digit of precision or placing even tighter limits on any deviation from Einstein's gravitational theory may seem like painfully nitpicking detail. Yet one must not lose sight of the "big picture." When researchers were measuring the properties of electricity with ever more refined instruments over two hundred years ago, they did not envision continent-spanning power grids, an information economy, or tiny electrical signa... 1 notes
notesThe effect is tiny, but magnified over great distances, and if we are meticulous now, we make it possible for future generations to traverse the solar system.
03 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Ways to Understand Male Sexuality
There are five ways to find out. One is to study modern people directly and describe what they do as the human mating system The answer is usually monogamous marriage. A second way is to look at human history and divine from our past what sexual arrangements are typical of our species. But history teaches a dismal lesson: A common arrangement from our past was that rich and powerful men enslaved concubines in large harems. A third way is to look at people living in simple societies with Ston... 1 notes
notesDifferent ways to understand where human males fall along the sexual spectrum.
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.
