21 NOV 2017 by ideonexus
Being Geek from Outcast to Success Story
More than just a hipster fashion statement where big glasses, tight suits, and high-water pants are the norm, the black geek phenomenon normalizes all things formally couched as geeky. Science lovers, space dreamers, comic book fans, techies, or anyone who relishes super-high-level analysis just for the fun of it could be a geek, according to conventional wisdom. Today, such interests are cool, functional, and often necessary—or at least there's a larger world where those of like minds can ... 1 
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notes10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
The Case for the Gamified Classroom
Gamified instruction empowers students to own their learning.
Students who learn in a gamified classroom have a better capacity for persistence.
Gamified instruction helps students develop a capacity for selfdirection.
Gamified classrooms impart critical social skills.
Gamification of learning enables students to build and sustain learning communities.
Gamified instruction is inherently democratic and meritocratic and hence encourages risk taking.
Gamified instruction helps students maintain ...Folksonomies: education gamification
Folksonomies: education gamification
1 notes
notes02 SEP 2016 by ideonexus
Gamification: Ability-Based Challenge
In a study of what makes video games so captivating, the key element was found to be variable ability-based challenge for players. Th e most popular games took players through increasingly challenging levels as they became more and more skillful. As skill improved, the next challenge motivated new mastery to just the right extent such that the player could reach the next goal with practice and persistence. Th e most motivating video games are ones in which players make the correct move about ...Folksonomies: gamification
Folksonomies: gamification
1 notes
notes05 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
We Need to Take into Account Evolutionary Traps
Human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC; e.g., climate change or exotic species) has caused global species declines. Although behavioral plasticity has buffered some species against HIREC, maladaptive behavioral scenarios called ‘evolutionary traps’ are increasingly common, threatening the persistence of affected species. Here, we review examples of evolutionary traps to identify their anthropogenic causes, behavioral mechanisms, and evolutionary bases, and to better forecast form... 1 notes
notesWhen we modify the environment. In order to do that, we must better understand these traps.
25 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Natural Selection in Humans is Going Strong
The frequent allegation that the selective processes in the human species are no longer 'natural' is due to persistence of the obsolete nineteenth- century concept of 'natural' selection. The error of this view is made clear when we ask its proponents such questions as, why should the 'surviving fittest' be able to withstand cold and inclement weather without the benefit of fire and clothing? Is it not ludicrous to expect selection to make us good at defending ourselves against wild beasts wh...Folksonomies: evolution cultural evolution
Folksonomies: evolution cultural evolution
1 notes
notesJust because we use cultural innovations to outwit nature doesn't mean we aren't still evolving.
23 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Problems Encountered While Walking Along the Street
If you walk along the street you will encounter a number of scientific problems. Of these, about 80 per cent are insoluble, while 191/2 per cent are trivial. There is then perhaps half a per cent where skill, persistence, courage, creativity and originality can make a difference. It is always the task of the academic to swim in that half a per cent, asking the questions through which some progress can be made. 1 notes
notes80 percent are insoluble, 19.5 percent are trivial, and 0.5 percent require hard work to solve and that is the realm of the academic.
10 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Patience, Attentiveness, and Thoroughness are Naturalist ...
Each branch of natural history
study demands its special abilities: the superior ear of
the birdwatcher, the attention to minute detail of the
entomologist, the courage of the herpetologist wading
into swamps full of poisonous snakes. But some “field
skills” are nearly ubiquitous. Perhaps the most
important are patience, perseverance, thoroughness
and attentiveness. The birdwatcher searching for that
one rare gull on a pond among seven hundred
common ones may have to watch for hours in bi... 1 notes
notesWithout them the naturalist would miss the rarities in nature.
10 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
A Response to Leopold's Description
The passage shows how different aspects of
virtue connect. Patience is part intellectual virtue, part
moral virtue and part physical virtue, as it is portrayed
here. The humility which allows Leopold to lie down
in the muck unselfconsciously is a moral virtue, but
humble recognition of our own ignorance is also a key
intellectual virtue, as Socrates so often reminds us
(see also William Beebe’s description of the ideal
naturalist quoted earlier). Humility also makes
possible Leopold’s aes...
1 Cafaro sees a great deal of virtue in a naturalist's description of getting muddy to witness nature and appreciate it.
18 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
How Greek Civilization Came Together
The development of objective thinking by the Greeks
appears to have required a number of specific cultural
factors. First was the assembly, where men first learned to
persuade one another by means of rational debate. Second
was a maritime economy that prevented isolation and parochialism.
Third was the existence of a widespread Greekspeaking
world around which travelers and scholars could
wander. Fourth was the existence of an independent merchant
class that could hire its own teachers. Fifth... 1 notes
notesAnd it only happened once.
