27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Our Modern Worldview and Morality is Shaped by Science
To begin with, the findings of science imply that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the genesis of the world, life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken. We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that e... 1 
notes
notes10 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Why Science and Religion are Irreconcilable
To begin with, the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the origins of life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken. We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that emerged fro...
1 Steven Pinker's critique of why "non-overlapping magesteria" doesn't work.
05 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Sociological Metaphors for the Public
Social science and philosophy have generated a vast number of other
metaphorical descriptions of the public, rooted in different and often scientific perspectives on systematicity and relation. These are technologies in the broad sense that they enable different kinds of questions to be asked. An account of these would include the public as:
A Physical System or Mass: This metaphor underwrites work in mass commu- nications and allows one to ask questions like “What is the impact of a given... 1 notes
notesMetaphors are an important means of understanding abstract concepts.
05 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Examples of Evolutionary Traps
We have altered the environment in a vast number of ways, both small and large. And when animals try to read the cues from our human environment, they can get tricked. They can end up doing something that kills them, loses them the opportunity to reproduce, or simply wastes their time. Scientists call these situations evolutionary traps.
[...]
Some evolutionary traps, like the Christmas lights, play on the visual strategies animals use to find prey. Albatrosses will peck at brightly colored...Folksonomies: evolution maladaptation
Folksonomies: evolution maladaptation
1 notes
notesFrogs that swallow christmas lights, turtles that eat plastic bags, and beetles laying eggs in timber fallen for lumber are examples of animals falling into dead ends thanks to humans altering the environment.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Lenses Supplement the Infirmities of the Senses
The next care to be taken, in respect of the Senses, is a supplying of their infirmities with Instruments, and, as it were, the adding of artificial Organs to the natural; this in one of them has been of late years accomplisht with prodigious benefit to all sorts of useful knowledge, by the invention of Optical Glasses. By the means of Telescopes, there is nothing so far distant but may be represented to our view; and by the help of Microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inq...Folksonomies: perception senses
Folksonomies: perception senses
1 Telescopes and Microscopes allow us to see what our eyes cannot.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Garden of the Night Sky
This method of viewing the galaxies (‘to continue the simile I have borrowed from the vegetable kingdom’) presented the entire universe in a new kind of light, with the most radical implications. ‘The heavens are now seen to resemble a luxuriant garden which contains the greatest variety of productions, in different flourishing beds … and we can extend the range of our experience [of them] to an immense duration.’ In a garden we may live ‘successively to witness the germination, b... 1 notes
notesA description of the variety found in the night sky through the newly invented telescope.
