Living the Scientific Life
Habits, actions, and culture for living life like a scientist.
Folksonomies: enlightenment science humanism
Memes
03 JAN 2017
Trust in Truth
TRUST IN TRUTH
Understanding, accepting, and knowing how to effectively deal with reality are crucial for achieving success. Having truth on your side is extremely powerful. While the truth itself may be scary—you have a weakness, you have a deadly disease, etc.—knowing the truth will allow you to deal with your situation better. Being truthful, and letting others be truthful with you, allows you to explore your own thoughts and exposes you to the feedback that is essential for your lear...
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10 DEC 2013
Appreciate the Beauty of Wrong Ideas
Pinker tiresomely rehearses the familiar triumphalism of science over religion: “the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures ... are factually mistaken.” So they are, there on the page; but most of the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures have evolved in their factual understandings by means of intellectually responsible exegesis that takes the progress of science into account; and most of...
1 Argument that just because an idea is overcome by events, does not mean we cannot appreciate it for its elegance and beauty.
09 JAN 2013
Science Faith
Many religious believers mischaracterize naturalists as people without faith, but that is absurd. Eve^ryone must believe in something—it's part of human nature. I I have no problem acknowledging that 1 have beliefs, though they differ from more traditional kinds of faith. Naturalists must believe, first of all, that the work is understandable and that it knowledge of the world can be obtained through observation, experimentation, and verification. Most scientists don't think much about this...Scientists have faith that the world can be understood rationally.
07 MAR 2012
Sciences are Monuments Devoted to the Public Good
Moreover, the sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents. While the great men, carried to the summit of the edifice, draw and put up the higher floors, the ordinary artists scattered in the lower floors, or hidden in the obscurity of the foundations, must only seek to improve what cleverer hands have created. Each of us owes a tribute to them according to our talents, either improving what is there, or carrying society to even greater heights.
02 JAN 2012
The Mental Power of Thinking Through Chemistry
Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine feeling; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy, by obliging it to attend to facts, they like wise extend its analogies; and, though conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate end the great and magnificent objects of Nature … And hence they are wonderfully suited to the progressive nature of the human intellect … It may be said of modern chemistry, th...Become "conversant with the minute forms of things" and in a practical sense.
06 SEP 2011
Modern Explorers Must Change Their Methods
Today there remain but a few small areas on the world's map unmarked by explorers' trails. Human courage and endurance have conquered the Poles; the secrets of the tropical jungles have been revealed. The highest mountains of the earth have heard the voice of man. But this does not mean that the youth of the future has no new worlds to vanquish. It means only that the explorer must change his methods.Folksonomies: exploration adventuring
Folksonomies: exploration adventuring
If they want to venture into new realms of knowledge. Andrews may be talking about scientific methods here as a means to seeing previously explored settings with new eyes.
03 SEP 2011
Science Laws are Intrinsic, Not Heirarchical
In science, law is not a rule imposed from without, but an expression of an intrinsic process. The laws of the lawgiver are impotent beside the laws of human nature, as to his disillusion many a lawgiver has discovered. A quote from Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt about the emergent nature of scientific laws, which are not imposed from an authority, but come from within nature.
03 SEP 2011
Look for New Problems to Solve
[My father] advised me to sit every few months in my reading chair for an entire evening, close my eyes and try to think of new problems to solve. I took his advice very seriously and have been glad ever since that he did. An interesting regular mental exercise for any scientist.
01 SEP 2011
The Conclusion for All of Science
(1) I have told you more than I know about osteoporosis. (2) What I have told you is subject to change without notice. (3) I hope I raised more questions than I have given answers. (4) In any case, as usual, a lot more work is necessary.Fuller Albright's conclusion to one of his papers could stand for anything in science.
20 MAY 2011
How To Enjoy Science
But you do not have to be a scientist to experience this sort of satisfaction. Nor do you have to make a profession of science to develop scientific attitudes, which will make you a better and a happier citizen. Research in the broadest sense is more a habit of mind and a method of approach to problems than a specific technique. Certainly there is nothing esoteric about it (as I hope this book has demonstrated about clinical psychological research, at least). You can develop this sort of atti...Why let scientists have all the enjoyment?
21 APR 2011
Proper Burial for a Naturalist
I will leave a sum in my last will for my body to be carried to Brazil and to these forests. It will be laid out in a manner secure against the possums and the vultures just as we make our chickens secure; and this great Coprophanaeus beetle will bury me. They will enter, will bury, will live on my flesh; and in the shape of their children and mine, I will escape death. No worm for me nor sordid fly, I will buzz in the dusk like a huge bumble bee. I will be many, buzz even as a swarm of motor...To have one's body placed outdoors or in a shallow grave so that it make give birth to thousands of insects that feed on it.
19 APR 2011
Science Virtue and its Impact on History
So proud men have thought, in all walks of life, since Giordano Bruno was burned alive for his cosmology on the Campo de' Fiori in 1600. They have gone about their work simply enough. The scientists among them did not set out to be moralists or revolutionaries. William Harvey and Huygens, Euler and Avogadro, Darwin and Willard Gibbs and Marie Curie, Planck and Pavlov, practised their crafts modestly and steadfastly. Yet the values they seldom spoke of shone out of their work and entered their...Folksonomies: history science virtue
Folksonomies: history science virtue
Scientists prove their virtue in their actions.
19 APR 2011
The Culture of Scientists
This is the light by which the working of society is to be examined. And in order to keep the study in a manageable field I will continue to choose a society in which the principle of truth rules. Therefore the society which I will examine is that formed by scientists themselves: it is the body of scientists.
It may seem strange to call this a society, and yet it is an obvious choice; for having said so much about the workings of science, I should be shirking all our unspoken questions if I...Scientists form a culture, a virtuous culture, as Bronowki describes it.
03 JAN 2011
Always make new mistakes!
Always make new mistakes!
This is my all-time favorite rule for living. I like it so much that I use it as my sig file--the little quote that gets inserted along with my address and other coordinates at the end of each of my e-mails. I still have new mistakes to make. The challenge is not to avoid mistakes, but to learn from them. And then to go forward and make new ones and learn again. There's no shame in making new mistakes if you acknowledge and benefit from them.A good principle for life.
References
03 JAN 2017
Principles
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Dalio, Ray (2017), Principles, Retrieved on 2017-01-03Source Material [www.principles.com]
Folksonomies: management
Folksonomies: management
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10 DEC 2013
Crimes Against Humanities Now science wants to invade the...
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Wieseltier, Leon (September 3, 2013), Crimes Against Humanities Now science wants to invade the liberal arts. Don't let it happen., New Republic, Retrieved on 2013-12-10Source Material [www.newrepublic.com]
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08 JAN 2013
Anarchy Evolution
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Graffin , Greg and Olson , Steve (2011-10-18), Anarchy Evolution, Harper Perennial, Retrieved on 2013-01-08Source Material [books.google.com]
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07 MAR 2012
Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l'Académie d...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: (France) , Académie des sciences and Charles-Augustin, de Coulomb (1778), Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l'Académie des sciences, Retrieved on 2012-03-07Source Material [books.google.com]
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02 JAN 2012
Consolations in travel
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Davy , Sir Humphry and Davy , John (1830), Consolations in travel, Retrieved on 2012-01-02Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: chemists
Folksonomies: chemists
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06 SEP 2011
On the trail of ancient man: A narrative of the field wor...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Andrews , Roy Chapman (1926), On the trail of ancient man: A narrative of the field work of the Central Asiatic Expeditions, Putnam, Retrieved on 2011-09-06
Folksonomies: paleontology
Folksonomies: paleontology
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03 SEP 2011
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (Alfred P. Sloan Found...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Alvarez , Luis W. (1989-05), Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Series), Basic Books, Retrieved on 2011-09-03
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01 SEP 2011
Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: McDonald , Peter (2004-09-16), Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations, Oxford University Press, USA, Retrieved on 2011-09-01
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01 SEP 2011
Dictionary of Medical Eponyms, Second Edition
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Firkin , B.G. and Whitworth , J.A. (1996-05-15), Dictionary of Medical Eponyms, Second Edition, Taylor & Francis, Retrieved on 2011-09-01
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20 MAY 2011
The Making of a Scientist
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Roe, Anne (1974-02-04), The Making of a Scientist, Praeger, Retrieved on 2011-05-20
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21 APR 2011
My intended burial and why
Periodicals>Journal Article: Hamilton, W.D. (2000), My intended burial and why, Ethology Ecology and Evolution, 12 111-122, Retrieved on 2011-04-21
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19 APR 2011
Science and Human Values
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bronowski , Jacob (1965), Science and Human Values, Faber and Faber, Retrieved on 2011-04-19
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03 JAN 2011
Release 2.0
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Dyson, Esther (1997), Release 2.0, Broadway Books, New York, NY 10036, Retrieved on 2010-11-13
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