07.29.10
At the altar of capitalism
‘Sacrificed Its Soul at the Altar of Capitalism’: The US Town That Outsourced Everything
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1635?akid=125.96588.eAqMfd&t=6
Water, sanitation as rights
UN Declares Water, Sanitation as Human Rights
http://act.commondreams.org/go/1634?akid=125.96588.eAqMfd&t=4
Darwin evangelism kit
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/07/evaluating_natures_2009_15_evo036991.html: Evaluating Nature’s 2009 “15 Evolutionary Gems” Darwin-Evangelism Kit
Wikileaks fund
RG mail
Press release: Legal Fund Established to Fight Imprisonment of Accused
WikiLeaks Whistleblower
Read the rest of this entry »
Time left (on earth)
Former environment minister Michael Meacher on the place of humanity in
the universe, intelligent design, the survival of the human race, Gaia
theory and uncertainties over climate change
http://www.theecologist.org/Interviews/545088/michael_meacher_mp_humans_only_have_200300_years_left_on_earth.html
by Tom Levitt
theecologist.org (July 22 2010)
Read the rest of this entry »
07.28.10
More on Times article re: free will
More on Free Will article
The author finds this reasearch frightening. Why? I find it the usual scientific predatory fundamentalism trying to debunk man, and that is a form of domination, a will to power.
Scientists really hate humanity because it won’t enslave easily, although it can be hypnotized without much trouble. Convincing you that you have no free will hasn’t quite succeeded yet, but they are getting there.
Scientists can make fun of religionists, but they can at best reach a stalemate with Kant. So study Kant here.
I would be the fist to admit the free will question is confused, but I think scientists are as confused as the proponents of free will.
You cannot resolve this question using scientific methods, because those methods are studies in causal analysis, and such studies eliminate free will by definition at the first step.
Those who claim free will should be prepared to study a figure like Kant who is honest and won’t allow causal issues to go away. His framework doesn’t fully answer the question, because it is a work in progress.
But his perspective (which, btw, is challenged by Schopenhauer) demands an aspect to the self that is not in space and time, and therefore not causal.
Scientists will never buy into such a thing. So follow the science game here, but don’t be bamboozled.
This research cited is silly. So what? And it is not even about man.
Free will is an abstraction. The question is, how do we observe the degrees of self-consciousness at moments of will and/or free will?
Note that discussion is too abstract. Free will could not likely be continuous.
And the issue of will and consciousness forgets the classic distinction of consciousness and self-consciousness.
And that real moments of will often spring from the unconscious, that is, the self-consciousness. So this experiment is beside the point.
In general, defining terms, and observing facts of psychology has never gotten off the ground, so what to say of scientists jumping to conclusions with tricky experiments. Nonsense.
Kant can be helpful here because he shows the complexity of the issue, which religionists neglect.
And he reminds us that the real mind/self is veild by a noumenal boundary that is unknowable.
Don’t be swindled by tough guy science jocks who will exploit this fact to see only the machine.
Read the rest of this entry »
Donkey ancestors
Ancient DNA Identifies Donkey Ancestors, People Who Domesticated ThemScienceDaily (July 28, 2010) — Genetic investigators say the partnership between people and the ancestors of today’s donkeys was sealed not by monarchs trying to establish kingdoms, but by mobile, pastoral people who had to recruit animals to help them survive the harsh Saharan landscape in northern Africa more than 5,000 years ago.
Babe
Can You Ask a Pig If His Glass Is Half Full?
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2010) — Babe may be the most famous sensitive pig in the world but new research from Newcastle University suggests he is by no means the only one.
Note to Suzan Mazur
Altenberg 16 con men?
From a (revised) note to Suzan Mazur, which readers here might consider:
Thanks for the link, and I put it on my blog.
But I am wondering at this point what is going on? I have been putting links up to this Altenberg story for two years, with what result?
Pigliucci will sabotage his own book and attack someone who tried to help. Worth keeping in mind who these people are, and why biologists are apparently a lost cause.
I don’t mind posting these links, quite the contrary, it’s grist for my mill here at Darwiniana. But I have given the impression, one I must correct, that I am some sort of fan of this Altenberg group. I am not.
They had a huge opportunity and they chickened out. Not surprising. They could lose their jobs.
But I think you should figure out at this point that you have been had by this group. Not just Pigliucci.
My humble effort with the eonic effort is far superior to the timid baloney offered by these ‘revolutionaries’, despite their knowledgeability concerning biological detals. There is a ‘metaperspective’, that of world history, and it shows up something remarkable, and beyond genetics, which is obsessing everyone. It might help to see why conventional biology is not likely to get evolution straight, ever. Certainly not human evolution.
Here’s some advice for readers here: look again at my material on World History and the Eonic Effect to see where all these hypsters, Darwinian, and supposedly Postdarwinian are going wrong. The treatment by Pigliucci of Mazur was unfair, outrageously so, but if you expect these academic timeservers to produce a paradigm shift on Darwinism disappointment is inevitable. Darwinism is too valuable to the control process by elites, and the dummies with PHD’s are powerless here.
The material on the eonic effect might look speculative, and it does have controversial aspects, but it is basically an empirical outline of world history, and shows all the pieces of the puzzle in one place, and we can see at once where all these biologists are going wrong. The eonic effect material is not another theory, but an outline of an evolutionary sequence in action, a real one. We can get a glimpse of the real thing.
It is based on the realization that real ‘evolution’ happens so fast that we would never really see it in deep time, thus the theories like those of natural selection which try to hide our real ignorance.
All these snob scientists preening their feathers are a bunch of assholes, and you
It needs an outsider, and someone outside the science hype, to deal with evolution at this point, despite the need for specialized knowledge also. As we can see the ‘experts’ are not going to stop the public deception. Pigliucci shows that he will shoot his own foot off before he will take on the Darwin estab.
end message (revised)
I will elaborate on this later, but it is worth realizing these stuck up shits in academia don’t even want help from outsiders. They want to pontificate from on high, as a priesthood of science.
Let’s figure out how to do our own science.
Altenberg 16 con men??
Pigliucci Deceit Drags Publisher Into Big Muddy
By Suzan Mazur
Mazur discusses the outrageous treatment of her book in Pigliucci’s book.
My review of Pigliucci book
The question is sad because it seems the Altenberg 16 are a bunch of con-men. The expectation of some kind of paradigm motion in the Darwin dogma camp was grossly betrayed.
Oetzi the iceman
Iceman’s DNA may reveal ties to today’s humans, scientists say
Oetzi the Iceman, first discovered in the Alps in 1991, now can be studied in more detail. Researchers say they may be able to understand the connection between 5,000-year-old diseases and modern ones.
Dawkins and human/chimp hybrid
Richard Dawkins, Human Exceptionalist!, Calls Us, “Earth’s Last Best Hope”
Flouride and Prozac?
Furor over fluoride hard to swallow
The debate over fluoride is not transparent, and has been confused by crackpots. But the case against it should be made, after all its chemistry resembles Prozac. In your water?
Nanoparticle and imaging
Multifunctional Nanoparticle Enables New Type of Biological Imaging
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2010) — Spotting a single cancerous cell that has broken free from a tumor and is traveling through the bloodstream to colonize a new organ might seem like finding a needle in a haystack. But a new imaging technique from the University of Washington is a first step toward making this possible.
Steering a wheelchair by sniffing
Invention Enables People With Disabilities Communicate and Steer a Wheelchair by SniffingScienceDaily (July 27, 2010) — A unique device based on sniffing — inhaling and exhaling through the nose — might enable numerous disabled people to navigate wheelchairs or communicate with their loved ones. Sniffing technology might even be used in the future to create a sort of ‘third hand,’ to assist healthy surgeons or pilots.
Native-Like Spider Silk
Native-Like Spider Silk Produced in Metabolically Engineered Bacteria
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2010) — Researchers have long envied spiders’ ability to manufacture silk that is light-weighted while as strong and tough as steel or Kevlar. Indeed, finer than human hair, five times stronger by weight than steel, and three times tougher than the top quality man-made fiber Kevlar, spider dragline silk is an ideal material for numerous applications. Suggested industrial applications have ranged from parachute cords and protective clothing to composite materials in aircrafts. Also, many biomedical applications are envisioned due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability.
Mammoth wind turbines
Engineers race to design world’s biggest offshore wind turbines
British firm to design mammoth offshore wind turbines with 275m wingspan that produce three times power of standard models
Outsourcing everything
Published on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 by The Independent/UK
The US Town That Outsourced Everything
The authorities in Maywood decided on a drastic approach to their budget deficit – sack every municipal worker
by Guy Adams
Running on Fumes
Deaf, Dumb and Blind
US Treasury is Running on Fumes
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07282010.html
The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks’ release of the Afghan War Documents “puts the lives of our soldiers and our coalition partners at risk.”
Climate and capitalism/July 27
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
http://climateandcapitalism.com
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/CandC-FaceBook
Read the rest of this entry »
Chomsky
mxmail
Criticism of Chomsky: Asset or Liability?
by Jeremy R. Hammond
July 24, 2010
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/07/24/criticism-of-chomsky-asset-or-liability/all/1
Government Vastly Undercounts Defaults
http://chronicle.com/article/Many-More-Students-Are-Defa/66223/
July 11, 2010
Many More Students Are Defaulting Than Official Tallies
By Kelly Field
The share of borrowers who default on their student loans is
bigger than the federal government’s short-term data suggest, with
thousands more facing damaged credit histories and millions more
tax dollars being lost in the long run.
According to unpublished data obtained by The Chronicle, one in
every five government loans that entered repayment in 1995 has
gone into default. The default rate is higher for loans made to
students from two-year colleges, and higher still, reaching 40
percent, for those who attended for-profit institutions.
Octopuses intelligent
gnxp
In the wild and in the lab, octopuses exhibit remarkable behavior that hints at sophisticated intelligence. Should they be treated differently from other animals?
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/are_octopuses_smart/
Babies and smog
gnxp
A study in Krakow, Poland, corroborates New York City findings that link children’s lower IQ scores with mothers’ exposure to compounds created by burning fossil fuels
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=urban-air-pollutants-can-damage-iqs-before-babys-first-breath
Prayer and drinking
Surprising insights from the social sciences
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/25/how_prayer_prevents_drinking/
__._,_.___
Stone tools and hands
gnxp
It took millions of years for our hands to go from grasping tree limbs to writing poetry. And scientists believe that making stone tools helped propel that evolution
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128676181
Whales: a sense of smell
gnxp
Bowhead whales have a previously undiscovered ability to smell the air
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8844000/8844443.stm
Gender and science studies
gnxp
Women aren’t properly represented in scientific studies
http://www.slate.com/id/2261297/
The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers
gnxp
A new study found students with better teachers learned more in kindergarten — and earned more as young adults
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/business/economy/28leonhardt.html
__._,_.___
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »