Wake up early on Sunday and catch “”Choice In Dying,” Eric MacDonald on Atheists Talk #117″
Continue reading “Choice In Dying,” Eric MacDonald on Atheists Talk #117
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Ladies, the guys didn’t get their jet packs, but you’all got your electronic catalogs!
Wow. And no keyboards!
OK, gotta go. You wouldn’t believe how many messages I have to deal with on my electronics correspondence machine thingie.
What really happened …
Continue reading Ladies, the guys didn’t get their jet packs, but you’all got your electronic catalogs!
“The Revolution will Not be Televised” Scott Heron Died Friday
Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949. He spent his early years in Jackson, Tenn., attended high school in The Bronx, and spent time at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University before settling in Manhattan. His recording career began in 1970 with the album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, which featured the first version of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” The track has since been referenced and parodied extensively in pop culture.
Want a brain, Moran?
It is easy to make fun of other people with whom we disagree, but when it comes down to it, how do we really know when we are being smart about something vs. getting it all wrong? Gut feeling? Our friends agree with us? Some smart person tells us what to think? This is a problem that as plagued humanity since the first time anyone tried to establish ground rules for leaving flint chips around the camp where our unshodden Neanderthals brothers and sisters, who came by to visit now and then, would step on them1.
Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing
The book is a culmination of Schwartz and Sharpe’s long-time academic collaboration on the contemporary, everyday applications of Aristotelian practical wisdom, based on knowing what needs to be done in ethical dilemmas and acting upon this knowledge for the greater good. The book cites modern-day successes of practical wisdom in health care, education and the legal system.
Aristotle is more relevant than ever today, according to Schwartz, as the “more heterogeneous society becomes, the harder it is to come up with rules that work for all people and all situations.” Wise qualities such as empathy, patience and self-integrity must guide modern professional and personal ethics, instead of an overreliance on rules.
The “wisdom deficit” in the modern age, he contends, lies in the “combination of excessive reliance on rules and incentives and a collective cynicism or embarrassment when it comes to talking about virtue.” Rules and incentives have only propagated overly bureaucratic, inefficient social institutions that discourage professionals from sympathizing and practicing personal discretion.
The reason I bring this up now is because Skeptically Speaking #114 is going to be an interview of the authors.
What exactly is “wisdom,” and how can we apply it in our daily lives? We’re joined by Barry Schwartz, Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, and Kenneth Sharpe, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College. They’ll discuss their new book Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do The Right Thing. And we’re joined by Brendan O’Brien, to learn about :60 Second Science, the international science video competition.
This show records live on Sunday, May 29 at 6 pm MT. Email your questions now, or join the discussion on Sunday! The podcast will be available to download at 9 pm MT on Friday, June 3.
And don’t forget, a few days after that, on Sunday morning, Desiree and I will sit down on Atheist Talk Radio to hammer out some of the differences between skeptical and atheist factions in how to approach, well, skepticism and atheism.
110 points to anyone who can identify the literary allusion I’ve made here!
Japan Nuclear Disaster Update 25: Elderly could build cooling system; radiation release and exposure concerns; fuel storage tank may collapse.
It is possible that the bottom will fall out of the Fukushima Reactor 4 spent fuel tank. Efforts are being made to shore up the concrete structure. There is no longer any doubt that those mysterious holes hypothesized, seen or not see, in some of the reactor vessels are for real. It is now established that three of the reactors at Fukushima melted down within hours of the earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO is going back and forth on whether or not any of the main reactor machinery was damaged in the quake. It may be that the hydrogen explosions were preventable had standard procedures been followed. There has been no progress since our last update on developing medium or long term cooling solutions. Radioactive water continues to suddenly disappear now and then, presumably as it leaks in an uncontrolled manner to the sea. Parents of children in the area are peeved that the “safe” radiation levels set for said children are the same as full-grown full-blown nuclear power plant workers. There are calls for increased study and sampling of radiation are coming from a variety of sources. Cattle and other livestock are being moved out of the area, contaminated dairy cattle sent to slaughter for food, and veterinary scientist are asking to commandeer or purchase cattle and other animals in the area to exploit a unique opportunity to study radioactive livestock.
Ana’s Feed
Aaron Koblin: Artfully visualizing our humanity
No Way Home
When wildebeest, such as those famous for crossing the Mara River in Tanzania during their annual migration, run into a crocodile or some other danger it is often the first time they’ve seen that particular thing. This is because most wildebeest don’t live very long so many are on their very first migration. One wonders what would happen if you killed all of the wildebeest migrating in a particular year and set new ones out on the landscape to take their place. Would the migration continue?
Continue reading No Way Home
NASA will probe moon
NASA is going to send two probes to the moon, later this summer. They are called “GRAIL” which stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory. They will orbit the moon in an effort to determine the structure of its interior. They will be launched by a Delta II rocket some time between early September and mid October, depending on the usual factors.
The plan is to generate a highly accurate gravitatoial map of the moon.
The high-resolution gravitational field, especially when combined with a comparable-resolution topographical field, will enable scientists to deduce the Moon’s interior structure and composition, and to gain insights into its thermal evolution–that is, the history of the Moon’s heating and cooling, which opens the door to understanding its origin and development.
My impression is that if you really compared what we know about the Moon’s origin to what we know about various other cosmic issues, it’s kinda embarrassing. The Moon’s origin is a bit up in the air, as it were.
A unique feature of this mission is that NASA wants the two GRAIL probes to fly in precise formation. This has never been attempted before. Also, the probes will carry a camera that will be operated entirely Middle School students. I’m not sure how many Middle School students they are sending up with the camera.
Bird Migration and Global Change
I’m going to have more to say about this topic and this book at a later time, but I wanted to get a notice of it out for Migration Week. Bird Migration and Global Change
This is an authoritative and scholarly book that is totally accessible to the interested bird-oriented or climate/conservation-oriented audience. After several very important context and theory chapters, the author divides the world’s migratory birds into major categories (such as “Northern Hemisphere Land Birds: Short-distance Migrants” and “Land Birds of the Temperate Souther Hemisphere” etc. etc. and treats each group separately. Each treatment is a review of scholarly work and data, and presents arguments about the way bird populations will be affected that range from concerning to downright alarming. Yet, this is not an alarmist book, simply a fair treatment of the problem.
Each chapter will give you something to think about, some data to play with, and a list of source material in case you need more.
Motivation, IQ, and the great intelligence debate
Congratulations for Almost Diamonds and Quiche Moraine blogger Stephanie Zvan for her brand new Guest Post at Scientific American.
The Politics of the Null Hypothesis
… Nothing about the field of IQ studies is free of political influence. It’s naive to believe that any kind of research on a purported measure of individual merit could be politics-free in a self-proclaimed meritocracy with wide inequalities. …
Are all these tornadoes being caused by global warming?
People are asking me: Is the recent spate of tornadoes caused by global warming? The usual answer to that question is that you can’t answer the question because a tornado is not caused by climate … it is cause by weather … and global warming (which is real, and which is cause by humans) is climate change.
However, that is not really the best answer to the question. Ultimately, I want to propose an analogy for how to think about this question, but first, a stab at a good answer, which if modified could probably be improved:
Continue reading Are all these tornadoes being caused by global warming?
It is done: Spirit will RIP on the Martian surface
The last communication from the Mars Rover Spirit was on March 22, 2010. A few moments ago NASA announced that there would be no more attempts to contact the space robot after a transmission that will end on May 25th.
It is suspected that Spirit’s internal circuitry was damaged by very low temperatures experienced during the Martian winter. While it was hoped that solar panels would allow heaters to bring the robot back to life, this apparently has not happened. The resources that would be needed to continue what seems to be a fruitless attempt at communication are now needed elsewhere. According to NASA,
Engineers’ assessments in recent months have shown a very low probability for recovering communications with Spirit. Communications assets that have been used by the Spirit mission in the past, including NASA’s Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth, plus two NASA Mars orbiters that can relay communications, now are needed to prepare for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission. MSL is scheduled to launch later this year.
Please turn off your cell phone
Or else there will be … consequences.
Continue reading Please turn off your cell phone
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’ll write you a Rapture-check
It didn’t really occur to me that anyone actually believed that the world was going to end the other day. Honestly. I had assumed that some crazy preacher made the claim, that it was being used to scam the gullible here and there, but that almost no one was really taking it seriously. But, in reading a few of the post-Rapture updates, this is clearly not the case. And, I’m sure that this is one of those things everybody else knew and that I was blissfully ignorant of.
Continue reading Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’ll write you a Rapture-check
Minneapolis Tornado Update: Info, Sad News, and the Politics of Race
Two pieces of sad news, some useful information, and a personal note (well, more of a political note).
First, the useful information. For those of you affected or busy passing information to those who are, the City of Minneapolis has set up this web page with information: Resources available for North Side residents affected by tornado
Sad item one: There has been a second death, related to the cleanup. Details.
Sad item two: After passing through one of the more urban areas of Minnesota, the north side of the City of Minneapolis, the tornado crossed the Mississippi River, which includes a fair amount of rather wild country. And there, within the boundaries of the city but along the river, it struck and destroyed the local Great Blue Heron rookery. Details of this event are provided by BirdChick who is also the conservation officer who discovered the damage. Read: Minneapolis Heron Rookery Destroyed By Tornado
Finally, I just want to extend my good thoughts and kudos to Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak. Here’s what you need to know: If you don’t live in North, but you live in the Twin Cities, then you know of North as a dangerous slum, a blighted African American neighborhood where there are frequent shootings, arsons, kidnapping, and where the police gather in clusters wearing bullet proof vests and carrying big-ass firearms, just in case. Most of these stereotypes are held and passed around by people who’s families fled North a generation ago, to the newly minted suburbs, or who have never been there, mainly out of fear.
Well, North does include a good proportion of the African American population of the city, and it also does include something close to half of the crime that happens in the city, and it is where you will, in fact, find a good number of any sort of events commonly noted on the local evening news happening. But that is because it is, well, about half of the city. North Minneapolis is quite large, and North does not include any of the la-la-shi-shi upper middle class and wealthy neighborhoods (which are in South) and it does not include the University Campus (which is in South and Southeast) and it does not include downtown (which is neither North nor South, by our local nomenclature), so North defaults, statistically, to something close to the average. It is actually a diverse area with all sorts of people living in it (not that tornado victims have to be “diverse” to be our sisters and brothers in need). Despite the obnoxious remarks made by local readers on the WCCO news reporting web pages about the tornado, in which people actually referred to the tornado as appropriate Karma for those living on the dole in Section Eight Housing, I’d wager that the majority of homes destroyed or damaged in this event were working class owner-occupied. And, I quickly add, do we really want to throw people who rent under the bus in a society in which people who own have almost single handedly destroyed our housing market with unchecked greed married to unmitigated ignorance? I don’t think so.
The other night the local new station, especially Fox 9 but to some extent the others as well, breathlessly reported widespread looting in North Minneapolis. They showed the owner of a liquor store saying “well, you know how it goes … unprotected property, and this is what they will do” wink wink nod nod. They showed clusters of Minneapolis police standing around with big scary looking long-guns and other weapons, donning their bullet proof vests, and looking tough.
In response to this, the mayor came out and made it clear that there was NOT widespread looting in the city. There were a couple of incidents. They were managed. What really happened was this: Everybody in the affected area took a look around them and immediately tried to do what they could do to help their neighbors. Yes, the news mentioned that as well, but they sullied the sense of community with their sensationalist reporting of non-events. And RT had the balls to set them straight. Thanks for that, RT.