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Category Archives: Science

‘Ten Commandments’ of race and genetics issued

I am not sure if I am entirely signed up to this list. I think the medical point may be wrong.
Even with the human genome in hand, geneticists are split about how to deal with issues of race, genetics and medicine.
Some favor using genetic markers to sort humans into groups based on ancestral origin – [...]

Michael Totten again, this time On the Road to Kosovo

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“Lippmann…argued in his best-selling book called Public Opinion that democracy was fundamentally flawed. People, he said, mostly know the world only indirectly, through “pictures they make up in their heads.” And they receive these mental pictures largely through the media. The problem, Lippmann argued, is that the pictures people have in their heads are hopelessly [...]

New Rules for the New Biology

Kevin kelly follows up his New Rules of the New Economy (fee online) with the beginnings of the New Rules for the New Biology. Here are items 4, 5 and 6 from the nascent list:

4) All inovations follow a one-way migration from enhancements to normalcy.
5) One person’s biological ideal is another’s horror.
6) Understanding is not [...]

Inter­actional Expertise - The dangers of parasitical experts who "know" but cannot "do"

A recent Scientific American reviews of  “Rethinking Expertise” by Harry Collins and Robert Evans got me thinking about the problem of “experts” and expert advice.
From the review:
This slim book by Harry Collins and Robert Evans offers a conceptual typology of “expertises.” The au­thors invent a plural form of the word to suggest that more [...]

Marked-up birds become sexier, exude testosterone - Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON (Associated Press) - A little strategically placed makeup quickly turns the wimpiest of male barn swallows into chick magnets, amping up their testosterone and even trimming their weight, new research shows. It’s a “clothes make the man” lesson that — with some caveats — also applies to human males, researchers say.
Using a $5.99 marker, [...]

Futurist Ray Kurzweil Sees a Revolution Fueled by Information Technology - NYTimes.com

Ray Kurzweil’s has a plan for upgrading the “suboptimal software” in your brain . From the New York Times:
Do you have trouble sticking to a diet? Have patience. Within 10 years, Dr. Kurzweil explained, there will be a drug that lets you eat whatever you want without gaining weight.
Worried about greenhouse gas emissions? Have faith. [...]

Michael Totten on Belgrade and Serbia

This post is a about Michael Totten’s report “A Dark Corner of Europe” Part 1. You need to read this article for this post to make sense. Michael Totten’s article is mostly very good article, and I, perhaps unfairly, am focussing only on the negatives here.
Michael Totten is a great independent journalist who I [...]

Freddy Hagen on Cairo Megacity

Freddy Hagen is an extraordinarily talented Danish photographer.
Recently he returned from a trip to the Middle East and has uploaded some slide shows.
One in particular is a must see, Cairo Megacity. It is a slide show with music and both the music and photographs are utterly beautiful.

His other slide shows are also superb. Don’t miss [...]

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Please watch this powerful and beautiful short speech by Jill Bolte Taylor about how she came to observer her own stoke as it happened, and how it transformed her life.

TED | Talks | Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight (video)

Cultural insights

In March 2003, social psychologist Richard Nisbett published his groundbreaking book “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why“, which challenged the received wisdom that all human groups perceive and reason in the same way. He came to the conclusion, based mostly on observation and social psychology studies,  that Asians and Westerners
“Have [...]