Archive for June, 2007
Posted in Academic Life, Extended, Philosophy, Science
June 27, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Got an email this morning from Barry Karr of CSICOP announcing that Barry Beyerstein had passed away completely unexpectedly yesterday. In Karr’s words:
Barry was a tireless defender of science. An activist who has been a staple in the media, television, newspapers, public forums for decades…He is scheduled to teach a workshop for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in Oregon later this summer – and represent us at a conference in Ireland in the fall. He traveled and lectured all over the world for us, Australia, Belgium, England, Germany, Italy, and he was part of our delegation to China.
And from his academic biography:
Barry Beyerstein is Professor of Psychology and a member of the Brain Behaviour Laboratory at Simon Fraser University. His research has involved many areas related to his primary scholarly interests: brain mechanisms of perception and consciousness and the effects of drugs on the brain and mind. His work in these areas and his interest in the philosophy and history of science have also led him to be skeptical of many occult and New Age claims. This has prompted him to investigate the scientific status of many questionable products in the areas of medical and psychological treatment, as well as a number of dubious self-improvement techniques.
I had met Barry several times, and his death is truly a terrible loss to the community of academic skeptics. I’m moving out of my apartment this week and just yesterday I packed a CD of a lecture he gave to the Skeptic’s Toolbox in 2004. I had been so impressed with his scholarship that I actually asked for a copy of his powerpoint, which I’ve never done before. That was the first time I had met him, and I was floored by how accomodating he was, making sure to hunt me down before the weekend was over to be sure I had gotten what I needed. I barely knew the man, but I remember him very well. It’s never a good day when the skeptical community loses someone as visible and vocal as Barry was, but in a world this irrational, it’s even worse. In honor of Barry, everyone go ahead and doubt something today.
Here is a link to a post by his daughter.
Posted in Comics, Extended, Science
June 24, 2007 at 12:44 pm
It’s just like scientists – so desperate to pretend god didn’t invent all this that they’ve got to steal terminology from cartoonists! Clearly a sign that science is in it with the cartoonists to make a mockery of us all (well, all the cartoonists except Scott Adams…) I love this – and I will note that the Far Side is the single most power-pointed cartoon in philosophy and science lectures that I’ve seen:
Gary Larson, creator of The Far Side, crossed over into anatomical nomenclature with a 1982 comic in which a caveman teaches a class this faux-scientific word. (Larson later joked, “Father, I have sinned—I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids together in the same cartoon.”) But when fossil evidence suggested that the dinosaur used its stego-tail as a weapon, scientists co-opted the moniker. Ken Carpenter, a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, was the first to use the term professionally, quipping, “And now, on to the thagomizer,” when describing a specimen with broken tail spikes at a 1993 meeting. These days, the word appears in reference books and museum exhibits. It’s no surprise that scientists adopted Larson’s terminology, says Carpenter. “He has a completely warped mind, which we absolutely love.”
Good stuff. Link to article at Discover Magazine.
Posted in Academic Life, Blurb, Technology
June 19, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Do you trust students to take an exam on their own computer from home or work, even though it may be easy to sneak a peek at the textbook? Or do you force them to trek to a proctored test center, detracting from the convenience that drew them to online classes in the first place? The dilemma is one reason many online programs do little testing at all. But some new technology that places a camera inside students’ homes may be the way of the future — as long as students don’t find it too creepy…. Link to CNN.com
Posted in Blurb, Democracy
June 19, 2007 at 3:01 pm
“Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced tonight that he is quitting the Republican party and changing his affiliation to independent.” Imagine a world where enough politicians actually jump ship from the 2-party system and form a viable 3rd party. What a world! (Difficulty: Joe Lieberman doesn’t count). Link
Posted in Evolution, Extended, Philosophy, Science, ethics
June 18, 2007 at 11:42 am
I’ve suspected I had some slight synaesthesia for awhile (certain stringed instruments often sharpen my visual field) and I’ve also suspected everyone is synaesthetic to some degree (I’ve seen some data that suggests the lines we draw for our five alleged senses are more arbitrary than we are led to believe, and the senses actually blur together much more than we acknowledge). But the fact that I actually feel pain when I see someone else injured (including animals and, most embarassingly, even some cartoons) was not something I expected to see a label for:
‘Mirror touch’ synaesthesia is a strange but real condition, and it might be wide-spread, psychologists have found. So-called mirror-touch synaesthetes actually feel a touch on their own skin when they watch someone else being touched. Perhaps as a consequence, they also show more emotional empathy than normal people.
Synaesthesia refers to the merging of senses that are normally experienced separately: ’seeing’ music, for example, or experiencing different colours as tastes. Jamie Ward of University College London (UCL) coined the term mirror-touch synaesthesia to describe a different type of sensory mix-up — when people confuse the brain’s signal for sensing touch with the ‘mirror system’ signal that is triggered when watching others being touched.
[...]
“There may be a lot of such people around, since they are unaware that that they have the condition. They think it is normal,” says Ward. When he started to look for people who experience mirror-touch synaesthesia, he had little trouble finding them, he says.
The more you know… Link to article at Nature.com
Posted in Blurb, Science
June 13, 2007 at 7:12 pm
“Don Herbert, who as television’s “Mr. Wizard” introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science, died Tuesday. He was 89.”… Read more. (Bad week for individuals dedicated to convincing people to use their brains).
Posted in Evolution, Extended, Philosophy, Technology
June 13, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Joshua sent me this link of a video showing a new fancy artificial finger at work.
I continue to marvel at the plasticity of the human brain that permits this man to take up intentional control of this finger without, as far as I can tell, any sort of surgery whatsoever wiring the prosthetic into his nervous system.
This, put simply, is what makes us amazing creatures. It is also what makes us WAY more complex than ever imagined.
Posted in Blurb, Philosophy
June 11, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Richard Rorty, whose inventive work on philosophy, politics, literary theory and more made him one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers, died Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 75… Read the entire obituary at the NY Times.
Posted in Atheism, Democracy, Extended, Science
June 11, 2007 at 9:29 am
I don’t think there’s a name for the feeling of complete and utter despair mixed with complete blinding rage I feel during the current political crisis and the ridiculous attempts by all politicians to deal with it:
“Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, arguing for the bill’s passage. “And that is the embryonic stem cell research.”
PZ Myers has a nice D&D-style analysis that includes a breakdown of the various parties with intelligence levels. I think he pretty obviously gets at least one of these glaringly wrong, but it’s at least a nice way of trying to cope.
Posted in Books, Media, Philosophy, literature
June 7, 2007 at 7:33 pm
“For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies… A man who loses his privacy loses everything, Sabina thought. And a man who gives it up of his own free will is a monster.” Milan Kundera… at Powells.com