“One of the biggest falsehoods I’ve encountered is that skeptics can’t tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in my culture who can’t handle mystery—not even a tiny bit [...]]]> Interesting article by a woman who has made the conversion from metaphysical healer to thoughtful skeptic.

“One of the biggest falsehoods I’ve encountered is that skeptics can’t tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in my culture who can’t handle mystery—not even a tiny bit of it. Everything in my New Age culture comes complete with an answer, a reason, and a source. Every action, emotion, health symptom, dream, accident, birth, death, or idea here has a direct link to the influence of the stars, chi, past lives, ancestors, energy fields, interdimensional beings, enneagrams, devas, fairies, spirit guides, angels, aliens, karma, God, or the Goddess.”

“Send thousands of robots. Little robots – cheap ones that are disposable. More robots than NASA can manage. … “Instead of some guy or another walking on Mars, how about this: ‘Hey kids of Middlevale Elementary, our class has booked off Mars Swarm Unit 213.3 for the rest of [...]]]> Now THIS is an inspired space policy.

“Send thousands of robots. Little robots – cheap ones that are disposable. More robots than NASA can manage. …
“Instead of some guy or another walking on Mars, how about this: ‘Hey kids of Middlevale Elementary, our class has booked off Mars Swarm Unit 213.3 for the rest of May. We’ll be directing the explorations of an actual robot on Mars.’

‘You mean we get to drive an actual Mars robot?!’”

Imagine how awesome if would be if you could “play” NASA. Log in, pick a robot and start exploring Mars (or the Moon, or an asteroid, or Venus). Make the space program a gaming platform; instead of Second Life we can all play Mars Life.

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Makes me wonder what those Icelandic women were up to to cause the volcano.

Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orvaratli/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Some really nice big images at the Boston Globe.

The Wikipedia page updates the event as info rolls in.

Images from NASA.

CC Bruce McAdam

CC Ulrich Latzenhofer

I think the headline of this article is way off: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020. This isn’t about implanting chips into your brain. If there must be an implant it will probably be more like an RFID VeriChip [...]]]> Intel is saying that we’ll regularly be using brainwaves to control our computers by 2020.

I think the headline of this article is way off: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020. This isn’t about implanting chips into your brain. If there must be an implant it will probably be more like an RFID VeriChip than a Gibsonian wetware hookup.

My guess is that some sort of hat-like apparel will be the default control for those interested in using brainwaves to control their computer ecology. Thinking cap anyone?

Presumably something like the Hitachi brain-machine interface pictured above will be miniaturized and woven into a cap.

What I want to know is when it will start recording my dreams for playback the next day?

“Hard ‘science’ — Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and all variants thereto — begins humbly. [...]]]> Big Picture blogger, economist, CEO, pundit, and all-around capitalist Barry L. Ritholtz gives one of the best definitions of science I’ve seen in awhile on his Big Picture blog. In this post on the hubris of Economics Ritholtz roundly criticizes mainstream economists.

“Hard ‘science’ — Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and all variants thereto — begins humbly. They try to describe the universe around us by creating theories, and then testing them. These theorems are always preliminary. Even when testing validates them, Science is always prepared — even eager — to replace them with newer theories that are proven to be even more valid.

“The humility of science begins with an admission: We know nothing. We seek to learn through experiment and logic, and constantly evolve more and more accurate explanations. Scientific belief evolves gradually over time. Nothing is assumed, presumed, or hypothesized as true. Indeed, research is a presumption that current theories are inadequate or incomplete. The practice of science is a an ongoing search for better explanations, more proof, further verification — for Truth.

“Science is the ultimate ‘show me’ state.

“Economics has a somewhat, shall we call it, less rigorous approach. Indeed, the arrogance of economics is that it is the polar opposite of Science. It begins with a few basic assumptions, many of which are obviously untrue; some are demonstrably false.

“No, Mankind is not a rational, profit maximizing actor. No, markets are not perfectly, or even nearly, efficient. No, prices do not reflect the sum total of all that is known about a given market, sector or stock. Those of you who pretend otherwise are fools who deserve to have your 401ks cut in half. That is called just desserts. The problem is that your foolishness helped cut nearly everyone else’s 401ks in half. That is called criminal incompetence.”

Guest poster George Washington of Washington’s Blog posting at Naked Capitalism agrees, but goes even farther (is it further or farther, I always forget, one is distance and one is time; if only there was some simple way I could resolve questions like this, like perhaps some gigantic database with terabytes of information, and a search function that, using special algorithms, could quickly provide a relatively reliable answer, oh well) in their criticism -

“But I would go further in my criticism of the economic profession by arguing that the decisions to use faulty models was an economic and political choice, because it benefited the economists and those who hired them.”

This from pioneering scientist, attorney general, philosopher, and poet Lord Francis Bacon.

When Bacon learned about the European discovery of the lands in the western hemisphere, he wrote The New Atlantis (1627) where he imagined a nation that gave greater rights to women, abolished slavery, eliminated debtors’ prisons, separated church and state, and provided freedom [...]]]> More poetry!

This from pioneering scientist, attorney general, philosopher, and poet Lord Francis Bacon.

When Bacon learned about the European discovery of the lands in the western hemisphere, he wrote The New Atlantis (1627) where he imagined a nation that gave greater rights to women, abolished slavery, eliminated debtors’ prisons, separated church and state, and provided freedom of religious and political expression.

Bacon also introduced a new way of thinking about the natural world. Instead of positing a theory and locating facts to support it, Bacon argued that one must start with facts, divide those facts into three categories (“instances of the presence of the characteristic under investigation, instances of its absence, or instances of its presence in varying degrees”), then reject the theories of the natural world that do not fit the facts. Bacon’s philosophy served as a cornerstone of the scientific method that developed in the decades after his death.

According to Bacon, there are four “idols” that obstruct clear, rational thinking. The idol of the tribe is the belief that preconceived notions of your place and time are correct and do not need analysis. The idol of the cave is allowing your personal likes and dislikes to interfere with your reasoning. The idol of the marketplace is confusing the meaning of words; presuming that the vernacular meaning and the technical meaning is precisely the same, for example. The idol of theater is relying on conclusions that were achieved using faulty methods or schools of analysis.

Life

The World’s a bubble, and the Life of Man
Less than a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb
So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest,
What life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
To dandle fools:
The rural parts are turn’d into a den
Of savage men:
And where’s a city from foul vice so free,
But may be term’d the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband’s bed,
Or pains his head:
Those that live single, take it for a curse,
Or do things worse:
Some would have children: those that have them, moan
Or wish them gone:
What is it, then, to have, or have no wife,
But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
Is a disease:
To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Peril and toil:
Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
We are worse in peace;—
What then remains, but that we still should cry
For being born, or, being born, to die

I know! What if we did a survey asking people with [...]]]> Hmmm, if there was only some way to cut through the BS, the politics, the hyperbole, the astroturf, and the inexpert opinion about climate change. Where can we turn to find out what real climate scientists really think about the human influence on climate change?

I know! What if we did a survey asking people with advanced degrees in climate science, who publish more than half of their research in peer-reviewed journals dealing with climatology what they think! Oh wait, someone did that in January of this year. The result?

90% say the overall average temperature went up over the course of the twentieth century, and 82% agree that this is a result of human activity.

In fact, as the above chart shows, the more time you spend professionally studying the earth’s climate the more likely you are to agree that humans are increasing the temperature of the globe.