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Riz Khan - Science and Religion - Dec 16 - Part 1
Riz Khan - Science and Religion - Dec 16 - Part 2
According to the Vatican, human life is sacred from the moment that it is an embryo. But critics accuse the church of trying to stop technological innovations and life-saving medical breakthroughs in its new document " Dignitas Personae".
Riz Khan - Science and Religion - Dec 16 - Part 2
really cool.
Dec. 1st, 2008 04:13 pmHow it feels to have a stroke
Jared Diamond: Why societies collapse
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
Jared Diamond: Why societies collapse
Why do societies fail? With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana, Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how -- if we see it in time -- we can prevent it.
Via: Carnival of the Elistist Bastards
Next Einstein.org is his website.
Education, research and economic development: A lesson for America
A bit paternalistic, god knows, but good intentions. And they've got a youtube.com channel here
Here are some graduates of the program:
AIMS student Ousmane on science and sustainable development
AIMS alum Hind on the hope she found at AIMS
There's more there.
Neil Turok: 2008 TED Prize wish: An African Einstein
Neil Turok works on understanding the universe’s very beginnings. With Stephen Hawking, he developed the Hawking-Turok instanton solutions, describing the birth of an inflationary universe -- positing that, big bang or no, the universe came from something, not from utter nothingness.
Recently, with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton, Turok has been working on a cyclic model for the universe in which the big bang is explained as a collision between two “brane-worlds.” The two physicists recently cowrote the popular-science book Endless Universe.
In 2003, Turok, who was born in South Africa, founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Muizenberg, a postgraduate center supporting math and science. His TED Prize wish: Help him grow AIMS and promote the study and math and science in Africa, so that the world's next Einstein may be African.
Later on in 2008, Turok was named the Executive Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Ontario, Canada.
"To me this seems like one of the most fundamental questions in science, because everything we know of emerged from the Big Bang. Whether it's particles or planets or stars or, ultimately, even life itself."Neil Turok, interviewed on Edge.com
Next Einstein.org is his website.
Education, research and economic development: A lesson for America
A bit paternalistic, god knows, but good intentions. And they've got a youtube.com channel here
Here are some graduates of the program:
AIMS student Ousmane on science and sustainable development
Ousmane, an AIMS student from Burkina Faso, was convinced by his family that the only way to face poverty was through education. After receiving a BA and MA in physics, he became a high school teacher to save money for further education. Ousmane began AIMS in 2006 and now plans to get an MA and PhD in water engineering. His ultimate goal is to return to home to work toward the sustainable development of his country, as both a practitioner in the field and as a lecturer at a water institute.
AIMS alum Hind on the hope she found at AIMS
Hind, born in Central Sudan to a family of eight, happened upon AIMS in a unique way. While studying mathematical science at the University of Khartoum, she picked up a paper her colleague had been using as a fan, only to discover it was an AIMS advertisement. There were only three days to the deadline but she applied and was accepted. In AIMS she found a home full of people from diverse backgrounds, lecturers that did not teach answers but rather how to think about solving problems, and hope to pursue her dreams.
There's more there.
Palin the ignoramus.
Oct. 25th, 2008 01:26 amFrom Daily Kos
Do you understand now why we know Creationists are complete dumplings?
For many parents of children with disabilities, the most valuable thing of all is information. Early identification of a cognitive or other disorder, especially autism, can make a life-changing difference.Damn those earmarks! Wasting good money on fruit fly research:
Palin claimed that the amount that Congress spends on earmarks "is more than the shortfall to fully fund IDEA." She then ridiculed some of the projects — such as "fruit fly research" — saying they have little or no value:Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? [...] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.
[S]cientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for..nerve cell connections to form and function correctly.Oh. Never mind.
The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.
Do you understand now why we know Creationists are complete dumplings?
Crossing the Divide
Mar. 7th, 2008 01:30 amCROSSING THE DIVIDE
Like others who have rejected creationism and embraced evolution, paleontologist Stephen Godfrey is still recovering from the traumatic journey
SOLOMONS, MARYLAND - On a clear January day, Stephen Godfrey is dressed for fossilhunting: frayed baggy jeans, a puffy green vest, and a leather jacket that's seen better times. A paleontologist and curator at the modest Calvert Marine Museum here, Godfrey frequents the nearby Calvert Cliffs, which rise from the shoreline of Chesapeake Bay and hold everything from ancient shark teeth to dolphin skulls. "You start collecting them because, well, they're beautiful," he says of his beloved fossils.
It was the study of fossils that, 25 years ago, set Godfrey on an anguished path. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian family in Quebec, Canada, embracing a 6000-year-old Earth where Noah's flood laid down every fossil, Godfrey began probing the underpinnings of creationism in graduate school. The inconsistencies he found led step by step, over many years, to a staunch acceptance of evolution. With this shift came rejection from his religious community, estrangement from his parents, and, perhaps most difficult of all, a crisis of faith that endures.
Powerful emotions bind together young- Earth creationists, members of a movement making inroads from Kenya to Kentucky, where a $27 million Creation Museum opened last year. Scientists and educators have responded mainly by boosting biology's place in the classroom and building rational arguments for evolution. But reason alone is rarely enough to sway believers. That's because letting go of creationism carries enormous emotional risks, including a loss of identity and community and an agonizing, if illusory, choice: science or faith. People like Godfrey tend not to advertise their painful transition from creationist to evolutionist, certainly not to scientific peers. When doubts about creationism begin to nag, they have no one to turn to: not Christians in their community, who espouse a literal reading of the Bible and equate rejecting creationism with rejecting God, and not scientists, who often dismiss creationists as ignorant or lunatic.
"Nothing else I have done in my life has made me such an outsider," says Brian Alters, director of McGill University's Evolution Education Research Centre in Montreal. Alters has written books on teaching evolution and testif ied in the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania, trial against bringing intelligent design—a form of creationism— into the classroom. But few of his friends or his enemies know that Alters, who had a fundamentalist Christian upbringing in southern California, rejected creationism in college. More than 2 decades later, he says, "I still have childhood friends and relatives who won't speak to me."
Rest here
Like others who have rejected creationism and embraced evolution, paleontologist Stephen Godfrey is still recovering from the traumatic journey
SOLOMONS, MARYLAND - On a clear January day, Stephen Godfrey is dressed for fossilhunting: frayed baggy jeans, a puffy green vest, and a leather jacket that's seen better times. A paleontologist and curator at the modest Calvert Marine Museum here, Godfrey frequents the nearby Calvert Cliffs, which rise from the shoreline of Chesapeake Bay and hold everything from ancient shark teeth to dolphin skulls. "You start collecting them because, well, they're beautiful," he says of his beloved fossils.
It was the study of fossils that, 25 years ago, set Godfrey on an anguished path. Raised in a fundamentalist Christian family in Quebec, Canada, embracing a 6000-year-old Earth where Noah's flood laid down every fossil, Godfrey began probing the underpinnings of creationism in graduate school. The inconsistencies he found led step by step, over many years, to a staunch acceptance of evolution. With this shift came rejection from his religious community, estrangement from his parents, and, perhaps most difficult of all, a crisis of faith that endures.
Powerful emotions bind together young- Earth creationists, members of a movement making inroads from Kenya to Kentucky, where a $27 million Creation Museum opened last year. Scientists and educators have responded mainly by boosting biology's place in the classroom and building rational arguments for evolution. But reason alone is rarely enough to sway believers. That's because letting go of creationism carries enormous emotional risks, including a loss of identity and community and an agonizing, if illusory, choice: science or faith. People like Godfrey tend not to advertise their painful transition from creationist to evolutionist, certainly not to scientific peers. When doubts about creationism begin to nag, they have no one to turn to: not Christians in their community, who espouse a literal reading of the Bible and equate rejecting creationism with rejecting God, and not scientists, who often dismiss creationists as ignorant or lunatic.
"Nothing else I have done in my life has made me such an outsider," says Brian Alters, director of McGill University's Evolution Education Research Centre in Montreal. Alters has written books on teaching evolution and testif ied in the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania, trial against bringing intelligent design—a form of creationism— into the classroom. But few of his friends or his enemies know that Alters, who had a fundamentalist Christian upbringing in southern California, rejected creationism in college. More than 2 decades later, he says, "I still have childhood friends and relatives who won't speak to me."
Rest here
The Story of the Earth Made Easy
Mar. 6th, 2008 12:38 amWarning:This video is from an atheistic point of view
The Age of our Earth Made Easy
Mar. 6th, 2008 12:36 amWarning: This is from an atheistic point of view.
The Origin of Life Made Easy
Mar. 6th, 2008 12:30 amI should warn that this is from a definite atheistic point of view.
History of the Universe Made Easy Part 1&2
Mar. 6th, 2008 12:27 amOh youtube, how I love thee! Warning:These videos are from an atheistic point of view.
I'm gonna need the pope to shut up now
Feb. 1st, 2008 09:37 pmand turn his attention to properly dealing with pedophile priests. Back off science, back off atheists and back off his fellow Christians too. Here's his latest:
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL3189220620080131?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=22&sp=true
I want John Paul 11 back. Seriously.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL3189220620080131?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=22&sp=true
I want John Paul 11 back. Seriously.
Science vs Faith Flowchart
Jan. 3rd, 2008 02:51 pm
I love the breakdown of the breakdown of the scientific way of doing things...
