Tag: Science

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt


Is our relentless quest for economic growth killing the planet? Climate scientists have seen the data – and they are coming to some incendiary conclusions.

what Werner is doing with his modelling is different. He isn’t saying that his research drove him to take action to stop a particular policy; he is saying that his research shows that our entire economic paradigm is a threat to ecological stability. And indeed that challenging this economic paradigm – through mass-movement counter-pressure – is humanity’s best shot at avoiding catastrophe.

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt


Is our relentless quest for economic growth killing the planet? Climate scientists have seen the data – and they are coming to some incendiary conclusions.

what Werner is doing with his modelling is different. He isn’t saying that his research drove him to take action to stop a particular policy; he is saying that his research shows that our entire economic paradigm is a threat to ecological stability. And indeed that challenging this economic paradigm – through mass-movement counter-pressure – is humanity’s best shot at avoiding catastrophe.

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

Horror Scope – Libra 28th September


Someone will give you a million dollars today.

You just need to find which continent they are on.

Good luck!

libra 2

Horror Scope – Libra 27th September


Today the weather will be happening everywhere.

Look, it’s happening now, seeping under the door and through the windows.

There is no escape from The weather.

The Weather!

libra 2

In Search Of the Congo Dinosaur


There is always something new coming out of Africa. Herodotus, fifth century B.C.Perhaps the most exciting prospect for the world of creation science is the possibility that dinosaurs may still be living in the remote jungles of the world. Evolution and its accompanying necessity of long ages of evo

I never thought that I’d read anything that would make me want a creationist to be correct. I have been proved wrong. This is that thing.

Find those dinosaurs!!!

Saddle them!

Ride them to Kansas!!

In Search Of the Congo Dinosaur

In Search Of the Congo Dinosaur


There is always something new coming out of Africa. Herodotus, fifth century B.C.Perhaps the most exciting prospect for the world of creation science is the possibility that dinosaurs may still be living in the remote jungles of the world. Evolution and its accompanying necessity of long ages of evo

I never thought that I’d read anything that would make me want a creationist to be correct. I have been proved wrong. This is that thing.

Find those dinosaurs!!!

Saddle them!

Ride them to Kansas!!

In Search Of the Congo Dinosaur

Horror Scope – Libra 26th September


Today is going to be so awful I just can’t give you any details.

Even thinking about what’s going to happen is making me feel nauseous.

Good luck!
libra 2

Horror Scope – Libra 25th September


You’re going to get fired today.
Don’t worry, though, because after lunch you will be hired as a taxidermist.
You will be a really terrible taxidermist.

libra 2

Horror Scope – Libra 24th September


Today every question you ask will be answered with a question. This will frustrate you and make you wish you had never got out of bed. Best day of the week, isn’t it?

libra 2

Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics | Simons Foundation


Physicists have discovered a jewel-shaped geometric object that challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature.

This may be at the heart of everything. Pulsating. Or doing something that doesn’t even have a verb.

THAT. DOESN’T. EVEN. HAVE. A. VERB. TO. DESCRIBE. IT.

Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics | Simons Foundation

Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics | Simons Foundation


Physicists have discovered a jewel-shaped geometric object that challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature.

This may be at the heart of everything. Pulsating. Or doing something that doesn’t even have a verb.

THAT. DOESN’T. EVEN. HAVE. A. VERB. TO. DESCRIBE. IT.

Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics | Simons Foundation

MOMA – black and white (2013)


IMG_1937

DO YOU SENSE HOW ALL THE PARTS OF A GOOD

PICTURE ARE INVOLVED WITH EACH OTHER, NOT

JUST PLACED SIDE BY SIDE? ART IS A CREATION

FOR THE EYE AND CAN ONLY BE HINTED AT WITH

WORDS.

 


I love this. I love this real hard:

“If dragons, in fact were entirely mythological, if they were figment of imagination – if they never ever did exist then God just compared our adversary to a make believe creature that never existed.”

Yes. Yes he did.

Funny that…


I love this. I love this real hard:

“If dragons, in fact were entirely mythological, if they were figment of imagination – if they never ever did exist then God just compared our adversary to a make believe creature that never existed.”

Yes. Yes he did.

Funny that…

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

The Decline of the Humanities—and Civilization


Humanities professors bear responsibility for the crisis of their profession.

The headline is a little cataclysmic and yet it seems we are letting the sciences, which are to be loved and cherished, squash the more nebulous importance of the humanities. Life is an organ of chaos – it feeds off everything. It feeds off inquiry, dreams and analysis, off observation and imagination.

Do not make us choose because in choosing we will have amputated a part of ourselves whichever choice we make.

The experience of millions of people seeking living contact with the arts (largely conceived) should wake us up to a central fact: Most people need and want the arts in their lives. Our civilization may now be so coarsened that we will eliminate the humanities from our schools, and we will train citizens only for technical skills which give them no sense of what they are living for, or why. But if that happens, the humanities will continue to flow elsewhere, into unofficial forums, and people will flow with them to satisfy their needs for song and story, for explanation, for the drama of seeking and making sense. The unofficial academy will become the real academy where the arts and philosophy and history survive. And where we try to remember what it is to be fully human. But in that case, we shall also have suffered a massive loss, and it remains a serious question whether a democratic society could survive such a collapse in values, and the quest for values. That quest, ever renewed, is the province of the humanities, and it is at risk.

The Decline of the Humanities—and Civilization

The Decline of the Humanities—and Civilization


Humanities professors bear responsibility for the crisis of their profession.

The headline is a little cataclysmic and yet it seems we are letting the sciences, which are to be loved and cherished, squash the more nebulous importance of the humanities. Life is an organ of chaos – it feeds off everything. It feeds off inquiry, dreams and analysis, off observation and imagination.

Do not make us choose because in choosing we will have amputated a part of ourselves whichever choice we make.

The experience of millions of people seeking living contact with the arts (largely conceived) should wake us up to a central fact: Most people need and want the arts in their lives. Our civilization may now be so coarsened that we will eliminate the humanities from our schools, and we will train citizens only for technical skills which give them no sense of what they are living for, or why. But if that happens, the humanities will continue to flow elsewhere, into unofficial forums, and people will flow with them to satisfy their needs for song and story, for explanation, for the drama of seeking and making sense. The unofficial academy will become the real academy where the arts and philosophy and history survive. And where we try to remember what it is to be fully human. But in that case, we shall also have suffered a massive loss, and it remains a serious question whether a democratic society could survive such a collapse in values, and the quest for values. That quest, ever renewed, is the province of the humanities, and it is at risk.

The Decline of the Humanities—and Civilization

“Ridiculous pseudo-science garbage”: Meet the GOP’s environment leaders!


How do the 8 Republicans who sit on the Senate Environment Committee feel about climate change? We break it down

Can you say fucking insane?

“Ridiculous pseudo-science garbage”: Meet the GOP’s environment leaders!

“Ridiculous pseudo-science garbage”: Meet the GOP’s environment leaders!


How do the 8 Republicans who sit on the Senate Environment Committee feel about climate change? We break it down

Can you say fucking insane?

“Ridiculous pseudo-science garbage”: Meet the GOP’s environment leaders!

Scientists discover the molecule responsible for causing feelings of depression


Scientists have used one of the world’s most powerful X-ray machines to identify the molecule responsible for feelings of stress, anxiety and even depression
This is a fascinating article but I am always dubious when the major source is a
study, conducted by drug company Heptares Therapeutics, was published in the Nature journal on 17 July.
Who exactly are Heptares Therapeutics? Let’s take a look at their website: http://www.heptares.com/company/
It seems that they are a commercial company who have succesfully monetized the research of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK) and the National Institute of Medical Research (London, UK).
That’s fine, everyone should be allowed to make a profit but it seems that Heptares have a great deal riding on the fact that there is a single molecule that causes depression because, it seems, that they have the cure.
I would hope that the cure for depression is as simple as described and is also affordable for everyone.
Given my experience of my own destructive depression I wish that more than anything.
However I’ve discovered that life is sometimes a little more complicated.
So if a story appears in which there is only one source quoted by various newspapers in one newspaper about some miracle wondercure then there is probably something more insidious going on.
Apologies for my cynicism.

Scientists discover the molecule responsible for causing feelings of depression

Scientists discover the molecule responsible for causing feelings of depression


Scientists have used one of the world’s most powerful X-ray machines to identify the molecule responsible for feelings of stress, anxiety and even depression
This is a fascinating article but I am always dubious when the major source is a
study, conducted by drug company Heptares Therapeutics, was published in the Nature journal on 17 July.
Who exactly are Heptares Therapeutics? Let’s take a look at their website: http://www.heptares.com/company/
It seems that they are a commercial company who have succesfully monetized the research of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK) and the National Institute of Medical Research (London, UK).
That’s fine, everyone should be allowed to make a profit but it seems that Heptares have a great deal riding on the fact that there is a single molecule that causes depression because, it seems, that they have the cure.
I would hope that the cure for depression is as simple as described and is also affordable for everyone.
Given my experience of my own destructive depression I wish that more than anything.
However I’ve discovered that life is sometimes a little more complicated.
So if a story appears in which there is only one source quoted by various newspapers in one newspaper about some miracle wondercure then there is probably something more insidious going on.
Apologies for my cynicism.

Scientists discover the molecule responsible for causing feelings of depression

Culture of Illusion – These Ideas Are Almost Certainly Wrong.


Immanuel Velikovsky was a psychiatrist and scholar with many theories about the formation of the world and The Solar System. One of his most controversial theories was that Venus was an expelled part of Jupiter.

He was vilified and castigated by the mainstream science community.

The great Carl Sagan argues here that the worst aspects about this whole affair were:

That some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas.

As he says:

Science is a self-correcting process.

It is easy to see how ludicrous Velikovsky’s ideas are now but

The suppression of ideas may be common in religion or in politics but it is not the path to knowledge.

Would that there were more like Carl Sagan.

I share this simply because it is a good way to approach the world. With a rigorous spirit of intellectual curiosity willing to interrogate each and every idea. To dismiss them when they are found to be unsupportable. To embrace them when they are built on the firm foundations of observation and the scientific method.

That is all.

Culture of Illusion – Human Obsolescence.


I don’t like to seem negative, and I love the scope of this, yet the first thing I thought was:

CUT TO ROBOT FOOT CRUSHING HUMAN SKULL ON EXPANSIVE WASTELAND OF THE FUTURE.

That is all.

I really need to work on this technophobia that I’ve developed recently.

Culture of Illusion – The Entropic March towards Chaos.


The fact that we are all going to die and the Universe is going to crumble into meaningless dust should be an ultimately depressing and soul-crushing idea. However, Brian Cox makes it sound beautiful and poetic.