There can be an infinite number of polygons, but only five regular solids. Four of the solids were associated with earth, fire, air and water. The cube for example represented earth. These four elements, they thought, make up terrestrial matter. So the fifth solid they mystically associated with the Cosmos. Perhaps it was the substance of the heavens. This fifth solid was called the dodecahedron. Its faces are pentagons, twelve of them. Knowledge of the dodecahedron was considered too dangerous for the public. Ordinary people were to be kept ignorant of the dodecahedron. In love with whole numbers, the Pythagoreans believed that all things could be derived from them. Certainly all other numbers. | |
So a crisis in doctrine occurred when they discovered that the square root of two was irrational. That is: the square root of two could not be represented as the ratio of two whole numbers, no matter how big they were. “Irrational” originally meant only that. That you can’t express a number as a ratio. But for the Pythagoreans it came to mean something else, something threatening, a hint that their world view might not make sense, the other meaning of “irrational”. | |
— Carl Sagan | |
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On This Day In: | |
2020 | The Butterflies Are In Trouble |
2019 | The Deep Center |
2018 | Oh, Heaven (Too) |
2017 | Now Pausing Makes Sense |
2016 | Just Spicy |
Only One Part | |
2015 | Positive Acts Of Creation |
2014 | One Thing Is Clear |
2013 | Corrections |
See Greatness | |
2012 | Gemutlichkeit |
2011 | Back On The Asphalt |
Posts Tagged ‘Science’
But That’s Certainly Irrational
Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Carl Sagan, Cosmos, Dodecahedron, Irrational Numbers, Philosophy, Polygons, Pythagoreans, Quotes, Regular Solids, Science on February 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Emergent Novelty
Posted in Education, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, Serendipity and Chaos, tagged Discovery, Novelty, Philosophy, Quotes, Science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn PhD on February 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »
The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around. He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly. Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong. | |
— Thomas S. Kuhn | |
From his book: “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“ | |
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On This Day In: | |
2020 | A Steep Price Ahead |
Möbius | |
2019 | Eureka! |
2018 | Learning About My Humanity |
2017 | Laugh Or Shake Your Head |
2016 | The Expected Cure |
2015 | Of Two Minds |
2014 | Pride And Remembrance |
2013 | Repeating Bad Memories |
2012 | No Sooner |
2011 | Just Cheesy! |
Are You Illin’? | |
Is Science Cumulative?
Posted in Education, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Philosophy, Quotes, Science, The Rule Of Scientific Development, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn PhD on January 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Cumulative acquisition of unanticipated novelties proves to be an almost non-existent exception to the rule of scientific development. The man who takes historic fact seriously must suspect that science does not tend toward the ideal that our image of its cumulativeness has suggested. Perhaps it is another sort of enterprise. | |
If, however, resistant facts can carry us that far, then a second look at the ground we have already covered may suggest that cumulative acquisition of novelty is not only rare in fact but improbable in principle. Normal research, which is cumulative, owes its success to the ability of scientists regularly to select problems that can be solved with conceptual and instrumental techniques close to those already in existence. | |
— Thomas S. Kuhn | |
From his book: “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“ | |
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On This Day In: | |
2020 | Where #45 Is Leading The Republican Party |
2019 | Your Own Blog Posts |
The Man With A Code | |
2018 | Choose Goodness |
2017 | Developing Translations |
2016 | Think Like A Hero |
2015 | Reductionism |
2014 | Gravitation, n. |
2013 | Ups And Downs |
2012 | Nerd Heard – And Good-Bye |
Your Continuum | |
2011 | Career Tips (Part 2) |
Democracy, Pandemic, Economy And Climate Change
Posted in Economics, Environment, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged #46, Carl Sagan, Economics, Paris Agreement, Paris Climate Accords, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science on January 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »
In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. | |
— Carl Sagan | |
[An Inauguration and rejoining the Paris Climate Accords are just a start. — KMAB] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2020 | Hoping For #46 In January 2021 |
2019 | Interesting, But Not Fascinating |
But Try To Eat The Low-Hanging First | |
2018 | Me, Too |
2017 | Apt Enough? |
2016 | Now Or Ever |
21, Pause, Restart | |
2015 | I Am Shocked, Sir, Shocked… |
Lucy & FSND-2 | |
2014 | Less Difficult |
2013 | The Spirit Of Liberty |
2012 | The Essential Freedom Of Aloneness |
2011 | A Problem Of Scale |
Fred Doesn’t Live Here Anymore | |
2010 | Another Book, Another Jog… |
(Hopefully) Good-Bye To The Trump Dark Ages
Posted in Education, Faith, History, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Carl Sagan, Darkness, Faith, History, Philosophy, Politics, Prayers, Predicting The Future, Quotes, Science, Superstition, United States on January 20, 2021| 1 Comment »
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. | |
— Carl Sagan | |
[Perhaps, having seen the corruption and malevolence of the Trump Administration, the next four years can see the beginning of an American renaissance… I hope so. As I prayed four years ago: “I may not agree with all (or any) of this President’s policies, but I pray he makes America a better place.” Hopefully #45 was the “just” the darkness before the new day’s dawn. KMAB] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2020 | Posting As A Continual Exercise |
2019 | Border Security – Yes, Border Wall – No |
2018 | Supporting Survival Values |
2017 | Inauguration Day 2017 [Sometimes, I hate it when I’m right! — KMAB] |
2016 | Or A Pot Of Gold After The Storm |
2015 | One, Two, Three… |
2014 | Lend Your Hand |
2013 | Amnesty, n. |
2012 | Best Resolv’d |
The Clock Is Running | |
2011 | Magic |
Our Fate Is Up To Us
Posted in Environment, Faith, History, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Carl Sagan, Cosmos, Environment, Faith, God, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Winter, Ozone Layer, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science, Technology on January 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Since this series’ maiden voyage, the impossible has come to pass: Mighty walls that maintained insuperable ideological differences have come tumbling down; deadly enemies have embraced and begun to work together. The imperative to cherish the Earth and protect the global environment that sustains all of us has become widely accepted, and we’ve begun, finally, the process of reducing the obscene number of weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps we have, after all, decided to choose life. But we still have light years to go to ensure that choice. Even after the summits and the ceremonies and the treaties, there are still some 50,000 nuclear weapons in the world — and it would require the detonation of only a tiny fraction of them to produce a nuclear winter, the predicted global climatic catastrophe that would result from the smoke and the dust lifted into the atmosphere by burning cities and petroleum facilities. | |
The world scientific community has begun to sound the alarm about the grave dangers posed by depleting the protective ozone shield and by greenhouse warming, and again we’re taking some mitigating steps, but again those steps are too small and too slow. The discovery that such a thing as nuclear winter was really possible evolved out of the studies of Martian dust storms. The surface of Mars, fried by ultraviolet light, is also a reminder of why it’s important to keep our ozone layer intact. The runaway greenhouse effect on Venus is a valuable reminder that we must take the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth seriously. | |
Important lessons about our environment have come from spacecraft missions to the planets. By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one. By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds. It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history. | |
Our science and our technology have posed us a profound question. Will we learn to use these tools with wisdom and foresight before it’s too late? Will we see our species safely through this difficult passage so that our children and grandchildren will continue the great journey of discovery still deeper into the mysteries of the Cosmos? That same rocket and nuclear and computer technology that sends our ships past the farthest known planet can also be used to destroy our global civilization. Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, “I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It’s up to you.” | |
— Carl Sagan | |
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On This Day In: | |
2020 | Still Willing |
2019 | Another Prayer |
2018 | After Silence |
2017 | Are You Looking Forward To A Trump Presidency? |
2016 | Three Errors From Eureka |
2015 | Limiting Choices |
2014 | Praise The Lord And Pass The Hypocrisy |
That Sound | |
2013 | Still Waiting For Answers |
2012 | Informal Leadership |
2011 | A Little More Progress |
2010 | Bec’s Gone Again… |
The Blind Squirrel And The Suppression Of Uncomfortable Ideas
Posted in Environment, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged #PresidentIdiot, California, Carl Sagan, Climate Change, CO2, Environment, Politics, Quotes, Salination, Science, The Blind Squirrel, Wade Crowfoot on September 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »
There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That’s perfectly alright; it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts; rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system, and the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources. | |
— Carl Sagan | |
[Accidents happen… As the saying goes: “Even the blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut.” And, so it appears President Trump has (purely by stupid chance) stated a truth… | |
A few days ago, while visiting California to view the destruction being caused by wildfires, the President was advised one of the reasons for the massive fires is “Climate Change”. Trump replied: “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch.“ | |
“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot (Wade Crowfoot is California’s secretary for natural resources) countered. | |
“Well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said. | |
As bizarre as it sounds, President Trump is correct (for all the wrong reasons). To start off, in less than a week Autumn starts. Followed by Winter! So, yes, the daily temperature will start getting cooler. The second part is the “squirrel finding the nut“. No, “science” doesn’t KNOW if the climate will stay hot or get hotter. Just as science doesn’t KNOW the sun will rise in the East tomorrow. Science does, however, have a pretty good certainty that IF the sun does rise tomorrow, it will be in the East. President Trump’s BASELESS claims “Climate Change” is a “hoax” and / or invented by the Chinese to cripple our economy are both as unscientific as they are silly, but that doesn’t make his “uncomfortable idea” wrong (from a scientific perspective). His claim also erroneously conflates two issues: 1) is climate change real; and, 2) if it is real, what is causing it? | |
And, this is the problem (for science and all rational humanity): we have overwhelming data supporting the theory of climate change; we don’t have overwhelming evidence of causation – just a LOT of data of correlation. Our little blind squirrel is denying both the substantial data of change AND the substantial data of correlation. | |
True science requires that we admit the possibility “Climate Change” is not happening – despite the multiple decades of data which support the scientific conclusion “Climate Change” 1) is real, 2) has already happened, and 3) is getting worse. More precisely, we must admit the possibility that our current understanding of why “Climate Change” appears to be happening is not valid, i.e., it’s not being caused by human production of CO2 in the atmosphere. | |
The policy question is: What if our little squirrel is correct? Well, if he is correct and there is no climate change, then “eventually” the consistent rise in temperature which the planet has been experiencing with revert back to the norm. If humanity is lucky, this will happen soon (and quickly) and life will go on pretty much as it has for the last 10,000 years (or at least since the last major ice age). Policy decision: do nothing and hope for the best. | |
Alternatively, if he is correct the climate change (which has been accelerating for the last 50 years) is not caused by humans, what IS the cause and how do we slow, stop or reverse it? If we don’t discover the “real” cause, humanity (and most of life as we know it) on Earth will become extinct. Unfortunately, because the data has been so one sided (climate change is real and is happening NOW), we don’t have any good / reasonable alternative theories to human caused CO2 emissions. Policy decision: we need to pore tons of money into research to come up with an alternative root cause which we can then pore TONS more money into correcting / fixing. (All the while hoping and praying we’re not too late to fix the problem.) | |
And if our little squirrel is wrong about Climate Change and its cause? Well, despite what we’ve seen over the last 20 years (droughts and wildfires / hurricanes and typhoons), you ain’t seen nothing yet! Forty(40%) percent of humanity lives within 60 miles of an ocean. What happens when the ocean levels rise and large swathes of that coastal area becomes uninhabitable due to flooding, storm surges and salination of coastal water supplies? What happens to sea life when the salination in the oceans changes due to the increased ice melts dumping fresh water into their environment? What happens to the rest of the life on Earth when there is a vast die-off of life in the world’s oceans? Policy decision: we better get busy because our window of opportunity to save the habitable planet we’ve known for the last 10,000 years is closing fast!!! | |
Our little squirrel is in his 70’s and probably won’t live to experience the full results of his blindness. Somehow, I don’t find that comforting. — KMAB] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | Future Tools |
Three Swedish Girls | |
2018 | Four Loves |
Favorite Westerns | |
2017 | Faith In Science |
2016 | What The World Calls |
2015 | Say What? |
2014 | Start Today |
2013 | Fly!! |
2012 | Greater Love |
2011 | Before |
Just Not Sure, And That’s Okay
Posted in 2020 Book Review, Book Review, Reading, Reviews, Science and Learning, tagged 2020 Book Review, Big Bang Theory, Christine Roche, CMB, Cosmic Microwave Background, Cosmology, Felix Pirani, Introducing The Universe -- book review, Mathematics, physics, Science, Steady-State Theory on September 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »
“Introducing The Universe” (1993©) — book review | |
Today’s book review is for “Introducing The Universe“, written by Felix Pirani (writer) and Christine Roche (illustrator). While copyrighted in 1993, my version is a re-publication from 1999. (Dear Readers, I apologize in advance for the length of this review, which may seem longer than the book.) | |
I have a reasonably long history (ten to twenty years) of reading these “Introduction / Introducing” series of books about a host of different topics. The benefit of the series is you (generally) get a very quick (under 200 pages filled with mostly comics illustrations) and very general overview of whatever the specific topic is for the book. The negatives are reduced a number of important sub-topics, lack of breadth and depth for a specific sub-topic, and (occasionally) even I find the illustrations tedious (if not demeaning). Be that as it may… | |
This book is about cosmology (the science and study of the universe). Obviously, theories about the universe and creation pre-date “civilization”, and certainly pre-date reading and writing, let alone the start of modern science. This book covers all of this… up to publication date. | |
So, the two main theories of the universe are: 1) it has always existed pretty much as it is now; and, 2) the universe sprang into being at some point. The first theory is known as the “Steady-State” theory. The second is more popularly known as the “Big Bang” theory. Pre-1960(-ish), 1965 to be precise, the Steady-State theory held the reigns because there was no physical evidence to believe otherwise and it let scientists avoid the chicken-n-egg question of: “If the universe was created, that implies there was both reason for creation and a creator / intelligent designer. So, who was it?” This moves from the “hard” science which scientists like to think about, to the practice to philosophy – which may be logical, but is rarely scientific (from my experience anyway). | |
I call theory #2, “The God Theory“, because creation implies creator and it pre-dates modern science (as we know it). I call theory #1, “The Science Theory“, because not only do we not know what happened, it seems unlikely we will ever know. If you are comfortable with doubt and dealing with the unknowable, you can be comfortable with science. | |
Well, in 1965, a couple of radio guys at Bell Labs were looking at space and they found some background noise (aka “Cosmic Microwave Background” or CMB) which could not be easily explained. It seemed to fall under the predictions for residue background radiation from a terrific explosion. Hence: “The Big Bang“. With this data, and a corresponding space-race to the moon between the United States and the U.S.S.R., a lot of money was being poured into the coffers of universities (and companies) which would study these phenomena. (Note: the theory pre-dates the CMB evidence. The CMB, however, serves as the primary evidence supporting the theory. When I was a child and first learning about all of this, the Steady-State was THE primary theory for cosmology and the Big Bang was just beginning its ascendancy. It was a paradigm shift in cosmology based on new data, post theory.) | |
The problem is for pretty much all of the last 60 years, more and more study has produced more and more confusing results, and, in turn, more and more convoluted twists in the Big Bang theory to explain the exceptions to the predicted data. For example: we believe the universe is expanding, but we can’t identify a point of origin. All points seem to be moving away from each other at the same rate. | |
And, another: the stuff of the universe, which we can see, behaves in a way which predicts there should be a LOT more stuff. The mathematics works out that for the universe to function the way the theory says it should, there’s probably 90% or more of the stuff in the universe which is, as yet, unseen. Nobody knows what it is or where it is or why we can’t see (detect) it. And it’s not just “stuff”. The same seems to be true for “energy” which we also cannot detect. The scientists have named these two unseeable and unmeasureable things: “Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy” (cause they’re original that way). | |
Basically, the real and measurable data we’ve been gathering seem to contradict the Big Bang theory, but we’ve yet to come up with a theory to explain the data which the data could support (some theory other than the Big Bang theory and / or the Steady-State theory). The result is we are stumbling along with the philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s “normal science” while awaiting a new theory or “paradigm” which explains the evidence in terms of supporting the Steady-State theory. (Hence, String Theory / Super-String Theory and multi-dimensions and multiple universes.) | |
So, is this book any good? Is it interesting? Before I answer those two questions I must state: I am NOT a scientist and I entered the book with only the most high-school level knowledge of cosmology (let alone math / physics). Having said this: Yes, and YES! This is not a book which most physicists, math folks or cosmologists will find useful. Between the non-linear / non-chronological presentation and the use of mostly comic-book style illustrations, I imagine they would find it trivial if not insulting. I don’t know enough about the subject to find it such. | |
Final recommendation: strong! I am sure the target audience, the format and the length of the book precluded the author and illustrator’s ability to present as much as they might have liked to. Never the less, as a novice seeking a general overview which could be gained in a couple of hours of light reading, I felt the book covered the topic and reading it was a useful experience. | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | The Right Questions |
Day 3: Still Difficult | |
2018 | A Thought For Those Continuing To Support President Trump |
Day 36: Pushing On | |
2017 | Imagining Humor |
2016 | So Go On And Deal With It |
2015 | From A Letter To A Friend |
2014 | Your Part (Here) |
2013 | Complements |
2012 | Sound And Light |
2011 | Two Politicians Visit A Farm… |
2010 | Labor Day And Honorable Men |
Necessary And Desirable
Posted in Education, History, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Carl Sagan, Experiments, History Of Science, Hypotheses, Philosophy, Quotes, Science, Self-Correcting on August 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Scientists, like other human beings, have their hopes and fears, their passions and despondencies — and their strong emotions may sometimes interrupt the course of clear thinking and sound practice. But science is also self-correcting. The most fundamental axioms and conclusions may be challenged. The prevailing hypotheses must survive confrontation with observation. Appeals to authority are impermissible. The steps in a reasoned argument must be set out for all to see. Experiments must be reproducible. | |
The history of science is full of cases where previously accepted theories and hypotheses have been entirely overthrown, to be replaced by new ideas that more adequately explain the data. While there is an understandable psychological inertia — usually lasting about one generation — such revolutions in scientific thought are widely accepted as a necessary and desirable element of scientific progress. Indeed, the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property, and sets it off from many other areas of human endeavor where credulity is the rule. | |
— Carl Sagan | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | The Far Side |
2018 | Hold On |
Day 11: Just Plain Tired | |
2017 | Why Don’t You Tell Us What You Really Think? |
2016 | Discontent |
2015 | Do You Know Me? |
Appetite For Life Update | |
2014 | Tough Journalism |
2013 | Things I’ve Learned |
2012 | Abstainer, n. |
2011 | Rain, Rain, Rain |
Test Your Strength | |
2009 | End the mistakes… |
I’m Just Being Skeptical
Posted in Faith, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Carl Sagan, Faith, Hypotheses, Inspiration, Philosophy, Quotes, Religion, Revelation, Science, Skepticism on August 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can’t all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation. | |
— Carl Sagan | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | We’re Eating Faster And Enjoying It Less |
2018 | Great Views |
Day 8: One At A Time | |
2017 | Trump Supporters Will Always Find An Excuse |
2016 | More Posts |
2015 | A Last Request |
2014 | It Matters |
2013 | And You Are? |
2012 | Not Too Late |
2011 | Persistence |
2009 | Health Care? |
A Humbling Learning Process
Posted in Education, Leadership, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Dr. Anthony Fauci, Humility, Leadership, Learning, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, New Data, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Science on August 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »
As a scientist, the thing you must always do is to be humble enough to know that when you get additional information, even information that might conflict what was felt earlier on, you then change your viewpoint and you change your recommendations based on the data. That’s what science is all about. Science is a learning process. | |
— Dr. Anthony Fauci | |
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | Another Thought On #45’s Poor Education |
2018 | As Long As You Survive Each Experience |
WordPress to Facebook Test… | |
Day 7: Oh, Yeah! | |
2017 | A Good Habit |
2016 | The Minds Of Trumpism |
2015 | Expressing Nonsense |
2014 | A Real Fight |
2013 | Unravelling |
2012 | I Resolve |
2011 | Practice, Practice, Practice |
2009 | Phoenix Trip (July ’09) |
Criminal Incompetence, Criminal Indifference Or Both
Posted in Education, Health, Politics, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged COVID-19, Education, Health, Kayleigh McEnany, Politics, Quotes, Re-opening Schools, Science on July 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Science should not stand in the way of this. | |
— Kayleigh McEnany | |
[The “this” which McEnany is referring to is re-opening schools. She then went on to claim “the science” is actually on their (the Administration’s) side. The problem is: the “science” is NOT on their side. It does seem children (5 to 12 yrs old) are less susceptible to severe impact of the COVID-19, but there is little to no evidence they are any less efficient as asymptomatic carriers and transmitters. There is also no proof they will not be impacted by future exposures or if there will be any long term effects to what appear to be non-significant exposures. The virus is simply to new to know any of this. We are beginning to find out if the antibodies are lasting. They appear to not be. And, significantly, we don’t know if re-infections will result in less significant or worse effects than the initial exposure. The bottom line is that opening schools without masks, personal protected equipment for students, teachers and staff, and social distancing will be exposing our teachers, school staff, families and children to significant health risks. My question: “Why is the Administration willing to endanger Americans this way?” — KMAB] | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | Slow Wisdom |
It Is A Start… | |
2018 | Young, Fun And Playing Well |
2017 | Earning Your Blessings |
2016 | A Suggestion… |
Capable Of Being | |
2015 | Looking For The Needles In The Haystacks |
2014 | The Definition Of A Gentleman |
2013 | Thar She Blows (Not)! |
2012 | Naturally |
2011 | Been Here, Done That |
Remember | |
2010 | Timeless Classics |
The Magnitude Of The Challenge
Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Philosophy, Quotes, Risk vs Reward, Science, The Science of Yoga, William J. Broad on May 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
By definition, creativity goes to deep issues of psychology and ultimately what it means to be human — areas that science has always had a hard time investigating. Science tends to do the easiest things first. It is nothing if not practical. This fact of scientific life suggests the magnitude of the challenge that investigators face. | |
Even so, the importance of the subject and the potential richness of the returns make it attractive. Big risks can produce big rewards. It is the kind of topic that might flourish in the decades ahead. | |
— William J. Broad | |
From his book: “The Science of Yoga“ | |
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On This Day In: | |
2019 | Still Tearing, Still Being Rewarded |
2018 | Nothing More, Nothing Less |
2017 | Memorial Day – 2017 |
No Wonder I’m Smiling | |
2016 | Thinking Science Fictional |
2015 | Dawn Is Coming |
2014 | Back When I Was A Firebrand |
2013 | Pen In Hand |
Word Up! | |
2012 | Disturbing |
Trying To Keep Up | |
2011 | Unreliable And Selective |
2010 | Adult-Onset Athlete |