Ambam the Gorilla Walks Upright pangea 2011-01-27 | A gorilla has achieved fame for walking upright on his hind legs like a human at a British animal park.Ambam, a Western lowland gorilla, was filmed strolling about his enclosure by animal researcher Johanna Watson.She posted the clip on YouTube, where it has been viewed by more than 250,000 people.Ambam, a 21-year-old silverback, is part of a bachelor group of the critically endangered animals at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, which is run by an international conservation charity, The Aspinall Foundation.Gorilla that walks like a man Gorilla keeper Phil Ridges said Ambam, who now weighs 485 pounds, had been hand-reared at another animal park when he was a one-year-old for several months because he was ill.Family trait?He said the human-like walking style seemed to run in the family."Ambam's father Bitam used to display the same behavior if he had handfuls of food to carry," Ridges said in a statement. "Ambam also has a full sister, Tamba, and a half sister ... who also sometimes stand and walk in the same way."Look ma, no hands! Gorilla walks on hind legs Ridges added that Ambam could also carry more food if his hands were freed from walking and it also meant "he doesn't get his hands wet when it is raining."The Aspinall Foundation runs gorilla rescue and rehabilitation projects in Congo and Gabon.
Nothings Gonna Hurt you Baby pangea 2023-09-18 | Million Dollar Baby tribute - Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby - Cigarettes After Sex
The Scientists - A History of Science pangea 2014-05-30 | A general introduction to the great Scientists in human history.
The Muslim Philosophers pangea 2014-05-30 | A general introduction to the writers and philosophers of Islamic thought and philosophy during the Medieval period.
The African American Philosophers pangea 2014-05-30 | http://www.pangeaprogress.com/blog/the-african-american-philosophersA general introduction to the African American writers and philosophers."Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail"I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac andDumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of the evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America?"W. E. B. Du Bois"Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books."Richard Wright"The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examinethe society in which he is being educated. "James BaldwinDr. Martin Luther King, Jr: "We're going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke came through the universe."
The Existentialists pangea 2014-05-30 | A general introduction to the writers and philosophers of Existentialism.
The Age of Enlightenment Philosophers pangea 2014-05-30 | A general introduction to the writers and philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment.
The Ancient Philosophers - The Wisdom of Antiquity pangea 2014-05-30 | A general introduction to the Ancient Philosophers of Antiquity.
The Christian Philosophers pangea 2014-05-30 | A general introduction to the writers and philosophers of Early and Medieval Christianity
The Wisdom of Native Americans pangea 2014-04-21 | The Wisdom of Native Americans"If all the beasts were gone,men would diefrom a great loneliness of spirit,for whatever happens to the beastsalso happens to the man.All things are connected.Whatever befalls the Earthbefalls the sons of the Earth." ― Chief Seattle "Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.""The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it." Chief Seattle― Chief Joseph "As long as you live, keep learning how to live."Segoyewatha [Red Jacket] (1750-1830); Native American Seneca Chief, OratorThe Lakota Sioux leader Crazy Horse famously exhorted his troops "Hokahey, today is a good day to die!" Which meant something like "Let's go men, today is a good day to die!""You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee."Sitting BullAmong the Lakota, no one had a greater reputation for bravery. Once, on the Yellowstone River in 1872, he and four other warriors had strolled out between the lines in the midst of a battle with soldiers guarding a railroad crew. Sitting Bull calmly sat down. With the bullets pattering around him, he filled his pipe, smoked it, passed it back and forth to his companions until the bowl was empty. Then he reamed it out and walked away. His Lakota name -- Tatanka-Iyotanka -- described an intractable buffalo bull, sitting on its haunches, resolute in the face of danger.
The Eastern Philosophers pangea 2013-10-20 | http://www.iep.utm.edu/Lao-tzu 570 BCEConfucius 551 BCESiddhārtha Gautama 480 BCEMo-Tzu 479 BCEMencius 479 BCEHan Fei -Zi 280 BCEWang Chong 27 CENagarjuna 230 CEAdi Shankara 788 CEAl-Kindi 801 CE Al-Farabi 870 CEIbn-Sina 980 CERamanuja 1017 CEIbn Rushd 1126 CEZhu Xi 1130 CE Maimonides 1135 CERumi 1207 CEIbn Khaldun 1332 CEWang Fuzhi 1619 CEMuhammad Iqbal 1877 CESarvepalli Radhakrishnan 1888 CE"I devoted myself to studying the texts—the original and commentaries—in the natural sciences and metaphysics, and the gates of knowledge began opening for me."Ibn-Sina 980 CE
Ronit Elkabetz - Dreams and anguish bring us together (The Bands Visit) pangea 2013-08-11 | RIP Ronit Elkabetz "Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together." - Eugene Ionesco Ronit Elkabetz, an Israeli actress and director whose searing performances as a disturbed woman with magical powers, a restaurant owner in a lonely desert town and a divorced woman mired in a hopeless love affair, earned her three Ophir Awards, the Israeli equivalent of an Oscar, died on Tuesday in Tel Aviv. She was 51.The cause was cancer, her agent told Agence France-Presse.Ms. Elkabetz, an Israeli of Moroccan origin, had a range that drew comparisons to Meryl Streep, the intensity of Maria Callas and, with her pale skin and raven hair, the haunting, sorrowful presence of Anna Magnani.onit Elkabetz (pronounced ROE-neet EL-ka-bets) was born on Nov. 27, 1964, in Bersheeba and grew up in the northern town of Kiryat Yam. After completing her compulsory military service, she found modeling work and was preparing to enroll in Israel’s main fashion-design school when she auditioned for what she thought was a commercial. It was actually a film, “The Appointed,” to be directed by Daniel Wachsmann.“When they called me back to say I’d been chosen for the part, I realized that up until then I had been homeless in my own life, and that now I had found my roof,” she told the French newspaper Libération in 1999.Art as a way to reach beyond alienation and boundaries and connect the common humanity. What David Foster Wallace stated in so many words art is what it means to be universally human.
Thin Red Line quotes - Natures Mandala pangea 2013-01-31 | The fluid Mosaic of existence does not fit in a box of dogma.The Mosaic of Existence is fragile and intricate. The Janus Head of Nature. Pattica samuppada. Mandalas are works of sacred art in Tantric (Tibetan) Buddhism. The word "mandala" comes from a Sanskrit word that generally means "circle," and mandalas are indeed primarily recognizable by their concentric circles and other geometric figures. Mandalas are far more than geometical figures, however. For Tantric Buddhists, they are rich with symbolism and sacred meaning. In fact, the etymology of the word "mandala" suggests not just a circle but a "container of essence." the traditional Tibetan sand mandala, when completed, is deliberately destroyed. The sand is poured into a nearby stream or river to distribute the positive energies it contains. This ritual reminds those who painstakingly constructed the mandala of the central Buddhist teaching of the impermanence of all things. From Andrew Sullivan's blog The Dish: A reader writes: Thank you for continuing to engage Terrence Malicks's criminally under-attended The Tree of Life. Even as an atheist, I believe the film to be a masterpiece and an extraordinary source of beauty. I'd like to correct, however, Fr. Barron's otherwise lovely meditation on the film. He characterizes the encounter of the two dinosaurs as an example of "nature," and describes one dinosaur as "dominating" the other. In fact, the scene depicts both "nature" and "grace" - or, rather, the development of one following the other. The dominant dinosaur is shown pushing the injured dinosaur's face into the ground. This is "nature," as Fr. Barron describes. But the scene does not stop there. The dominant dinosaur then appears to effect something akin to mercy and backs away from the injured dinosaur, leaving him in peace. It would apear that Malick has shown us the birth of "grace." Another writes: While I'm personally a Christian - and I was knocked out by Malick's film every bit as much as you were - I left the theater feeling it was a devastating, almost unanswerable challenge to the Christian message. If the film is asking whether the universe tilts toward nature or grace, I would say Malick puts his thumb on the scales every-so-slightly in favor of grace. But I had a powerful feeling in my gut that it's all just nature. In one cut-away in the film, you see a wounded dinosaur approached by another hunter-dinosaur. When it looks like the hunter is about to finish off the wounded prey, it inexplicably walks away. Grace? Maybe. But I had the sinking feeling that the human experience of grace isn't any different in kind or meaning than a dinosaur deciding for some unknowable reason to walk away from its wounded prey. Measured against the staggering scope of cosmic time, even the most meaningful personal events - or traumas - really are insignificant, even meaningless. That's the overall impression I carried from the film.
Zora Neale Hurston - I have lived in many ways pangea 2012-02-21 | "I have given myself the pleasure of sunrises blooming out of oceans, and sunsets drenching heaped-up clouds. I have walked in storms with a crown of clouds about my head and the zig zag lightning playing through my fingers. The gods of the upper air have uncovered their faces to my eyes. I have made friends with trees and vales. I have found out that my real home is in the water, that the earth is only my step-mother. My old man, the Sun, sired me out of the sea."Zora Neale HurstonThe Sum of Life"Great is he, who conquers the frightful. Sublime is he, who, while succumbing to it, fears it not."Philosopher Schiller"The art of living well and the art of dying well are one."EpicurusThe Courage to Be and the Courage not to Be."To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be -- Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity -- to feel these things and know them is to conquer them."Bertrand Russell"Freud was a hero. He descended to the Underworld and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa's head which turned these terrors to stone."psychiatrist R. D. Laing"A young shepherd I saw, writhing, gagging, in spasms, his face distorted, and a heavy black snake hung out of his mouth. Had I ever seen so much nausea and pale dread on one face? He seemed to have been asleep when the snake crawled into his throat, and there bit itself fast. My hand tore at the snake and tore in vain; it did not tear the snake out of his throat. Then it cried out of me; "Bite! Bite its head off! Bite!" Thus it cried out of me — my dread, my hatred, my nausea, my pity, all that is good and wicked in me cried out of me with a single cry.The shepherd, however, bit as my cry counseled him; he bit with a good bite. Far away he spewed the head of the snake — and he jumped up. No longer shepherd. no longer human — one changed, radiant, laughing! Never yet on earth has a human being laughed as he laughed! O my brothers, I heard a laughter that was no human laughter; and now a thirst gnaws at me, a longing that never grows still. My longing for this laughter gnaws at me; oh, how do I bear to go on living! And how could I bear to die now!"
To be steeped in natural history (Two Steps from Hell - Heart of Courage) pangea 2012-02-03 | "Sigmund Freud often remarked that great revolutions in the history of science have but one common, and ironic, feature: they knock human arrogance off one pedestal after another of our previous conviction about our own self-importance. The first that we associate with Copernicus, Newton, and Galileo that taught us that we weren't living on the central body of a limited universe. And that Darwin's was the second that taught us that we were not separately created in the image of a benevolent deity, but were part of a history of genealogical connectivity of all living things. Now, in an odd sense, we know how contentious the first revolution was; we know the story of Galileo. But the way I like to put it, I don't think that revolution was as important as Darwin's, because it's about real estate. The Darwinian revolution is about essence; it's deeper. The Darwinian revolution is about who we are, it's what we're made of, it's what our life means insofar as science can answer that question. " Stephen Jay Gould "A general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the god portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy much less of a universe." Carl Sagan "I think that we reject the evidence that our world is changing because we are still, as that wonderfully wise biologist E.O. Wilson reminded us, tribal carnivores. We are programmed by our inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else. We will even give our lives for it and are quite ready to kill other humans in the cruelest of ways for the good of our tribe. We still find alien the concept that we and the rest of life, from bacteria to whales, are parts of the much larger and diverse entity, the living Earth." Dr. Lovelock "The importance of the Scientific Revolution for philosophy is beyond question. Modern philosophy the work of both rationalists and empiricists would have been impossible without great advances in physics. Analogously, therefore, we could anticipate that the Darwinian Revolution will have important implications for philosophy. Indeed, I would go further and say that we might expect Darwin's work to have even greater implications for philosophy than those of physics. The theory of evolution through natural selection impinges so directly on our own species. It is not just that we are on a speck of dust whirling around in the void but that we ourselves are no more than transformed apes. If such a realization is not to affect our views of epistemology and ethics, I do not know what is. As I said in the Preface, I find it inconceivable that it is irrelevant to the foundations of philosophy whether we are the end result of a slow natural evolutionary process, or made miraculously in Gods own image on a Friday, some 6,000 years ago. " Dr. Michael Ruse "To be steeped in history is to cease being Protestant." Cardinal John Henry Newman The Cardinal stops too early. A Jewish person or a Pagan could say to be steeped in history is to cease being Catholic as well. And the more you research and study history dogma seems rather provincial, tribal and solipsistic. The gods of the human primate from this little blue planet in the universe seem to be too small, too human and too petty to be the ultimate force in this giant cosmos. The created gods of the human mind are too small and petty for the grandeur of the stars and universe. Human gods do not even cover the scale of the earth and its history much less the universe.
Christopher Hitchens on Facing Death (ft. Alan Watts, Solomon, Zarathustra-Nietzsche) pangea 2011-12-17 | http://www.pangeaprogress.com/1/post/2011/12/christopher-hitchens-tribute-1949-2011.html Christopher Hitchens RIP
On the Heights of Skepticism & Stoicism - The Laughing Lions pangea 2011-10-06 | "To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be -- Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity -- to feel these things and know them is to conquer them." Bertrand Russell "Great is he, who conquers the frightful. Sublime is he, who, while succumbing to it, fears it not." Philosopher Schiller I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. Albert Camus L'Étranger "If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept more graciously the great, unfathomable events that molest our lives and will inevitably return us to dust." (Alain de Botton) "Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing." — Herman Melville A young shepherd I saw, writhing, gagging, in spasms, his face distorted, and a heavy black snake hung out of his mouth. Had I ever seen so much nausea and pale dread on one face? He seemed to have been asleep when the snake crawled into his throat, and there bit itself fast. My hand tore at the snake and tore in vain; it did not tear the snake out of his throat. Then it cried out of me; "Bite! Bite its head off! Bite!" Thus it cried out of me — my dread, my hatred, my nausea, my pity, all that is good and wicked in me cried out of me with a single cry. The shepherd, however, bit as my cry counseled him; he bit with a good bite. Far away he spewed the head of the snake — and he jumped up. No longer shepherd. no longer human — one changed, radiant, laughing! Never yet on earth has a human being laughed as he laughed! O my brothers, I heard a laughter that was no human laughter; and now a thirst gnaws at me, a longing that never grows still. My longing for this laughter gnaws at me; oh, how do I bear to go on living! And how could I bear to die now! Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Waking from Dogmatic Slumber pangea 2011-09-17 | "What would the average man do with a full consciousness of absurdity? He has fashioned his character for the precise purpose of putting it between himself and the facts of life; it is his special tour-de-force that allows him to ignore incongruities, to nourish himself on impossibilities, to thrive on blindness. He accomplishes thereby a peculiarly human victory: the ability to be smug about terror. Sartre has called man a "useless passion" because he is so hopelessly bungled, so deluded about his true condition. He wants to be a god with only the equipment of an animal, and so he thrives on fantasies. As Ortega so well put it in the epigraph we have used for this chapter, man uses his ideas for the defense of his existence, to frighten away reality. This is a serious game, the defense of one's existence—how take it away from people and leave them joyous?" Ernest Becker http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Archives/A%20Free%20Man%27s%20Worship.htm Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German Philosopher Between Amazement and Horror the perils of waking up from dogmatic sleep. "Beautiful Fatalism" is a phrase from Ernest Hemingway used to describe warriors "who stayed loyal to a doomed cause." "To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be -- Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity -- to feel these things and know them is to conquer them." Bertrand Russell Freud was a hero. He descended to the Underworld and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a Medusa's head which turned these terrors to stone. psychiatrist R. D. Laing "...and Heaven have mercy on us all - Presbyterians and Pagans alike - for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending." — Herman Melville (Moby Dick) "I would know Thee, Unknown Though who grips deep in my soul, wandering through my life like a storm, Thou inconceivable, my kin! I would know Thee, even serve Thee." Nietzsche at twenty years old "As to gods, I have no way of knowing either that they exist or do not exist, or what they are like." Protagoras ( 5th C. BCE) "Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation." Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (Persian Sufi Mystic) aka Rumi "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world" Ludwig Wittgenstein I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist, mathematician.
Ya Rayah: Algeria - France (Exiles Film) pangea 2011-08-27 | Ya rayah Oh departing Traveler, where are you heading? Your journey is bound to failure How many travelers before you Have sought the path with similar results? How many cities and deserts have I roamed? How much time have I wasted Touring from one place to another? Oh lost one, no matter how much you run away Your destiny will end in exhaustion Time has passed you by And you have yet to notice it.
I Am the Satellite - Bryan Steeksma pangea 2011-08-17 | http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bryan-steeksma/id348346106 Lyrics: I'm the satellite I'm flying, crossing ground When I watch you You'll be watching me from the solid ground Oh, so lonely Floating on and passing by No one knows me All I've ever known is the cold pair of I I'm the satellite I'm still there when the day breaks You only look at me When shadow overtakes We only know each other When in our darkest hour Oh, it's so lonely out in space Just floating on, passing by, oh No one knows you out in space It's all you ever know It's all you ever will I'm the satellite I'm crashing at the world's edge And I feel so disconnected Every second is another year shedded Broken by this error message in my head Where am I headed? Oh, it's so lonely out in space Just floating on, passing by, oh No one knows you or your place Just pass by without a trace, yeah It's so lonely, it's so lonely [ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/bryan-steeksma-lyrics/i-am-the-satellite-lyrics.html ] It's so lonely out in space I'm the satellite Broken satellite Sightless satellite I'm the satellite I'm flying far out of sight You used to look for me When darkness float your world I guess we'll miss each other For me there is no other Oh, it's so lonely out in space Just floating on, passing by, oh No one knows you or your place Space is all you know It's all you ever will Oh, it's so lonely out in space It's so lonely It's so lonely out in space Hey there brother don't you know That the guy upstairs left us years ago So there ain't no fate except the one you make And there ain't no hell except the shit you take everyday So don't tell me life doesn't hurt And that you don't need the people cause you've got your church You've got to take your head out of the sky Cause there ain't nothing there but the satellites
Philosopher Shelly Kagan vs. Apologist William Lane Craig on Morality pangea 2011-01-02 | A morality of reflection and reason vs. a morality of religion and dogma. There are reasons for morality that do not require a mythical being beyond space and time. As Sam Harris stated we humans do not need bad reasons (religious superstition) to be good when humans have good natural reasons and ability to be good. Shelly Kagan is professor of philosophy and Henry R. Luce Professor of Social Thought and Ethics at Yale University. "Most Americans appear to believe that without faith in God, we would have no durable reasons to treat one another well. The political version of this morality claim is that our country was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles," the implication being that without these principles we would have no way to write just laws. It is, of course, taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs. The problem, however, is that much of what people believe in the name of religion is intrinsically divisive, unreasonable, and incompatible with genuine morality. The truth is that the only rational basis for morality is a concern for the happiness and suffering of other conscious beings. This emphasis on the happiness and suffering of others explains why we don't have moral obligations toward rocks. It also explains why (generally speaking) people deserve greater moral concern than animals, and why certain animals concern us more than others. If we show more sensitivity to the experience of chimpanzees than to the experience of crickets, we do so because there is a relationship between the size and complexity of a creature's brain and its experience of the world. We have to realize that we decide what is good in our religious doctrines. We read the Golden Rule, for instance, and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God's teachings on morality: If a man discovers that his bride is not a virgin on their wedding night, he must stone her to death on her father's doorstep (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21). If we are civilized, we will reject this as utter lunacy. Doing so requires that we exercise our own moral intuitions, keeping the real issue of human happiness in view. The belief that the Bible is the word of God is of no help to us whatsoever. As we consider how to run our own society and how to help people in need, the choice before us is simple: Either we can have a 21st-century conversation about morality and human happiness—availing ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last 2,000 years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to an Iron Age conversation as it is preserved in our holy books." Sam Harris The fact that all living primates typically live in social networks makes it highly likely that the last common ancestor of living primates already lived in social networks, and that sociality formed an integral part of the adaptive nature of primate origins. A characterization of primate sociality within the wider mammalian context is therefore essential to further our understanding of the adaptive nature of primate origins. Here we determine correlates of sociality and nonsociality in rodents as a model to infer causes of sociality in primates. Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich
Do not go gentle into that good night (Dylan Thomas read by Anthony Hopkins) pangea 2010-12-14 | Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-- It gives a lovely light! Edna St. Vincent Millay
Christopher Hitchens Closing Remarks pangea 2010-12-11 | Hitchens Closing Remarks: "When Socrates was sentenced to death, for his philosophical investigations and his blasphemy for challenging the Gods of the city and he accepted his death. He did say "well, if we're lucky perhaps I'll be able to hold a conversation with other great thinkers and philosophers and doubters too", in other words that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble and what is pure and what is true can always go on. Why is that important, why would I like to do that? Because that is the only conversation worth having. And whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know, but I do know that it is the conversation I want to have while I am still alive. Which means that for me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet. That I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I urge you to look at those of you that tell you (at your age) that that you are dead until you believe as they do. (What a terrible thing to be telling to children.) And that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority. Don't think of that as a gift, think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside no matter how tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way."
Extreme Places in the Solar System pangea 2010-12-02 | http://www.amazon.com/Most-Extreme-Places-Solar-System/dp/0674049985 The universe is a mighty big place, but there is no shortage of amazement right here in our celestial neighborhood. From Venus's searing surface temperatures, hot enough to melt lead, to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm that has been raging for hundreds of years, to the cryovolcanoes of the Saturnian moon Enceladus, the solar system boasts plenty of extreme locales. That is the thrust of a new book, The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System (Harvard University Press), which serves as a kind of photo-illustrated guidebook for the planets—along with their accompanying moons and rings—that surround the sun. The book's authors, David Baker of Austin College and Todd Ratcliff of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, acknowledge that they use the term "places" loosely: Some of the 50 entries are specific events, such as the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs on Earth, and some are long-term phenomena, such as plate tectonics. MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN:Mount Everest may be the tallest mountain—and the most famous ascent—on Earth, but at 8,850 meters it is not nearly the highest peak in the solar system. That honor goes to Mars's Olympus Mons, a volcano more than 600 kilometers in diameter (about the size of Arizona) and, standing 27 kilometers at its peak, roughly three times as tall as Everest. "What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind [through the universe]? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day." Death By Black Hole, Neil deGrasse Tyson "I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky." Carl Sagan Sources: The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System by David Baker and Todd Ratcliff. Harvard University Press, 2010 From icy volcanoes on Neptune to Eiffel Tower--size lightning bolts on Saturn, the wildest sights in our corner of the universe. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=extreme-places http://io9.com/5650306/the-rough-guide-to-solar-system-mountaineering
Visions of the Universe: Stars to Microbes pangea 2010-12-01 | http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/photogalleries/101130-best-of-2010-science-nature-pictures-news-fish-hands/#/skink-evolves-live-birth-eggs_25436_600x450.jpg "We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself." Carl Sagan Will we extend life into space before a catastrophe stops us permanently? Those going into space will be impelled by an exploratory urge. But their choices will have epochal consequences. Once the threshold is crossed when there is a self-sustaining level of life in space, then lifes long-range future will be secure irrespective of any of the risks on Earth (with the single exception of the catastrophic destruction of space itself). Will this happen before our technical civilisation disintegrates, leaving this as a might-have-been? Will the self-sustaining space communities be established before a catastrophe sets back the prospect of any such enterprise, perhaps foreclosing it for ever? We live at what could be a defining moment for the cosmos, not just for our Earth. The colonization of space is an evolutionary step similar to the colonization of land This would be as epochal an evolutionary transition as that which led to land-based life on Earth. But it could still be just the beginning of cosmic evolution. The enormous potential of future life is dependent on our actions today The first aquatic creatures crawled onto dry land in the Silurian era, more than three hundred million years ago. They may have been unprepossessing brutes, but had they been clobbered, the evolution of land-based fauna would have been jeopardised. Likewise, the post-human potential is so immense that not even the most misanthropic amongst us would countenance its being foreclosed by human actions. The rarer life is, the more significant Earthlife becomes But it could turn out that the odds are heavily stacked against the emergence of life, so that our biosphere is the unique abode of intelligent and self-aware life within our Galaxy. Our small Earths fate would then have a significance that was truly cosmic Sir Martin Rees ...there are more microbes in the ocean than stars in the universe. How important are the microbes to the ocean ecosystem, and ultimately to us? They produce every other molecule of oxygen that we breathe, and the entire chemistry of the planet is essentially created by microbes--basically they rule the world. The human body is built on an old form, out of parts that once did very different things. So take a moment to pause and sit on your coccyx, the bone that was once a tail. Roll your ankles, each of which once connected a front leg to a paw. Revel not in who you are but who you were. It is, after all, amazing what evolution has made out of bits and pieces. Nor are we in any way alone or unique. Each plant, animal and fungus carries its own consequences of life's improvisational genius. -source Smithsonian.com Turn your churches into halls of science and devote your leisure day to the study of your own bodies, the analysis of your minds, and the examination of the fair world which extends around you. Frances Wright
Magnapinna Squid Filmed at Drilling Site pangea 2010-12-01 | A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, this alien-like, long-armed, and--strangest of all--"elbowed" Magnapinna squid is seen in a still from a video clip recently obtained by National Geographic News. In a brief video from the dive recently obtained by National Geographic News, one of the rarely seen squid loiters above the seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico on November 11, 2007. The clip—from a Shell oil company ROV (remotely operated vehicle)—arrived after a long, circuitous trip through oil-industry in-boxes and other email accounts. "Perdido ROV Visitor, What Is It?" the email's subject line read—Perdido being the name of a Shell-owned drilling site. Located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) off Houston, Texas (Gulf of Mexico map), Perdido is one of the world's deepest oil and gas developments. The video clip shows the screen of the ROV's guidance monitor framed with pulsing inputs of time and positioning data. In a few seconds of jerky camerawork, the squid appears with its huge fins waving like elephant ears and its remarkable arms and tentacles trailing from elbow-like appendages. Despite the squid's apparent unflappability on camera, Magnapinna, or "big fin," squid remain largely a mystery to science. ROVs have filmed Magnapinna squid a dozen or so times in the Gulf and the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The recent video marks the first sighting of a Magnapinna at an oil development, though experts don't think the squid's presence there has any special scientific significance. But the video is evidence of how, as oil- and gas-industry ROVs dive deeper and stay down longer, they are yielding valuable footage of deep-sea animals. Some marine biologists have even formed formal partnerships with oil companies, allowing scientists to share camera time on the corporate ROVs—though critics worry about possible conflicts of interest. Based on analysis of videos not unlike the one captured at the Perdido site, scientists know that the adult Magnapinna observed to date range from 5 to 23 feet (1.5 to 7 meters) long, Vecchione said. By contrast, the largest known giant squid measured about 16 meters (52 feet) long. And whereas giant squid and other cephalopods have eight short arms and two long tentacles, Magnapinna has ten indistinguishable appendages that all appear to be the same length. "The most peculiar structure is that of the arms," said deep-sea biologist Bruce Robison of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. Referring to the way the tentacles hang down from elbow-like kinks, Robison said: "Judging from that structure, we think the animal feeds by dragging its arms and the ends of its tentacles along the seafloor as it drifts slowly above it." The elbow-like angles allow the tentacles to spread out, perhaps preventing them from getting tangled. "Imagine spreading the fingers of a hand and dragging the fingertips along the top of a table to grab bits of food," he added.
Hypatia of Alexandria pangea 2010-11-27 | "Only once before in our history was there the promise of a brilliant scientific civilization. Beneficiary of the Ionian Awakening, it had its citadel at the Library of Alexandria, where 2,000 years ago the best minds of antiquity established the foundations for the systematic study of mathematics, physics, biology, astronomy, literature, geography and medicine. We build on those foundations still. The Library was constructed and supported by the Ptolemys, the Greek kings who inherited the Egyptian portion of the empire of Alexander the Great. From the time of its creation in the third century B.C. until its destruction seven centuries later, it was the brain and heart of the ancient world. The last scientist who worked in the Library was a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and the head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy -- an extraordinary range of accomplishments for any individual in any age. Her name was Hypatia. She was born in Alexandria in 370. At a time when women had few options and were treated as property, Hypatia moved freely and unselfconsciously through traditional male domains. By all accounts she was a great beauty. She had many suitors but rejected all offers of marriage. The Alexandria of Hypatia's time -- by then long under Roman rule -- was a city under grave strain. Slavery had sapped classical civilization of its vitality. The growing Christian Church was consolidating its power and attempting to eradicate pagan influence and culture. Hypatia stood at the epicenter of these mighty social forces. Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, despised her because of her close friendship with the Roman governor, and because she was a symbol of learning and science, which were largely identified by the early Church with paganism In great personal danger, she continued to teach and publish, until, in the year 415, on her way to work she was set upon by a fanatical mob of Cyril's parishioners. They dragged her from her chariot, tore off her clothes, and armed with abalone shells, flayed her flesh from her bones. Her remains were burned, her works obliterated, her name forgotten. Cyril was made a saint. The glory of the Alexandrian Library is a dim memory. Its last remnants were destroyed soon after Hypatia's death. It was as if the entire civilization had undergone some self-inflicted brain surgery, and most of its memories, discoveries, ideas and passions were extinguished irrevocably. The loss was incalculable. In some cases, we know only the tantalizing titles of the works that were destroyed. In most cases, we know neither the titles nor the authors. We do know that of the 123 plays of Sophocles in the Library, only seven survived. One of those seven is Oedipus Rex. Similar numbers apply to the works of Aeschylus and Euripides. It is a little as if the only surviving works of a man named William Shakespeare were Coriolanus and A Winter's Tale, but we had heard that he had written certain other plays, unknown to us but apparently prized in his time, works entitled Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet." (From Cosmos by Carl Sagan) She was the daughter of Theon, a mathematician who taught at the great school at the Alexandrine Library. She traveled widely and corresponded with people all over the Mediterranean. We know of her only through her letters because all of her work was destroyed when the Great Library of Alexandia was destroyed. She taught at the school in the Library in Alexandria, Egypt. Letters written and addressed simply to the philosopher were delivered to her. She taught mathematics and natural philosophy. She died violently. She was dragged to her death by a mob who pulled her from her classroom into the streets where they peeled her to death with oyster shells. She wrote that All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final. Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.
Asher Brown: In Memoriam pangea 2010-10-29 | Asher Brown, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Hamilton Middle School in Houston, shot himself. The morning of his suicide, he came out to his parents. The day before, he was tripped while walking down a staircase at school, then kicked down the remaining stairs when he tried to collect his books, his mother said. His family told the Houston Chronicle that Brown was bullied relentlessly for his small stature, religion, clothes and his homosexuality. There was no suicide note. His stepfather David found his body, lifeless, after coming home from work. "I thought he was laying there reading a book or something," he says. "My son put a gun to his head because he couldn't take what he was hearing and the constant teasing." Asher Brown's worn-out tennis shoes still sit in the living room of his Cypress-area home while his student progress report — filled with straight A's — rests on the coffee table. Asher Brown's uncle told a big gathering of mourners and family supporters on Saturday that school bullies "ripped him up and tore him down everyday." His uncle, a Christian minister, MC'ed the memorial service. "The bullies picked on my nephew because of the way he dressed, how he talked, and the fact he was small. He was a David among Goliaths," Rev. Truong told the large crowd. "But Asher's heart was so big! His heart made him a giant." Asher's school friends, the few who stood by him no matter what, were present and spoke. One of them said there was a "Bully Free Zone" sign at Hamilton Middle School where Asher faced torment every day for being different, for being gay, and for being vulnerable. His friend said that the sign meant nothing. Nothing was done by anyone to protect Asher, himself, or any other target of ridicule at Hamilton. "The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together." — Hannah Arendt "As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake." (Sept. 29) -- No charges will be pressed against the children who bullied Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old Californian who died this week after injuries sustained in a suicide attempt, which was reportedly the result of cruel treatment over his perceived sexual orientation. "Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears," Jeff Kermode, Tehachapi, Calif., police chief, told NBC affiliate KGET. "They had never expected an outcome such as this." Walsh died on Monday after eight days on life support. He hanged himself from a tree in his backyard on Sept. 19. Walsh's school, Jacobsen Middle School, has an anti-bullying program, but students told KGET that Walsh was never offered any help. "He was different. He knew he was different," Walsh's mother, Judy Walsh, told the Tehachapi News. "He was a very loving boy, very kind. He had a beautiful smile. He liked fashion, his friends, talking on the phone. He was artistic and very bright." Walsh was at least the third teenager this month to kill himself after enduring bullying for his perceived sexual orientation. For they could not love you But still, your love was true And when no hope was left inside On that starry, starry night You took your life as lovers often do -- But I could've told you, Vincent: This world was never meant For one as beautiful as you. Starry, Starry night Portraits hung in empty halls Frameless heads on nameless walls With eyes that watch the world and can't forget Like the strangers that you've met The ragged men in ragged clothes The silver thorn, a bloody rose Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow. Now I think I know What you tried to say to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free They would not listen; they're not listening still -- Perhaps they never will... Don Mclean-Vincent, Starry Starry Night
Moliere - The Language of Love or The Love of Language? pangea 2010-10-06 | Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) was born in Paris on January 15, 1622. His father was one of eight valets de chambre tapissiers who tended the king's furniture and upholstery, so the young Poquelin received every advantage a boy could wish for. He was educated at the finest schools (the College de Clermont in Paris.) He had access to the king's court. But even as a child, Molière found it infinitely more pleasant to poke fun at the aristocracy than to associate with them. As a young boy, he learned that he could cause quite a stir by mimicking his mother's priest. His mother, a deeply religious woman, might have broken the young satirist of this habit had she not died before he was yet twelve-years-old. The first of Molière's plays to be presented at the Petit Bourbon was Les Précieuses Ridicules or The Pretentious Ladies which satirized Madame de Rambouillet, a member of the King's court who had set herself up as the final judge of taste and culture in Paris. The play proved so successful that Molière doubled the price of admission and was invited to give a special performance for the King. The King was delighted and rewarded the playwright with a large gift of cash, but Molière had made powerful enemies of some of the King's followers. Madame de Rambouillet and her coterie managed to have performances of the play suspended for fourteen days and, in an attempt to drive Molière from the city, eventually managed to have the Petit Bourbon closed down completely. But the King immediately granted Molière use of the Théâtre du Palais Royal where he would continue to perform for the rest of his life. Over the course of the next thirteen years, Molière worked feverishly to make his company the most respected dramatic troupe in Paris. (Eventually, they were awarded the coveted title "Troupe of the King.") He directed his own plays and often played the leading role himself. On February 17, 1673, Molière suffered a hemorrhage while playing the role of the hypochondriac Argan in The Imaginary Invalid. He had insisted on going through with the performance in spite of the advice of his wife and friends saying, "There are fifty poor workers who have only their daily wage to live on. What will become of them if the performance does not take place?" He passed away later that night at his home on the Rue Richelieu. The local priests refused to take his confession, for actors had no social standing and had been excommunicated by the church. Nor would they permit him to be buried in holy ground. Four days later, the King interceded and Molière was finally buried in the Cemetery Saint Joseph under the cover of darkness. Molière left behind a body of work which not only changed the face of French classical comedy, but has gone on to influence the work of other dramatists the world over. The greatest of his plays include The School for Husbands (1661), The School for Wives (1662), The Misanthrope (1666), The Doctor in Spite of Himself (1666), Tartuffe (1664,1667,1669), The Miser (1668), and The Imaginary Invalid (1673).
Alienation, Modernity, & Participation pangea 2010-10-04 | http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0299233944/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0415376734&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0TZC9FQAE5698MCSB4Z1 Best known for his two-year sojourn at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau is often considered a recluse who emerged from solitude only occasionally to take a stand on the issues of his day. In Thoreau's Democratic Withdrawal, Shannon L. Mariotti explores Thoreau's nature writings to offer a new way of understanding the unique politics of the so-called hermit of Walden Pond. Drawing imaginatively from the twentieth-century German social theorist Theodor W. Adorno, she shows how withdrawal from the public sphere can paradoxically be a valuable part of democratic politics. Separated by time, space, and context, Thoreau and Adorno share a common belief that critical inquiry is essential to democracy but threatened by modern society. While walking, huckleberrying, and picking wild apples, Thoreau tries to recover the capacities for independent perception and thought that are blunted by "Main Street," conventional society, and the rapidly industrializing world that surrounded him. Adorno's thoughts on particularity and the microscopic gaze he employs to work against the alienated experience of modernity help us better understand the value of Thoreau's excursions into nature. Reading Thoreau with Adorno, we see how periodic withdrawals from public spaces are not necessarily apolitical or apathetic but can revitalize our capacity for the critical thought that truly defines democracy. In graceful, readable prose, Mariotti reintroduces us to a celebrated American thinker, offers new insights on Adorno, and highlights the striking common ground they share. Their provocative and challenging ideas, she shows, still hold lessons on how we can be responsible citizens in a society that often discourages original, critical analysis of public issues. Movie Clip - Audrey Tautou in Happenstance
Souad Massi - Khalouni (Let me) pangea 2010-09-29 | http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/souad-massi/id13453210Souad Massi Khalouni Translation:Tell me why you thinkT 'are with us and you're all alonePeople are scattered in the seaAnd you get higher, you go awayIt's obvious your heart is fullIt's obvious you have nothing to addHe who has the habit of suffering since childhoodHis whole life is on the goChorus (repeat)Let me, let meLet me weep over my decisionsLet me, let meLet me cry on my luckLook at people like they are happyLook at people as they playLook at the sky as it is clearYou and your sky is cloudyHas it one to whom life has smiledAnd he has given generouslyIt Hits you like a cryingAnd he bears his suffering"I am a musician, a dreamer, a melancholic, and an optimist," says Souad Massi, when asked, one sunny autumn day in Paris. "I am also a global citizen." Years ago the singer/songwriter picked up her guitar and left her war-torn country, Algeria, for a different life in France. Mesk Elil (Honeysuckle) is the work of an artist at the peak of her creative powers—and one hot on the heels of Yngy, Souad Massi's first child—Mesk Elil broadens the musical spectrum with orchestral sections, loping West African grooves and a maturity that is "the natural result of two years of constant touring." Produced by the visionary Jean Lamoot (Noir Desir, Salif Keita) and featuring such stellar musicians as long-time guitarist Jean-Francois Kellner, Malian axeman Djely Moussa Kouyate (from Salif Keita's band) and burgeoning world music superstar Daby Touré, Mesk Elil reflects both Massi's personal and social concerns. Once again the purity of her vocals belie the often harrowing intensity of lyrics on love, heartache and longing (lyrics that could be about herself or her country), but there's a sweetness here, a sense of hope, that hints at brighter days to come.Traduction:Dis- moi pourquoi tu pensesT' es avec nous et tu es tout seulDes gens sont dispersés dans la merEt toi tu t'enfonces, tu pars loinCa se voit que ton coeur est pleinCa se voit que t'as rien à rajouterCelui qui a l'habitude des souffrances depuis tout petitToute sa vie son feu est alluméRefrain (bis):Laissez- moi, laissez- moiLaissez- moi pleurer sur mes prises de décisionsLaissez- moi, laissez- moiLaissez- moi pleurer sur ma chanceRegarde les gens comme ils sont contentsRegarde les gens comme ils jouentRegarde le ciel comme il est clairEt toi ton ciel est nuageuxY'en a un à qui la vie a souriEt lui a donné sans compterY'en a un comme toi qui pleureEt il supporte sa souffrance
Christopher Hitchens - A Public Intellectual Who Matters pangea 2010-07-23 | My candle burns at both endsIt will not last the night;But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -It gives a lovely light.Edna St. Vincent MillayBeing a public intellectual in America is not easy. Even more difficult is being a public intellectual that matters in a culture that prizes populism and frivolous entertainment over intellectual honesty. Whether one agrees or disagrees with him on the several issues he covers it is always challenging, stimulating and worth discussing. "Our lives begin to end the day we are silent about things that matter."Dr. Martin Luther KingLife is too short to be silent. Most men go to the grave with the song still in them. Hitchens cannot be accused of that. Whatever the outcome with this blow of fate his writing and voice have been heard and will continue to challenge and be heard long after we all leave this brief moment of awareness. When it comes to death we are all comrades. The uncertainty of life and the certainty of death unite all of us who come to this existence on this blue planet. "Ecrasez l'infame" - Voltaire"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth."-H L Mencken"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more."— Ayaan Hirsi Ali"I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me."— Christopher Hitchens (Hitch-22: A Memoir) "Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation." "And here is the point, about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake."— Christopher Hitchens
Dr. Nita Farahany - Determinism & Freedom pangea 2010-07-17 | Nita Farahany focuses on the legal, philosophical and social issues arising from developments in the biosciences, particularly related to behavioral genetics and neuroscience. As a leading expert in law and the biosciences, her published work has appeared in legal, philosophical and scientific publications as well as the mainstream media. She is the editor of The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law (Oxford University Press), which includes essays from experts on the use of behavioral genetics and neuroscience in the criminal justice system. She is currently examining how these emerging scientific developments inform agency and responsibility theory, and challenge existing doctrines in constitutional law. Professor Farahany presents her work widely and to varied audiences, including past presentations to the Second Circuit Judicial Conference, the National Judicial College, the Stanford Center for the Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. In 2010, Professor Farahany was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Before joining Vanderbilt, Professor Farahany clerked for the Honorable Judith W. Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in genetics and cellular biology, and from Harvard University with a master's degree in biology, where her thesis, Prescribing Culpability, critiqued the use of scientific criteria to define normative legal concepts. She earned her J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy of biology and jurisprudence at Duke University, where her doctoral dissertation, Rediscovering Criminal Responsibility through Behavioral Genetics, established the scientific and philosophical limitations to informing individual responsibility with behavioral genetics.
Scientific Perspective - Dr. Peter Atkins pangea 2010-07-17 | Peter Atkins is Professor of Chemistry and Fellow of Lincoln College at Oxford University. He is the author of several world-famous chemistry textbooks. One reason why these continue to be leaders throughout the world after more than two decades is his remarkable gift for being able to explain things--especially challenging concepts--memorably and with great clarity. This gift has regularly been deployed in his books for the general reader (Richard Dawkins has described one of them, The Creation , as 'the most beautifully written popular science book ever'), but never to better effect than now, in Galileo's Finger . In this brilliant account of the central ideas of contemporary science, Peter Atkins celebrates the effectiveness of Galileo's symbolic finger for revealing the nature of our universe, our world, and ourselves. Galileo's Finger takes the reader on an extraordinary journey that embraces the ten central ideas of current science. "By a great idea," writes Peter Atkins, "I mean a simple concept of great reach, an acorn of an idea that ramifies into a great oak tree of application, a spider of an idea that can spin a great web and draw in a feast of explanation and elucidation." With wit, charm, and patience, Atkins leads the reader to an understanding of the essence of the whole of science, from evolution and the emergence of complexity, to entropy, the spring of all change in the universe; from energy, the universalization of accountancy, to symmetry, the quantification of beauty; and from cosmology, the globalization of reality, to spacetime, the arena of all action. "My intention is for us to travel to the high ridges of science," Atkins tells us. "As the journey progresses and I lead you carefully to the summit of understanding, you will experience the deep joy of illumination that science alone provides." Galileo's Finger breaks new ground in communicating science to the general reader. Here are the essential ideas of today's science, explained in magical prose.
Why is the Sky Blue - Dr. Peter Atkins pangea 2010-07-17 | Peter Atkins is Professor of Chemistry and Fellow of Lincoln College at Oxford University. He is the author of several world-famous chemistry textbooks. One reason why these continue to be leaders throughout the world after more than two decades is his remarkable gift for being able to explain things--especially challenging concepts--memorably and with great clarity. This gift has regularly been deployed in his books for the general reader (Richard Dawkins has described one of them, The Creation , as 'the most beautifully written popular science book ever'), but never to better effect than now, in Galileo's Finger .
Dr. Nita Farahany - Law, Behavioral Genetics & Neuroscience pangea 2010-07-17 | Nita Farahany focuses on the legal, philosophical and social issues arising from developments in the biosciences, particularly related to behavioral genetics and neuroscience. As a leading expert in law and the biosciences, her published work has appeared in legal, philosophical and scientific publications as well as the mainstream media. She is the editor of The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law (Oxford University Press), which includes essays from experts on the use of behavioral genetics and neuroscience in the criminal justice system. She is currently examining how these emerging scientific developments inform agency and responsibility theory, and challenge existing doctrines in constitutional law. Professor Farahany presents her work widely and to varied audiences, including past presentations to the Second Circuit Judicial Conference, the National Judicial College, the Stanford Center for the Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. In 2010, Professor Farahany was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Before joining Vanderbilt, Professor Farahany clerked for the Honorable Judith W. Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in genetics and cellular biology, and from Harvard University with a master's degree in biology, where her thesis, Prescribing Culpability, critiqued the use of scientific criteria to define normative legal concepts. She earned her J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy of biology and jurisprudence at Duke University, where her doctoral dissertation, Rediscovering Criminal Responsibility through Behavioral Genetics, established the scientific and philosophical limitations to informing individual responsibility with behavioral genetics.
Scientific Method vs. Theology - Dr. Peter Atkins pangea 2010-07-17 | Peter Atkins is Professor of Chemistry and Fellow of Lincoln College at Oxford University. He is the author of several world-famous chemistry textbooks. One reason why these continue to be leaders throughout the world after more than two decades is his remarkable gift for being able to explain things--especially challenging concepts--memorably and with great clarity. This gift has regularly been deployed in his books for the general reader (Richard Dawkins has described one of them, The Creation , as 'the most beautifully written popular science book ever'), but never to better effect than now, in Galileo's Finger . In this brilliant account of the central ideas of contemporary science, Peter Atkins celebrates the effectiveness of Galileo's symbolic finger for revealing the nature of our universe, our world, and ourselves. Galileo's Finger takes the reader on an extraordinary journey that embraces the ten central ideas of current science. "By a great idea," writes Peter Atkins, "I mean a simple concept of great reach, an acorn of an idea that ramifies into a great oak tree of application, a spider of an idea that can spin a great web and draw in a feast of explanation and elucidation." With wit, charm, and patience, Atkins leads the reader to an understanding of the essence of the whole of science, from evolution and the emergence of complexity, to entropy, the spring of all change in the universe; from energy, the universalization of accountancy, to symmetry, the quantification of beauty; and from cosmology, the globalization of reality, to spacetime, the arena of all action. "My intention is for us to travel to the high ridges of science," Atkins tells us. "As the journey progresses and I lead you carefully to the summit of understanding, you will experience the deep joy of illumination that science alone provides." Galileo's Finger breaks new ground in communicating science to the general reader. Here are the essential ideas of today's science, explained in magical prose.
American Jesus: Cultural Christianity - A Gospel of Greed in a World of Need pangea 2010-07-09 | In this video the soft solipsistic lives and the petty provincial preaching of American preachers is compared to the tough real lives of war children in Africa. Christianity seems to have lost its claim to universal truth when it has limited itself to only a specific time and a specific place in America. Can you imagine any of these American preachers being transported to Auschwitz in 1942?? Or how about the killing fields of Rwanda in 1994? One realizes how irrevelant and limited the christian american message really is. Charlatans and political power lead the way to the frugal and passive Jesus of Nazareth? If Christianity is credible it should be above time and culture not dependent on it. God wants you rich. Your best life now. Steps to success. These platitudes are limited to geography, time and culture and are not grand or true enough to survive the reality of the whole human experience. This american christianity is not universal in time or place. It does not deserve the respect of reason nor does it pass the test of justice. luckyatheist.blogspot.com From the Lucky Atheist Blog: "...imagine the words of some of the more incredibly US-centric televangelists being spouted in a sermon in (pick your favorite time and place of abject misery in the world -- medieval Europe, most of modern Africa). Think of how utterly silly, mismatched, provincial and irrelevant these words would seem. For someone who thinks these are really the words of the all-powerful master of the universe, why does the message change so much from place to place? This little thought experiment might be an added dissonance induction tool. In a similar vein, years ago there was a Jewish comedian who told a story about a redneck exhorting him to start worshiping the American God. " Religion requires solipsism because once a person goes beyond their little bubble and starts to imagine and contemplate the human history, the natural history, and the depth of the cosmos the sheer weight of all of it will cause an honest intellect to throw away the weak minded claims of the religious bubble which limits you to a puddle when an ocean is near by. http://www.pangeaprogress.com/ecrasez-linfame.html
Into the Silent Land - Dr. Paul Broks pangea 2010-07-03 | Into the Silent Land is a stunning look into how the human brain constructs a "self," or the essence of who we are as individuals. A neuropsychologist with twenty-five years' experience and a runner-up for the prestigious Wellcome Trust Science Prize, Paul Broks writes with a doctor's precision and clarity in a series of narratives about the fascinating world of the neurologically impaired, delving not only into the inner lives of his patients, but into a deeper understanding of how we define who we are. Fusing classic cases of neuropsychology with the author's own case studies, personal vignettes, philosophical debate, and thought-provoking riffs and meditations on the nature of neurological impairments and dysfunctions, Into the Silent Land is an illuminating study of neuroscience, and an extraordinary look into the unknown world of the self.
Brain Neurons & The Chimpanzee in the Mirror pangea 2010-07-02 | Your brain is made of approximately 100 billion nerve cells, called neurons. Neurons have the amazing ability to gather and transmit electrochemical signals -- they are something like the gates and wires in a computer. Neurons share the same characteristics and have the same parts as other cells, but the electrochemical aspect lets them transmit signals over long distances (up to several feet or a few meters) and pass messages to each other. The status of qualia is hotly debated in philosophy largely because it is central to a proper understanding of the nature of consciousness. Qualia are at the very heart of the mind-body problem. Ramachandran: The problem of self, on the other hand, is an empirical one that can be solved—or at least explored to its very limit—by science. If and when we do it will be a turning point in the history of science. Neurological conditions have shown that the self is not the monolithic entity it believes itself to be. It seems to consist of many components each of which can be studied individually, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion. (But if so we need to ask how the illusion arises; was it an adaptation acquired through natural selection?) Ramachandran then goes on to describe the fascinating variations in our sense of self that can be correlated with brain changes. In a previous essay on mirror neurons he ...speculated that these neurons can not only help simulate other people's behavior but can be turned "inward"—as it were—to create second-order representations or metarepresentations of your own earlier brain processes. This could be the neural basis of introspection, and of the reciprocity of self awareness and other awareness. There is obviously a chicken-or-egg question here as to which evolved first, but that is tangential to my main argument.... The main point is that the two co-evolved, mutually enriching each other to create the mature representation of self that characterizes modern humans. Our ordinary language illustrates this, as when we say "I feel a bit self conscious", when I really mean that I am conscious of others being conscious of me. Or when I speak of being self critical or experiencing "self-pity". (A chimp could—arguably—feel pity for a begging chimp, but I doubt whether it would ever experience self-pity.) I also suggest that although these neurons initially emerged in our ancestors to adopt another's allocentric visual point of view, they evolved further in humans to enable the adoption of another's metaphorical point of view. ("I see it from his point of view" etc.) This, too, might have been a turning point in evolution although how it might have occurred is deeply puzzling.
Brain Evolution (III) Dr. Linden pangea 2010-07-02 | David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics. You can see a list of some of his lab's recent scientific papers here. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Brain Evolution (I) Dr. Linden pangea 2010-07-02 | David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics. You can see a list of some of his lab's recent scientific papers here. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. E. O. Wilson
Brain Evolution (II) Dr. Linden pangea 2010-07-02 | David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics. You can see a list of some of his lab's recent scientific papers here. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Brain Evolution (IV) Dr. Linden pangea 2010-07-02 | David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics. You can see a list of some of his lab's recent scientific papers here. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Brain Evolution (V) Dr. Linden pangea 2010-07-02 | David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics. You can see a list of some of his lab's recent scientific papers here. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Brain Evolution (VI) Dr. Linden pangea 2010-07-02 | David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain and a few other topics. You can see a list of some of his lab's recent scientific papers here. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.
Peter Singer (I) Speciesism & Animal Rights pangea 2010-06-29 | Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, a position he has held since 1999. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford and has taught at the University of Oxford, La Trobe University and Monash University. Singer was the founding President of the International Association of Bioethics and, with Helga Kuhse, founding co-editor of the journal Bioethics. Singer first became internationally known after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. His other books include Practical Ethics, How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, One World and The President of Good and Evil, and his next work, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter
Peter Singer (II) Speciesism & Animal Rights pangea 2010-06-29 | Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, a position he has held since 1999. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford and has taught at the University of Oxford, La Trobe University and Monash University. Singer was the founding President of the International Association of Bioethics and, with Helga Kuhse, founding co-editor of the journal Bioethics. Singer first became internationally known after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. His other books include Practical Ethics, How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, One World and The President of Good and Evil, and his next work, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter
The Chemistry of Love (I) Dr. Helen Fisher pangea 2010-06-29 | http://www.helenfisher.com Helen Fisher, PhD Biological Anthropologist, is a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolution Studies in the Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University and Chief Scientific Advisor to the Internet dating site, Chemistry.com, a division of Match.com. She has conducted extensive research and written five books on the evolution and future of human sex, love, marriage, gender differences in the brain and how your personality type shapes who you are and who you love.
The Chemistry of Love (II) Dr. Helen Fisher pangea 2010-06-29 | http://www.helenfisher.com Helen Fisher, PhD Biological Anthropologist, is a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolution Studies in the Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University and Chief Scientific Advisor to the Internet dating site, Chemistry.com, a division of Match.com. She has conducted extensive research and written five books on the evolution and future of human sex, love, marriage, gender differences in the brain and how your personality type shapes who you are and who you love.
