Believing in Anything

Great post at the Frontal Cortex on magical thinking. “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing - they believe in anything.” Fascinating study showing that the irreligious or liberal Christians tend to be more likely to believe in the paranormal and pseudoscience than Evangelical Christians.

Spore & The Royal Society: Teaching Evolution

OK, I’m late to this one. But a lot of people are talking about the game Spore. I don’t have the game although I’m thinking about downloading the iPhone version of the game. The problem is that the game was hyped as if it were teaching evolution. Yet, it seems to [...]

Stuff Scientists Like

Since I now work in a chocolate factory and not a laboratory I might not have a valid basis for saying anything here. Still I kind of dug this post “stuff scientists like” that I noticed at Razib’s site. (He added his own list) Some things I quibble with. (I have [...]

What is the Subconscious?

The subconscious is one of those odd terms that people use without thinking too much about. I’d be the first to acknowledge it’s used in lots of unique and often incompatible ways. The notion goes back at least to Plotinus although I tend to see Leibniz as introducing it to the modern era. [...]

Intuitionist Mathematics and Physics

There’s a great post at Mathematics and Computation on Intuitionist Mathematics and Physics. (HT: Philosophy, Science, and Method) I always found Intuitionism a bit vague in some key places but there’s a lot about it I like. The big issue is in what counts as evidence. I tend to favor the Peirce [...]

Misc

Well the plan was to spend my evenings in San Francisco doing a little writing so I’d get ahead on posts. Then when I’m busy I could just pull out and revise slightly an already written post. Unfortunately I was run ragged in San Francisco and didn’t have even a moment of rest [...]

Sexual Reorientation

Razib at Gene Expression has an interesting post on cognitive modifications such as controlling sexual orientation. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Well, I’ll take that back. A lot of it makes me feel queasy. If it’s done by adults on themselves that’s one thing. And I tend [...]

Language Evolution

There’s a great post up at Science Blogs on Language Evolution. Note that linguistic or symbolic evolution (yeah the whole meme thing) is unlike regular biological evolution. That’s because there is intentionality to it. I’ve long found linguistic evolution interesting - ever since I went though the math in Royal Skousen’s Analogical [...]

Economic Theory Wrong?

Interesting article up at New Scientist. (It’s behind a pay wall so I’ll summarize it) It’s about why economic theory is out of whack. The paper they are discussing is available at arXiv though. It’s “Stock Price Jumps: News and Volume Play a Minor Role”. (OK, not a very catchy [...]

Girls More Prone for Sports Injuries

Interesting NYT article about how girls are more prone for sports injuries. The figures for some injuries and sports are pretty dramatic. Girls High School basketball players get concussions at three times the rate for boys. The concussion rate in soccer for girls is 1.5 times that of boys. ACL injuies [...]

More Cancer Breakthrough

An other major cancer breakthrough. This one for skin cancer. They inject cloned immune cells back into the body. The patient was free from tumours within eight weeks.

Science Under Attack?

I was listening to the podcast of NPR’s Science Friday as I was packing chocolate. Last Friday’s show included a discussion about that Louisiana Creationism issue I mentioned last week. The Science Friday Show went well beyond that though.

Cancer Advances

P. Z. Meyers has a fantastic post on advances in cancer treatment.

Louisiana Puts Creationism in the Schools

Louisiana appears to have passed a law teaching Creationism in school.

Does Anti-Matter Fall Up?

OK, my business partner mentioned to me a Slashdot article one whether anti-matter fell up. I was incredulous at first. After all if it has positive mass what’s the question? All theory says it falls down. But I guess it’s never been empirically tested. (See Baez’ Physics FAQ) I [...]

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