More good advice from Peter Drucker (via HBR and David Gurteen again). Facts can always be made to fit, so better to understand subjective differences of opinion.
Author: Psybertron
Phantom Limbs
Lots of examples in Sacks, and in Ramchandran and in Damasio if I recall. (Ram is mentioned in the story in fact.)
Scientific Denial
Amazing that so many scientists are reported as denying Darwinian evolution. Steve Jones in The Telegraph.
The growing tide of fact‑denial is a statement of failure, not by students but by their teachers, up to and including those at university level. We do our best, I think, but faced with schools or faith groups that get their ignorance in first, we seem to be fighting a losing battle.
Well, I’d say they need to start by teaching quality, rather than claiming to be “right”. Science is always incomplete and contingent, but there are places where science has no value (first-cause) or limited value (psychology, for short, or any metaphysical philosophy of science).
Even theist Francis Collins says:
Evolution is as solid a theory as gravity.
Hunter Gatherer Diet
Impressive case. “Minding Your Mitochondria” – Large quantities, but minimal grain or pulse-based carbohydrate.
Thanks to Dave Gurteen for reposting Robert Paterson’s blog.
Inbred to Destruction ?
Interesting. I remember thinking when I saw John Gosden explaining reassuringly “freakish, but it happens (painlessly?) all the time” as he tended to Rewilding, being put-down at Ascot in July, that race horses must have fragile cannon-bones. In fact not being interested in horses I had to look up cannon-bones on-line at the time. (Only interested because son-of-a-friend William Buick won the particular race on Gosden-trained Nathaniel.)
No-one wants to be watching the Derby, Kentucky Derby or Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2018 and to see another horse fall, broken under its own weight and heritage.
To avoid such problems in thoroughbreds, and to maintain the genetic health of these most athletic of animals … the thoroughbred industry should periodically, every 5-10 years, re-check to see what the levels of inbreeding are.
Yes & No
Should they illuminate Stonehenge at night ? Why does this have to be a dichotomous, binary question ? Why not illuminate it Wednesday to Friday nights, in darkness with minimal starlight pollution Saturday to Tuesday ? Or alternate nights, or … before and after midnight, or …
M1 for Marmite
Oops. Plenty of puns in response.
Talking of Memes
Loving the second series as much as the first. Even though the relentless plot twists and red-herrings are infuriatingly, yet somehow predictably unpredictable, with motives and suspects ten-a-penny, a la Morse, it is still gripping stuff. Forget the knitting patterns, the question is – is it always necessary to cross the bridge to Malmo to avoid the rain in Copenhagen ? This week’s cliff-hanger – is her sidekick already dead ? Probably.
It’s not the plot, it’s the character(s) – though the political players are less believable this time around. Brix is the hero, and no, her sidekick did survive for another week.
Understanding Computers
Interesting to hear this morning’s news item on Google and Microsoft pointing out to the UK Government that knowing how computers work is more than learning “office and social network tools” – those are purely functional ICT skills anyone should have.
Slightly worrying that people don’t see anything between “code” and “office tools” – there’s more to information “science” than computer code, and even code comes in many architectural levels. Still, encouraging to get this on the education agenda.
Also in a Zen and the Art kinda way, encouraging to hear the parallel with engineering and the motor car. Anyone benefits from “appreciating” how their tools interact with themselves and their world. It’s worth remembering:
“The real motor / computer you’re working on is yourself.”
Coding the new Latin ? Surely not, but catchy phrasing by Alex Hope used as Rory’s headline, and who knows maybe the classical take on “knowledge” will get picked-up as the real point.
Interesting too that the background to the Raspberry Pi was driven by school-leaver / university-applicant low-quality computer science knowledge. A whole Linux computer on a thumb-drive. Not sure why the focus on video graphics capability ?
What are Arabs ?
I’m reading The Arabs – A History by Eugene Rogan – lots of positive reviews by the likes of Max Hastings for example as well as Arab speakers. I’m only 90-odd pages in (out of 600ish), but I’m baffled. There are less than 10 pages from 1200 to 1500, and by page 90 we’re already in the post-Ottoman Greece of 1832. There is nothing pre-1200 !
Given the fact that it is hard enough to maintain distinctions between regional tribal origins, nomadic, sea-faring, agrarian and urban, the Arab language(s), the Moslem religion and its factions (and its neighbours and rivals), the imperial ebbs and flows of custody over the Moslem holy places of Medina and Mecca as well as the more strategic imperial resource and trade machinations – I’m simply amazed there is absolutely nothing about the origins of any of these before these dates ? What makes an Albanian an Arab ? It’s almost as if once-an-Ottoman is the definition of Arab – without any explanation.
The book is scholarly, with sources translated from contemporary Arab (and colonial) writers where available, and maybe it’s the availability of written records that limits the book’s time-frame ? Or maybe this is book 2 of a pair ? Either way, I’m missing something. I can’t believe it’s political correctness that excludes (say) the crusades from the story – or can they be irrelevant ?
So far what it does contain gels well with my readings of T E Lawrence, Edward Gibbon and Barbara Tuchman for example, but it seems a pity to skim the history just to get to the “hegemony” of France, UK and USA …. if that’s what we’re doing. Why is Moslem history pre-1200 not Arab ? And that’s not a rhetorical question.
Wikipedia offers (quite carefully IMHO):
Arab people, also known as
Arabs (Arabic: عرب, ʿarab), are a panethnicity[13]
primarily living in the Arab world,
which is located in Western Asia and North Africa.
They are identified as such
on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds,[14]
with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships
playing an important part of Arab identity in
tracing descent of a national from an Arab state.[15]
And …
The earliest documented use of the word “Arab” to refer to a people appears in the Monolith Inscription, an Akkadian language record of the 9th century BC Assyrian Conquest of Syria (Arabs had formed part of a coalition of forces opposed to Assyria).[16]