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.
Year: 2011
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.