What, Why & How do we Know ?
I support the power of blogging (and other social media) but you’ve probably detected I also see a problem with over-communication. In the clamour for attention, bad information can drive out good – the memetic problem as I call it. There is a moral imperative to say what needs to be said – and that … Continue reading “The Power of Blogging”
Healthy piece from Michael Blastland at BBC Go Figure on … How wrong can we be? Often more wrong than we think. This is good – as in useful – to know. Good to hear another sympathetic comment regarding Rumsfeld’s epistemology. Previously on Psybertron: (Aug 2004) Robert Matthews invokes Rumsfeld on limits to scientific knowledge. (Dec 2003) … Continue reading “Those Unknown Unknowns Again”
Another excellent Clive James piece in the BBC Magazine. I keep returning to HAL in 2001 as the archetype and so it seems does Clive. It’s not as if we haven’t seen the man-machine interface problems long enough to recognize them – Turing’s enigma – but we still idolise “efficiency” over “care”. Spot on Clive. … Continue reading “Computer Says No”
Interesting series recently on white-collar crime from Laurie Taylor on “Thinking Allowed”. This week’s program was on social software communications in the post-Obama party-political election environment, and it was interesting that Laurie joined up the two subjects, in the intent and honesty of communication in these channels. Bingo. The inventors of the internet didn’t overlook … Continue reading “White-Collar Politics”
Having my mind brought back to the mid-70’s by the previous post, I noticed I had the lyrics to Roy Harper’s “Me and My Woman” sitting in a draft post from a couple of weeks ago, just before the vacation. I think Sam’s post to name your favourite U2 tracks, led me into a “soundtrack of our … Continue reading “Need My Own Good Friday”
Thanks to PZ Myers for the links to this Jerry Coyne piece on Francis Collins (Obama’s choice for NIH Director) lecture at UC Berkeley. (And a review by Sam Harris.) Dr. Collins will have more responsibility for biomedical and health-related research than any person on earth, controlling an annual budget of more than $30 billion. … Continue reading “Religion Does Pollute Science”
Interesting, but not unpredictable behaviour. Wow, almost two weeks since I last blogged – must complete the Soul Craft review. Talking of graffiti – I’ve lived in places before with explicit zero tolerance of graffiti but where we live in Oslo at the moment, there appears to be a high tolerance of crude tagging as well as … Continue reading “Norms breed norms”
Is a line from the wonderfully ironic “The Devil Wears Prada” a film I saw for about the 3rd or 4th time yesterday … just killing time … one of those films that always seems to be showing on some TV channel. I don’t know anything about the original writing behind it, and there is … Continue reading “Everybody Wants To Get Ahead ?”