The McCelt Particle Gould's skulls: Is bias inevitable in science? - life - 25 July 2011 Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 Stephen Jay Gould claimed unconscious bias could affect even seemingly objective scientific measurements. Not so TRUTH is hard to come by, as personal lives and politics readily illustrate. Gould was a man of many parts - invertebrate palaeontologist, evolutionary theorist, historian of science, crusader against creationism and a prolific populariser of science with a slew of bestselling books. Even so, Gould harboured grave doubts about the ability of science to remain free from social pressures and bias. To support these claims, Gould presented the case of Samuel George Morton, a 19th-century American physician and scientist famous for his measurements of human skulls, particularly their cranial capacity (the skeletal equivalent of brain size). There matters stood until one of us, Jason E. Next, we scrutinised every claim Gould made, redid every analysis Gould did, and then did the same for Morton. More From New Scientist More from the web
12 programming mistakes to avoid | Developer World A car magazine once declared that a car has "character" if it takes 15 minutes to explain its idiosyncrasies before it can be loaned to a friend. By that standard, every piece of software has character -- all too often, right of the box. Most programming "peculiarities" are unique to a particular context, rendering them highly obscure. [ Also on InfoWorld: Find out which 7 programming languages are on the rise in today's enterprise. | Keep up on key application development insights with the Fatal Exception blog and Developer World newsletter. ] But certain programming practices send the majority of developers reaching for their hair upon opening a file that has been exhibiting too much "character." Creatures of habit, we developers seem locked into certain failure modes that can't be avoided, such is the frequency with which we fall prey to a particular poor programming practice. <code> public String getPostcode(Person person) { String ans= null; if (person ! With this:
Flux Particle Theory a Complete Theory of Everything What Is Pseudoscience? Climate deniers are accused of practicing pseudoscience, as are intelligent design creationists, astrologers, UFOlogists, parapsychologists, practitioners of alternative medicine, and often anyone who strays far from the scientific mainstream. The boundary problem between science and pseudoscience, in fact, is notoriously fraught with definitional disagreements because the categories are too broad and fuzzy on the edges, and the term “pseudoscience” is subject to adjectival abuse against any claim one happens to dislike for any reason. In his 2010 book Nonsense on Stilts (University of Chicago Press), philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci concedes that there is “no litmus test,” because “the boundaries separating science, nonscience, and pseudoscience are much fuzzier and more permeable than Popper (or, for that matter, most scientists) would have us believe.” Princeton University historian of science Michael D.
The Top 8 Movies on Dreams, Lucid Dreaming, and Assorted Mind-Weirdness The Island by balt-arts In keeping with this weeks earlier posts on movies, I decided to list all the good dream and lucid dream themed films out there! If you are interested in dreams, I think you’ll find these movies worth watching. Let me know what you think! You might notice some of these movies bleed into other mind-related themes. My study of dreams naturally leads to a fascination with consciousness and states of mind, and so my movie list naturally reflects that in as much as it ties back into my fascination with dreams. 1. – The most popular movie to introduce the concept of lucid dreaming to the masses. 2. – This is the original Spanish version of Vanilla Sky. ‘m really not trying to collect hipster points by saying this version is better, but it might just be better, to be honest. By the way, Penelope Cruz is in this version, too. 3. – This movie is incomparable to anything else. The entire film issequences of intense philosophical dialogues on dreams and reality. 4. up films! 5.
Eric Weinstein may have found the answer to physics' biggest problems | Marcus du Sautoy | Science Two years ago, a mathematician and physicist whom I've known for more than 20 years arranged to meet me in a bar in New York. What he was about to show me, he explained, were ideas that he'd been working on for the past two decades. As he took me through the equations he had been formulating I began to see emerging before my eyes potential answers for many of the major problems in physics. It was an extremely exciting, daring proposal, but also mathematically so natural that one could not but feel that it smelled right. He has spent the past two years taking me through the ins and outs of his theory and that initial feeling that I was looking at "the answer" has not waned. One of the things that particularly appeals to me about the theory is that symmetry, my own field of research, is a key ingredient. The particles described by the Standard Model – the stuff of nature that is revealed in accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider – fall into three "generations".
Geology will survive creationist undermining - opinion - 11 October 2011 Creationist infiltration of scientific conferences seems outrageous, but banning them would do more harm than good WHAT should a scientific society do when creationists want to participate in its conferences? This question faces many scientific organisations in the US. At meetings of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in 2009 and 2010, young-Earth creationists, who think Noah's flood was a historical event and the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, presented posters, gave talks and led field trips. I attended a number of these events, and I can attest that the creationists were careful to give mainstream presentations using standard geologic methods. It's not surprising that they were able to do so: the presenters had received decent geology educations from legitimate institutions. The point is to be able to claim legitimacy. Geologists are understandably fuming. Science is a process. New Scientist Not just a website! More From New Scientist More from the web Recommended by
Top 10 Con Games Explained Unlike most kinds of petty crime, a confidence game, or con, takes an enormous amount of skill and forethought to pull off. When done right, in many cases the grifters who perpetrate them have not actually done anything overtly illegal–they’ve simply used lies and manipulation to get their victim, or “mark,” to willingly hand over their own money. Whether blackmail, fraud, or illegal gambling, the following are ten of the most famous ways that these swindlers try to take advantage of the confidence of their unsuspecting victims. Obviously, there are a number of takes on any kind of con, but these are the most popular variations of the most well known tricks. 10. The embarrassing check con is a well-known means of legally getting money from victims by playing off of their innate feelings of shame. 9. Many of the best cons work because of the inherent greed of the person being tricked, and the fiddle game is one of the best examples. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
Car Lease Takeover - Lease Transfer - How does it work? What is a car lease takeover or lease transfer? How does it work? In a tough economy, automotive consumers look for affordable ways to drive the cars they need and want. Lease takeovers, or lease transfers, are increasingly providing the ideal answer for many of these consumers. Although lease transfers have been around for years, it has now become the hottest new way to acquire a late model automobile at the lowest possible cost. Here's how a car lease takeover works Someone who is currently leasing a car wants out of their lease. They now want out of their lease and are willing to let someone else take over the car and lease, along with its low payments, with no down payment. What is a car lease takeover? How do you find a car lease takeover? , the largest and most respected of such companies. When you go the Swapalease web site, you can search car makes, models, locations, and prices. Here's some tips to make your car lease takeover (lease transfer) easy and successful.