Why Atheists Are More Intelligent Than the Religious It is natural to believe in God, so more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheists. Religion is a cultural universal, and its practice is observed in every known human society. However, as I explain in earlier posts (Why do we believe in God? Part I , Part II ), recent evolutionary psychological theories suggest that religiosity may not be an adaptation in itself but may be a byproduct of other evolved psychological mechanisms variously called the “animistic bias” or the “agency-detector mechanisms.” These theories contend that the human brain has been selected to agency – personal, animate, and intentional forces – behind otherwise natural phenomena whose exact causes cannot be known. If these theories are correct, then it means that religiosity – belief in higher powers – may have an evolutionary origin. Once again, analyses of large representative samples from both the United States and the United Kingdom support this prediction of the Hypothesis .
handwriting tips You’ve decided you want to improve your handwriting and you’re probably hoping a fountain pen will do the trick -- maybe a friend told you it would. Maybe you’re just adventurous and you want to try your hand at calligraphy (or you might, once your handwriting improves). Good for you! A fountain pen may make your writing look a bit better, but if your writing looks as if frenzied chickens got loose on the page, chances are this won’t be enough. After coaching handwriting and teaching calligraphy over the years, I’ve learned to see the characteristics of those who’ll be able to pick up the necessary motions quickly from those who’ll have to work a bit harder. Crampy, uneven letters are often the result of drawing the letters with the fingers rather than using the whole arm to write. People who inevitably have trouble with handwriting and calligraphy write with their fingers. If you use the right muscle groups, your writing will have a smooth, easy flow and not look tortured. Fig. 1. Top
The "Johnny Depp Effect" - An evolutionary explanation for homosexuality Who is more attractive as a mate? A guy who is kind or a guy who is cruel? A guy who is sensitive or a guy who lacks empathy ? Now consider who is more likely to be gay. This exercise in mate preferences (and stereotypes , please excuse us) serves to illustrate a simple point: Gay men are attractive. Two recent articles suggest that these women are on to something. Again, scientists have known for some time that sexual orientation has a genetic component. It was once hypothesized that such a trait could be maintained via kin selection. Hypotheses demand empirical tests, and when the kin selection hypothesis of homosexuality was tested by David Bobrow and Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and later by Qazi Rahman and Matthew Hull of the University of East London, it was not supported. Even without data protesting against this kin selection hypothesis, we find it illogical. So if this Darwinian puzzle is not solved by invoking kin selection, what's another solution? References
PET - CyberWiki Thanks for visiting the CIS PET wiki. This is meant to be a list of free technologies aimed at empowering Internet users to gain better control over their data. It's very simple to add an entry---just click the "edit" tab, copy and paste the previous entry, and substitute the name, description, and address. Abine - A Firefox / Internet Explorer plugin that blocks third party advertising networks, manages HTTP, DOM, and Flash cookies, and securely manages site logins. Currently in private beta, but invites aren't hard to get. There are also a variety of resources describing or otherwise devoted to privacy enhancing technology. Berkman Center - Harvard's Berkman Center has put together this comprehensive report on the state of technologies that circumvent government monitored Internet connections.
The Evolutionary Psychology of Human Sex and Gender By Daniel Pouzzner, 2000-Apr-11/12 Sexuality is an indispensable mechanism whereby biological evolution bridged the immense gap between asexual/Lamarckian unicellular organisms, and the now plainly preeminent humans. For tens of millions of generations, the lineage leading to humanity has been formed and continued exclusively by sexual procreation. The precise microbiological mechanics of sexuality vary widely from species to species, while the functional consequences - strictly sexual procreation, in which each individual has precisely two parents, each contributing roughly half of the individual's genome - is absolutely conserved. This evidences the overwhelming evolutionary pressure in favor of the sexual mechanism. In this essay, I give an overview of the differences between the male and female human phenotypes, concentrating on mental distinctions. The basic evolutionary pressures on males and females are identical. Female procreative organs implement the mechanics of pregnancy.
Is hell exothermic? I do not know who originally wrote this but it is a classic. A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question: "Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: "First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. 1. So which is it? This student got the only A. Back Perception puzzles, Visual Perception, Optical illusions and Paradoxes This page illustrates that our visual perception cannot always be trusted. The components of an object can distort the perception of the complete object. Our mind is the final arbiter of truth. Most optical illusions are the result of 1) incongruent design elements at opposite ends of parallel lines, 2) influence of background patterns on the overall design, 3) adjustment of our perception at the boundaries of areas of high contrast, 4) afterimages resulting from eye movements or from kinetic displays, or 5) inability to interpret the spatial structure of an object from the context provided by the picture. The Parthenon Optical illusions have been studied for millenia. Perpetually ascending staircase. The red squares are the same color in the upper part and in the lower part of the "X" The diagonal lines are parallel. There are no gray spots at the corners of the squares. Stairway between corners of a flat square. The rows of black and white squares are all parallel. Impossible triangle.
Community Photography Gallery Photos Community Come on in! Join today ...it only takes a few seconds.Join Us!Sign In Newest Filters Community Photos 0Sweeper's Encoreby Michael Lehrman 5Fight for your right and nothing left...by Pascal GIUDICELLI 0Autumnby Geoff Smith 0Line, Texture, Hueby Geoff Smith 0Fishing Boatby Geoff Smith 3Jenn Portraitby Braz Photography 1Foggy dayby John Joris 0abandoned farmby vidar mathisen 1abandoned farmby vidar mathisen 3Beautiful Natureby Kurt K Gledhill 0Space! 5allium 01by mikmas101 0WOODEN HORSEby ELIYA.M.MOSES 0APRIL SPRINGby ELIYA.M.MOSES 0SO FAR YET ..by ELIYA.M.MOSES 0JUST BETWEEN ME & Y..by ELIYA.M.MOSES 0LEFT IN THE PAST...by ELIYA.M.MOSES 0Between The Moor and the Saw Millby Adam Regan 1DANSEby gerard marlot 8allium 02by mikmas101 12Freedom..by Dianne Galbraith 11Tiny rain-drop..by Dianne Galbraith 1Never Ending Nightmareby Luis Carlos Padilla 123456[...]next © 2014 Fotoblur About Blog FAQ Support Terms Privacy f | t
Wild Mood Swings - Surf the web on a whim. (C) Sean McManus <p style="font-size:x-large;">Oh no! You don't have Javascript enabled. Please <a href=" Javascript now</a> or the only moods you'll experience will be boredom and frustration.</p><hr noshade> Pick your mood, click the button and Wild Mood Swings will open an appropriate website in a new window. What is Wild Mood Swings? It's a simple game and online web experience: you select a mood from the pull-down list, click on 'take me away' and it'll whisk you away to an appropriate site. Each time you reload the page or click the shuffle moods link, the moods are sorted into a different order, adding an additional element of serendipity. What do I need to work it? Some of the links will take you to sites that require the Flash plug-in or Chrome browser. If it's not working, it's possible you have a pop-up blocker installed that is stopping Wild Mood Swings from opening your destination site in a new window. Why was it developed? When was it launched?
Setting up a server - BukkitWiki Preliminary notes Note: In this guide we refer to the server file as craftbukkit.jar but the file you download may be named differently. The file name used in your start script must match the name of the file you download. Note: Unless you have a multi-homed machine and know what this means/requires, server-ip= in server.properties MUST remain unchanged from default and be blank. Note: When running a server for the first time, errors will show up. Do not worry as this is normal; the server is generating files and folders needed to run as they do not exist yet. Note: The Bukkit server is intended as a complete replacement for the official Minecraft Server downloaded from Minecraft.net and is not normally ran at the same time on a single computer. Windows 1. 2. 3. java -Xmx1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar -o true PAUSE 4. Note: With some programs such as Notepad, it may try saving as run.bat.txt. 5. 6. Linux 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. #! 6. 7. 8. Mac OS X ALTERNATE METHOD [Only for Advanced Users]: Community Guides
The Stages of Sleep Each and every night, your brain passes through four stages of sleep. Passing through all these stages takes about 90-110 minutes and marks one full sleep cycle. So, if you sleep soundly for eight hours per night, you're getting five full sleep cycles. The Five Stages of Sleep Let's take a closer look at the five stages of sleep: NREM Stage 1 is a light sleep and you are easily woken. When is The Best Time for Lucid Dreaming? Your longest and most memorable lucid dreams will usually occur in the fourth and fifth sleep cycles (after about six hours of sleep) during phases of REM sleep. The graph shows REM sleep occurring at the end of each sleep cycle. If you don't wake up to an alarm, you'll find you often wake directly from a dream, which makes it much easier to remember. This graph also shows how it's essential for lucid dreamers to get sufficient shuteye and not miss out on REM sleep by cutting sleep short. How Much Sleep Does The Average Person Need? How Long Do Dreams Last?
Radio - Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music