Sunspots 897

 Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

The Arts: NPR has posted photos of lots of fireflies in action.

Politics: A Conversation writer discusses access to White House documents.

Another Conversation writer tells about partisan news consumption. (In other words, getting news from one side of the political divide.)

Yet another Conversation post discusses political activity by members of the military.

Science: Gizmodo reports that a newly discovered species of isopods (aka pill bugs, wood lice, roly polys, and more) can grow up to a half meter or so in length.

The Scientist reports on why doing work that requires thinking makes you feel tired.

The Scientist also has an article about dreaming in animals, and its possible ethical implications.

A Conversation article tells us why animals have tails.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 681

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Relevant celebrates the products of Pixar studio.

Christianity: Sojourners says that we worship the rich.

Relevant has some good advice for married couples who don't engage in sex very often.

Christianity Today warns churches that the church, itself, may be groomed by sexual predators.

Health: It really is harder to think in summer heat.

History: Listverse on the origin of 10 common articles of clothing.


Politics: (or something) Domino's pizza has decided to start fixing roads, so that their pizzas won't be damaged during delivery. Really.

Science: Gizmodo reports the honeybees may be able to comprehend zero -- the absence of something. Ancient human mathematicians didn't seem to comprehend this, by the way.

Gizmodo also explains (as far as we can, at the present) why some scientists believe that there is dark matter, and what that matter might be.

Todd C. Wood, a respected young-earth creationist scientist, reacts to a recent scientific article that claims that all species of animals are about the same age. Wood is not convinced.

Thanks for looking!

Image source (public domain)

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 9

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern skeptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem. The last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of observation: that what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from his reason than his imagination. It was not meant to attack the authority of reason; rather it is the ultimate purpose to defend it. For it needs defence. The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower already reels.
Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive or unreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our present one) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational to attack the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics of religious authority are like men who should attack the police without ever having heard of burglars. For there is a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin. That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?” The young sceptic says, “I have a right to think for myself.” But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, “I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all.”

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here.  Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.

Philippians 4:8 poster

A poster, based on Philippians 4:8, from our church's Sunday School lesson from tomorrow. You should be able to see larger versions of this by clicking on the graphic, which is a link to the original in my Flickr photostream.

In the WEB, the verse reads: "Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think about these things."

Paul doesn't explicitly say so, but I think he was also telling us to avoid thinking of things that aren't true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, of good report, with virtue, and worth of praise.

Thanks for looking and reading. Think about true and lovely things. There are some.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

An article in the current Atlantic has the same title as this post.

The author muses about that question, and his musings deserve to be widely read. He suspects, for one thing, that using Google is actually changing the way we think.

The article says that the founders of Google are trying to supplement the human brain with a search engine that is artificially intelligent, that gets us the information we want as quickly as, well, Googling someone, only better that how that works today -- it should, they think, get us exactly what we want. But would that be a good thing? Maybe, maybe not. Contemplation, reflection, messing around with stuff we weren't planning to think about, seem to be at the bottom of a lot of important discoveries.

Well worth reading, and thinking about.

"What Have You Changed Your Mind About?" pt. 3

I continue comments on Edge's "World Question" issue, which question is the same as my title. See the first part of this series, which gives some explanation, and the second part.

The first essay on this page of the issue is by Rodney Brooks, who questions the use of computational metaphors to explain the nervous system.

On the same page, Robert Trivers asks:
"And consider one of the great mysteries of mental biology. The human brain consumes about 20% of resting metabolic rate come rain or shine, whether depressed or happy, asleep or awake. Why? And why is the brain so quick to die when deprived of this energy?"
He doesn't know, of course.

Ken Ford used to think that science was practically free of unethical behavior, but has changed his mind, based, he says, on the evidence. He writes:
We do need to teach ethics as essential to the conduct of science, and we need to teach the simple lesson that in science crime doesn't pay. But above all, we need to demonstrate by example that the highest ethical standards should, and often do, come naturally.
Indeed!

I have found this publication to be fertile ground for thought, and expect to continue with this series.

Thanks for reading.