Monthly Archives: March 2011

History of the Scientific Method

Posted on March 25, 2011 by dontdontoperate

The lab that I work in has these weekly ‘physics’ talks, where someone from the lab has to present a talk on something science-y that may interest everyone else. I call them physics talks, mainly because they are usually about … Continue reading →

Posted in Ethics, History, Mathematics, Philosophy, Politics, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged aristotle, charles sanders peirce, david hume, descartes, Feyerabend, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, history, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant, ibn al-haytham, imre lakatos, john dewey, John Locke, Kant, Karl Popper, kuhn, Lakatos, MRI, newton, null-hypothesis, Paul Feyerabend, Physics, plato, popper, publication bias, roger bacon, Science, scientific method, thales, Thomas Kuhn, william whewell | 3 Comments

Japan and Donating

Posted on March 17, 2011 by dontdontoperate

So I woke up this morning hoping to donate $25 dollars to Japan (my incentive to do so wasn’t, unfortunately, from reading newspapers/blogs or watching CNN or the news, since I, on the whole, don’t do those things, but instead … Continue reading →

Posted in Ethics, History, Politics | Tagged congo, donating, givewell.org, haiti, ivory coast, Japan, libya, mali, New York Times, niger, Peter Singer, pratham, Red Cross, relief aid, the life you can save, villagereach | 1 Comment

Expert Opinion and the Need for Critical Thinking

Posted on March 16, 2011 by dontdontoperate

I watched a nice little video from Ted.com, about the need for people to continue to be critical even in the face of expert opinions. I, on the whole, agree with her, but I have several issues/points of thought that … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Politics, Science, Thoughts | Tagged certainty, expert opinion, experts, fMRI, food companies, MRI, noreena hertz, norms, paradigm, pharmaceutical, ted, ted.com | Leave a comment

Ruminations on Religion, and Meaning in the Void

Posted on March 11, 2011 by dontdontoperate

Religion, to me, is savagely interesting. Some of the reasons for this include: The evolution of religious/supernatural thought (evolutionary psychology) The ontological/metaphysical consequences if religious beliefs were true (philosophy) The history of religion: how religious beliefs progress and change in … Continue reading →

Posted in Ethics, History, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Thoughts | Tagged after-life, aristotle, atheism, beliefs, benevolent, Bible, calamities, chaos, choice, christianity, consequentialism, death, Democracy, diety, education, epistemology, eternity, Ethics, eudaimonia, evolution, fatalism, Free Will, friends, god, happiness, heaven, history, Ideas, justice, life, love, meaning, metaphysics, ontology, perfect, philosophy, Physics, Politics, Psychology, Religion, society, statistics, Superstition, theology, tolerance, universe, virtue ethics | Leave a comment

These Are a Few of My Favourite Things (About Evolution): Pt. 3: Endosymbiosis

Posted on March 9, 2011 by dontdontoperate

You guessed it: another post about evolution. This time it’s the third of four (?), the other two being about Endogenous Retroviruses and the Liver Lancet Fluke’s Reproductive Cycle. This post is about endosymbiosis, which is like an extreme version … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged archaea, DNA, endosymbiosis, endosymbiotic theory, eukaryote, evolution, mitochondria, mitochondrial DNA, mitochondrial eve, nucleus, ovum, prokaryote, sperm | Leave a comment

Evolution of Species and Languages, and Their Definitions

Posted on March 7, 2011 by dontdontoperate

Oh lord. This post took me a while because I was trying to find what book I read that made me want to write it. The book I was reading (maybe John Ralston Saul’s A Fair Country) was talking about … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Science | Tagged a fair country, Darwin, dialect, dialect continuum, evolution, faroe islands, faroese, finland, hammarland, iceland, interbreed, john ralston saul, language, norway, origin of species, richard dawkins, ring species, salamanders, scandinavia, scandinavian, species, sweden, the ancestor's tale | 1 Comment

Evolution and Origami

Posted on March 3, 2011 by dontdontoperate

I’m currently making my way through BBC’s David Attenborough narrated series Life in the Undergrowth, which is all about insects. First of all, although now it seems patently obvious, the first episode really helps you see how the first insects … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Film, Mathematics, Science | Tagged bbc, beetle, crab, crustacea, david attenborough, evolution, insects, life in the undergrowth, lobster, origami, robert lang, shrimp, ted | Leave a comment

Iran (Is Not the Problem) – Documentary

Posted on March 2, 2011 by dontdontoperate

I watched a documentary a while ago, but was so overloaded with facts (well, I mean, I haven’t fact checked ‘em or anything) that I had to watch it again, this time with my finger ready on the pause-rewind button … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, History, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged ahmadinejad, bush, CIA, dictator, holocaust denial, hostage, Hussein, india, Iran, Iraq, Israel, khatami, kurdish uprising, kuwait, middle-east, Nicaragua, Nixon, north korea, npt, nuremberg, obama, oil, pakistan, revolution, Saudi Arabia, shah, shia, sunni, supreme leader, tehran, U.N., U.S. | Leave a comment