Hmm... so today I received my first ever 'Skeptic' magazine! :) Very interesting, especially the article on 'climate change'. And apparently it is Darwin's 200 year anniversary .... so lots of info on that and 'how to argue with creationists'. Hahaha! I would say that with people who are 'religious' creationists you can't argue faith... hmm... but it's about time religion was gone as a meme... jeez... to paraphrase, or quote, (or something in between) Schaupy - religion is like a glow worm it glows brightest in darkness. We should really move on!
Anyway! Reading Dawkin's 'Blind Watchmaker' again... and I get the feeling my mind was elsewhere the first time I read it, because I don't remember being in so much agreement with him (still too early in the book to get to the sticky points). Hmm...and I know everyone says this and thinks so already, but gosh, the guy can write! Very well thought out, and leaves your mind feeling organized and clean, which is refreshing.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Liars, damned liars and scientists
"Even after half a century of quantum theory and under the present impact of information theory and cybernetics, one often finds the rather outdated opinion that the application of statistical methods to a problem is dictated by our inability to solve it 'exactly'. Yet unless statistics are understood as a mere averaging process, the opposite is in fact true. A random quantity can be considered as found when not only its mean value, but the entire probability distribution about this mean value is known. In certain rare and usually idealized cases, this probability distribution is such that the mean value is, in the limit, the only value the quantity may assume and in this case the quantity is no longer random. In this special case of a single value instead of an entire distribution, we have a (so-called) 'exact' solution; this is of course much easier to find than the statistical solution, which includes the 'exact' solution as a special case. From this point of view the two opposites are not 'statistical' and 'exact solution', but 'general, statistical solution' and 'idealized limiting case'. "
YEAH! :)
Just wanted to write this out, because I think its particularly relevant today to the interfacing problem of science and society, and also because I keep wanting to remember it, and want to stop carrying the book around with me :)
"The Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from Rough Surfaces" - Petr Beckmann, Andre Spizzichino, page 71.
YEAH! :)
Just wanted to write this out, because I think its particularly relevant today to the interfacing problem of science and society, and also because I keep wanting to remember it, and want to stop carrying the book around with me :)
"The Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from Rough Surfaces" - Petr Beckmann, Andre Spizzichino, page 71.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Nonsinusoidal Signals
Wow :) I am speechless, this is why I am blogging... :) Hahaha, okay, overwhelmed and stunned. I have stumbled upon the works of Henning Harmuth. It's just amazing, so many of my questions already worked out, and so many things which I have read by people already, worked out by him years ago it seems.
Here is just one paper by him, which is freely available: http://www.emph.com.ua/18/harmuth.htm
and hmmm... I hope to I am not yet a complete invalid in mathematics that I can fully understand his work. It's rare when you read something and notice that you are feeling light headed because you have stopped breathing :)
Here is just one paper by him, which is freely available: http://www.emph.com.ua/18/harmuth.htm
and hmmm... I hope to I am not yet a complete invalid in mathematics that I can fully understand his work. It's rare when you read something and notice that you are feeling light headed because you have stopped breathing :)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Metamaterials!!!
Wow :) This is my first exposure the an 'official' debate among the leaders of the scientific community in the area of EM engineering :) Very cool :)
The topic is the existence of 'metamaterials' (of course Wiki has an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial), negative refractive index is the cool bit :) I have to admit having read just a bit about them, I do not have a very good idea what either side is really talking about but it feels very interesting :)
So find the official debate in the IEEE Microwave Mag (Vol 10, Num 3, May 2009) and stay tuned :).
I know who I'm cheering for :) Metamaterial guys of course, makes life more interesting if there's the possibility of a negative refractive index, flat lenses, etc.
The topic is the existence of 'metamaterials' (of course Wiki has an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial), negative refractive index is the cool bit :) I have to admit having read just a bit about them, I do not have a very good idea what either side is really talking about but it feels very interesting :)
So find the official debate in the IEEE Microwave Mag (Vol 10, Num 3, May 2009) and stay tuned :).
I know who I'm cheering for :) Metamaterial guys of course, makes life more interesting if there's the possibility of a negative refractive index, flat lenses, etc.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
I'm still alive
Barely, I've just had a little time to peruse my fav news site - slashdot between Matlab crashes....stupid Matlab... and found this very potentially useful book for most women: "How to be a geek goddess" by Christina Tynan-Wood. Looks very cool :) I'm so glad she wrote about this stuff! About time :) Check it out here: http://geekgirlfriends.com/
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Evolution vs Creationism
Possibly because it's Sunday, I am in Kansas with no car in a state where cars are the only means of transport to civilized locations, as a result I am at home on the couch surfing the internet and reading anything that interests me. And one of these things that has interested me is this 'movement' of teaching evolution theory as fact. I am not a biologist, but it doesn't mean I cannot have an opinion on the scientific teaching method. Nothing as far as I can see is taught as fact in science, there are few if any of them around. Fact necessarily implies an 'absolute' quantity, and I believe those are hard to come by... possibly the only facts we are faced with in life is our birth and subsequent death, both are pretty indisputable states of our existence. Our life in between full of relativities.
Kinda like saying - never generalize. I believe we should say - the only fact is there are no facts. All truths have their specific context, out of which they could very well become falsehoods.
The other thing that concerns me is the 'fanaticism' with which evolutions is taught. You are considered an ignoramus if you're not on the bandwagon of common ancestry with apes and fruit flies. Anything which is fanatical makes me cautious as to its underlying validity. This is a side note, (I've been reading "Thought contagion" by Aaron Lynch where he discusses what it is that makes thoughts propagate and survive from generation to generation. One of the traits which makes a meme successful is if it has a doomsday clause, i.e. if you don't believe it you'll burn in hell. The evolutionary meme doesn't have this advantage, it's against its very teaching, while of course religion does, however, I guess the proponents of evolution (in order to gain more 'converts') have adopted aggression, you will burn in life (be ridiculed etc) if you don't believe in it.
Personally, I guess I should put this whole blab in context, I am not religious (I was, so I have some idea what it is like), however, I also do not believe that evolution is possible. So in my spare time, when I'm lazying around on various couches at various times of my life, I dream up reasons for how and why we are here. I do not have an answer, and I am comfortable with the fact that I probably never will. The more I speak to people about this, the more it seems to me that people usually aren't comfortable with not knowing this for certain. They are either religious, or evolutionists, they adopt one idea or another and put an end to it. This is a shame.
Okay, so, back to it. At first when I heard about the 'creationist' movement, I welcomed it, I thought that finally people are trying to dispel this misconception that evolution is a fact. They where taking away these prepackaged ideas about where we come from to enable people to think for themselves. However, it turns out that creationism is just a new name for religion or belief in 'the God'. This is especially evident in what James Perloff writes regarding the changes in society today loosing its morals because it is taught that it is just an animal.
To me it seems society as a whole is passing through a 'teenage' phase, where yes it is rebelling against the ideas which have been taught by the older generations who of course don't know anything. Take sex for example: back in the good old days it was taboo, it was gross and forbidden (reminds me of the days in primary school when boys had....how do you spell it? 'gimmy germs'? Hahaha). Now, and has been for a while, it's almost free love, sex is everywhere, it sells it gets attention its loosing value, little kids are told to adopt sexual identities... looking at dolls like 'Bratz' etc. Ewwwwwww.....
And most importantly, society is loosing its ability to take responsibility for its own actions. Hence, all the stupid rules and regulations and laws and litigations. That is the reason I believe the structure of society is not as 'moral' as it was in the day. It has become sick of taboos, it has broken through and is busy breaking them, and is exploring and stretching its potential and finding boundaries. This will hopefully pass as well, and we as a society don't kill ourselves during our wild years, settle down into calm moral and responsible adults. Only time will tell. But this idea, that evolution is responsible for it is crap! That seems to me almost a scare tactic to get people back into religion. Not cool.
We are past the time where the majority of society couldn't read and didn't have the time. Hence they went to church to be taught what was moral, what was good and what was bad. Sure, the beliefs most religions are based on are full of good advice regarding correct behavior, but in my opinion that is not going to land you in heaven. Being a 'good' person, will just ensure the successful propagation of your genetic information into the future, and hence society as a whole will have a greater chance of survival.
In my perfect world people would turn off their TVs and just enjoy their couches for what they are really made for...thinking about whether our ancestors are worms, Adam and Eve, little green people or ...
Kinda like saying - never generalize. I believe we should say - the only fact is there are no facts. All truths have their specific context, out of which they could very well become falsehoods.
The other thing that concerns me is the 'fanaticism' with which evolutions is taught. You are considered an ignoramus if you're not on the bandwagon of common ancestry with apes and fruit flies. Anything which is fanatical makes me cautious as to its underlying validity. This is a side note, (I've been reading "Thought contagion" by Aaron Lynch where he discusses what it is that makes thoughts propagate and survive from generation to generation. One of the traits which makes a meme successful is if it has a doomsday clause, i.e. if you don't believe it you'll burn in hell. The evolutionary meme doesn't have this advantage, it's against its very teaching, while of course religion does, however, I guess the proponents of evolution (in order to gain more 'converts') have adopted aggression, you will burn in life (be ridiculed etc) if you don't believe in it.
Personally, I guess I should put this whole blab in context, I am not religious (I was, so I have some idea what it is like), however, I also do not believe that evolution is possible. So in my spare time, when I'm lazying around on various couches at various times of my life, I dream up reasons for how and why we are here. I do not have an answer, and I am comfortable with the fact that I probably never will. The more I speak to people about this, the more it seems to me that people usually aren't comfortable with not knowing this for certain. They are either religious, or evolutionists, they adopt one idea or another and put an end to it. This is a shame.
Okay, so, back to it. At first when I heard about the 'creationist' movement, I welcomed it, I thought that finally people are trying to dispel this misconception that evolution is a fact. They where taking away these prepackaged ideas about where we come from to enable people to think for themselves. However, it turns out that creationism is just a new name for religion or belief in 'the God'. This is especially evident in what James Perloff writes regarding the changes in society today loosing its morals because it is taught that it is just an animal.
To me it seems society as a whole is passing through a 'teenage' phase, where yes it is rebelling against the ideas which have been taught by the older generations who of course don't know anything. Take sex for example: back in the good old days it was taboo, it was gross and forbidden (reminds me of the days in primary school when boys had....how do you spell it? 'gimmy germs'? Hahaha). Now, and has been for a while, it's almost free love, sex is everywhere, it sells it gets attention its loosing value, little kids are told to adopt sexual identities... looking at dolls like 'Bratz' etc. Ewwwwwww.....
And most importantly, society is loosing its ability to take responsibility for its own actions. Hence, all the stupid rules and regulations and laws and litigations. That is the reason I believe the structure of society is not as 'moral' as it was in the day. It has become sick of taboos, it has broken through and is busy breaking them, and is exploring and stretching its potential and finding boundaries. This will hopefully pass as well, and we as a society don't kill ourselves during our wild years, settle down into calm moral and responsible adults. Only time will tell. But this idea, that evolution is responsible for it is crap! That seems to me almost a scare tactic to get people back into religion. Not cool.
We are past the time where the majority of society couldn't read and didn't have the time. Hence they went to church to be taught what was moral, what was good and what was bad. Sure, the beliefs most religions are based on are full of good advice regarding correct behavior, but in my opinion that is not going to land you in heaven. Being a 'good' person, will just ensure the successful propagation of your genetic information into the future, and hence society as a whole will have a greater chance of survival.
In my perfect world people would turn off their TVs and just enjoy their couches for what they are really made for...thinking about whether our ancestors are worms, Adam and Eve, little green people or ...
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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