If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
As we are due to endure incessant royal baby chatter and HG sympathy over the coming months, I thought I'd sneak in quickly with an important lesson that HG and pregnancy sickness illustrates about evolution.
It seems to me that psychologists are beginning to better understand human creativity, and that engineers are beginning to learn to program it into computers. Perhaps the next great generation of artists will be made of silicon.
The mere hour or so that churches have with children and teens on a weekly basis -- and unburdened by any need to drill and test -- is too precious to waste on merely religious education.
One of the most widespread and persistent myths about creativity is that it is the domain of the young.
Developmental systems may have many potential outcomes, some of which may turn out to be adaptations only "after that fact." While evolution can thus occur with or without natural selection, the really big transformations are unlikely to have been produced by incremental adaptation.
It is the essence of fullfillment and release, fun and power, simplicity and profoundity all rolled into one tight syllable. To SING may be both the root and the flower of the most personal and most communal thing that we do.
Why do women have orgasms? Most of the time, I'm so occupied with answering questions about why some women don't have orgasms that I rarely stop to think about why women do have orgasms. It's a good question, really.
In the dynamics of the sociology of science, there must be some payout for self-deceived true believers.
The fall of man will not come full circle from Eden's flame of fire, at least not by any familiar method. The shift we seek has already begun, within each of us, reinforced by this present anxiety, filtered through art, conflict and desire. Consider how we've lost faith in our institutions.
With movements such as young-earth creationism, we certainly have seen examples of religion being shanghaied into the service of anti-science. But some recent rhetoric in opposition to environmentalism and climate change science takes the cake.
By incorporating embryonic development and its underlying physico-genetic processes into evolutionary theory, investigators are learning that abrupt alterations in body plan and other aspects of organismal form can occur in response to environmental change or gene mutation.
The tendencies to adhere to tradition and submit to authority are all part of the socially conservative repertoire. As is a strong tendency to act unwelcomingly toward out-group members. Exactly the kinds of behaviours that would minimize the risks of infection during an epidemic.
Last week, on his very popular blog, WhyEvolutionIsTrue.wordpress.com, Jerry Coyne ridiculed Nicholas Wade's NYT article discussing the negative consequences resulting from the anti-religious tone of most orthodox defenses of evolution.
Evolution is as scientifically accepted as gravity. And while we don't quite understand how gravity works, we know a lot about how evolution works -- much more than Charles Darwin, even with all his genius, could have dreamt.
The five herd instincts are still there underneath. When they sense that we are not doing what they want, they complain and try to coax us back to that ancient herd. Those complaints are voiced to us through panic anxiety, social anxiety, OCD, atypical depression and melancholic depression.
Being right feels good; there's no doubt about that. But isn't learning an actual truth more important than defending an ego?
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