‘Throughout his life he was high on the drug called rationality.’ … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Francis Crick, the Telegraph 
Jul 30th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Accepted a fellowship conditional on chapel-absence; resigned when chapel was built. Good man.… Read the rest
Francis Crick
Jul 30th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Guardian obit, with useful links.… Read the rest
Peter Singer on Animal Rights and Violence
Jul 30th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Condemning the use of violence against sentient beings, human or non-human.… Read the rest
Francis Crick-Related Articles from NY Times
Jul 30th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
DNA, chemistry, Rosalind Franklin, how science works, and more.… Read the rest
Francis Crick, New York Times
Jul 30th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
DNA discovery showed how biology could be explained via physics and chemistry.… Read the rest
Another Other List
Jul 29th, 2004 8:20 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd here is Mark Pitely’s list:
1) Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind – Julian Jaynes. Brilliant, eye-opening, and quite possibly wrong. It definitely changed by thinking, even my thinking processes.
2) How to Read a Book – Mortimer J. Adler. Fascinating. I love all of his library science efforts.
3) Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies – Douglas Hofstadter (et al). My coding and AI leanings are showing. Great stuff here that it lightyears ahead of the rest in AI. His methodologies and tactics changed my approaches.
4) Cybernetics – Norbert Weiner. Complicated and varying, even unfocused, but a glimpse of how his mind worked.
5) Blood Rites: Origin and History of the Passions of War- … Read the rest
Audience
Jul 29th, 2004 4:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonDo excuse me – I just feel like making a small boast. Doing a little auto-back-patting. I won’t take long – and anyway there is a sort of point behind it.
It’s Normblog’s first birthday, by the way – and he chose the occasion to mention his favorite blogs, in which select group he included B&W. I blushed unbecomingly to see that. And the same day – the very same day, I tell you – a guest poster at Pharyngula (guests are posting there to keep things going while PZ is at a conference in Calgary or Saskatoon or Kamloops) told the world of his discovery of B&W – so that my face became even more frighteningly florid. But … Read the rest
Nonsense Files
Jul 29th, 2004 | By Ophelia BensonThis one is self-explanatory. It’s where we store the irrationalist, social constructivist, postmodernist, ‘High Theoretical’ and other Nonsense that we find. Check it often, because there is always more.
External Resources
- ‘An Impressive Intervention’
If you’re easily impressed, at least. - ‘Arrogant absolutist reason’
Disembodied, disembedded, abstract, dominating and colonizing – reason is bad stuff. - A Call for Demotic Science
‘…an era of pervasive science calls into being a legitimately more demotic approach to science.’ - Asante Disagrees with Lefkowitz
And forgets to mention that library at Alexandria that Aristotle stole from even though he was dead before it was built. - Beware of ‘Big Science’
Modern medicine is the cause of disease, and other wisdom. - Bhabha Gets Technical
‘Within that conflictual economy
But the Science Dog Did Bark
Jul 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Richard Dawkins on Prospect poll, science in media and education, new book.… Read the rest
Francis Crick
Jul 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The discovery earned Nobel Prize and touched many aspects of modern life. … Read the rest
Francis Crick
Jul 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
James Watson: ‘I will always remember Francis for his extraordinarily focused intelligence’… Read the rest
Francis Crick, 1916-2004
Jul 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Crick helped discover the double helix shape of DNA along with James Watson.… Read the rest
Nanotechnology Needs New Laws
Jul 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Probably to shut Prince Charles up…… Read the rest
British Islamic Colleges Back Terrorism?
Jul 29th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Calls for inquiry as lecturers voice support for Taliban and Hamas.… Read the rest
Another List
Jul 28th, 2004 10:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonGood, here’s another list. I think it falsifies the one-item-in-common hypothesis. This is Phil Mole’s.
1) Bertrand Russell – Why I am Not a Christian and Other Essays. This book really stimulated my own thinking about religion, and probably gave me the decisive shove toward atheism.
2) William James – Varieties of Religious Experience. After reading this, I became very interested in the psychological components of religious experience.
3) Stephen Jay Gould- An Urchin in the Storm. This is a collection of Gould’s book reviews. Reading this collection taught me a great deal about the art of the book review, not to mention the art of critical thinking.
4) C. Vann Woodward – The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Opened … Read the rest
Animal Activists Harm Economy
Jul 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
GlaxoSmithKline spends millions of pounds protecting its staff.… Read the rest
Crackdown On Animal ‘Rights’ Activists
Jul 28th, 2004 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
UK government to unveil new strategy to deal with extremists.… Read the rest
Islamism & Multi-culturalism: A United Camp against Universal Human Rights in Canada
Jul 28th, 2004 | By Azam KamguianIn my speech, I will argue against the Islamic tribunals and will discuss how the Islamic Sharia law brutally violates human and women’s rights. I will try to demonstrate how Islamism and multi – culturalism are a united camp against universal human rights in Canada. At the end, I will emphasise the urgency of stopping the Islamic tribunals in Canada.
As we all know, Islamists in Canada have recently set up an Islamic Institute of Civil Justice to oversee tribunals that would arbitrate family disputes and other civil matters between people from Muslim origin on the basis of the Islamic Sharia law. This is the first time in any western country that the medieval precepts of the Sharia have been … Read the rest
