Two In-Depth Reports on Interesting Topics
1. If this whole "zomg banks bailout blah blah panic wow" thing is interesting to you, I humbly recommend the recent BBC World Service report on same. It’s detailed, gives the opinions of several learned and experienced people from different backgrounds, and gives about six hundred million times more real information than I’ve found in a week of trolling American news.
(The most interesting part? Where they discuss, in some depth, whether the whole "collapse! we must do something now!" schtick is completely manufactured by the people who want the bailout. Wouldn’t that be something!)
(Plus bonus little reports on "lactation support" for new mothers at work, and Google Chrome. Gods, the BBC rulez. ;)
[EDIT: Make that three, because you don't want to miss the hilarious and insightful metaphorage that is "The Tinker Bell Treasurer"...I laughed, I cried, I blew my nose on a twenty-dollar bill.]
2. Interested in the science v. religion and creationism-in-schools debates? This article is actually almost too detailed for my stunted brain, but math issues aside, I really enjoyed it. (Note: A few re-reads and some minor Googling later, the math is clear. If I can get it, anybody can!)
The argument part of the article’s thesis is pretty simple, and I think, basically correct. Here it is in a nutshell:
"Science, after all, is supposed to be searching for absolute truths verifiable (in principle) by anybody who cares to. It is supposed to uncover Nature using mathematical or logical tools, of course to formulate theories and hypotheses but to treat these with deep skepticism. Faith is anathema to science. Please understand me. Faith, a moral compass, spiritual values, all have a vitial role to play even in the life of a scientist. When you are stuck on a problem you have to put forth a hypothesis. You have to have some faith in it to take it seriously enough to explore. You may even have a ‘vision’ which is a kind of faith that guides your life’s work. But that’s all about the human process of research. The actual science is supposed to be based on fact and logic independently of how you got there, to the maximum extent possible. So faith is also the bit you are spending your life trying to squeeze out of the end product. It’s a complex dynamic which obviously can’t be grasped by pupils who have not yet understood what science itself is. They have to first learn what science is pure and simple and this is what confusing the issue so early on would deny them. This, in my opinion, is why many scientists are so angry about the no doubt well-meaning but highly dangerous position of the professor and other science educators with similar views."
Now they ought to teach that in schools, darnit!
…But what makes this piece especially interesting is the hard part — how the author (one Shahn Majid) demonstrates his point about science by showing us a hole at the edges of fundamental physics, a hole caused by a much lesser-known assumption that scientists, even, are still tempted to "take on faith". It’s a cool look at how non-obvious the subtleties of the "scientific method" really are (at least on the fringes), and it gives you a little sympathy (only a little, in my case) for the people who just can’t seem to get that ID theory just isn’t science, and never will be. Makes you want to pat their heads and demur, "poor thing, don’t worry, a good chunk of this business won’t turn out to be good science either!
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