The Edge Question 2011

[Roll the Bones 74]

Tons of fascinating things by 164 responeders.Each year, the Edge Foundation asks dozens of big-picture thinkers to answer a single question, in a short essay. This year’s question, proposed by the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, is: “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?” Or, to paraphrase, how might people alter the way they interpret the information they take in about the world, to better comprehend it?WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?The term 'scientific"is to be understood in a broad sense as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, whether it be the human spirit, the role of great people in history, or the structure of DNA. A "scientific concept" may come from philosophy, logic, economics, jurisprudence, or other analytic enterprises, as long as it is a rigorous conceptual tool that may be summed up succinctly (or "in a phrase") but has broad application to understanding the world. http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_index.html--------------------

[Roll the Bones 74]

http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_12.html#myerspzP.Z. MYERSBiologist, University of Minnesota; blogger, PharyngulaThe Mediocrity PrincipleAs someone who just spent a term teaching freshman introductory biology, and will be doing it again in the coming months, I have to say that the first thing that leapt to my mind as an essential skill everyone should have was algebra. And elementary probability and statistics. That sure would make my life easier, anyway — there's something terribly depressing about seeing bright students tripped up by a basic math skill that they should have mastered in grade school. But that isn't enough. Elementary math skills are an essential tool that we ought to be able to take for granted in a scientific and technological society. What idea should people grasp to better understand their place in the universe? I'm going to recommend the mediocrity principle. It's fundamental to science, and it's also one of the most contentious, difficult concepts for many people to grasp — and opposition to the mediocrity principle is one of the major linchpins of religion and creationism and jingoism and failed social policies. There are a lot of cognitive ills that would be neatly wrapped up and easily disposed of if only everyone understood this one simple idea. CONTINUED AT LINK ABOVE

[Roll the Bones 74]

http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_12.html#harrissSAM HARRISNeuroscientist; Chairman, Project Reason; Author, The Moral LandscapeWe are Lost in Thought I invite you to pay attention to anything — the sight of this text, the sensation of breathing, the feeling of your body resting against your chair — for a mere sixty seconds without getting distracted by discursive thought. It sounds simple enough: Just pay attention. The truth, however, is that you will find the task impossible. If the lives of your children depended on it, you could not focus on anything — even the feeling of a knife at your throat — for more than a few seconds, before your awareness would be submerged again by the flow of thought. This forced plunge into unreality is a problem. In fact, it is the problem from which every other problem in human life appears to be made. I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. Linguistic thought is indispensable to us. It is the basis for planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other capacities that make us human. Thinking is the substance of every social relationship and cultural institution we have. It is also the foundation of science. But our habitual identification with the flow of thought — that is, our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts, as transient appearances in consciousness — is a primary source of human suffering and confusion. Our relationship to our own thinking is strange to the point of paradox, in fact. When we see a person walking down the street talking to himself, we generally assume that he is mentally ill. But we all talk to ourselves continuously — we just have the good sense to keep our mouths shut. Our lives in the present can scarcely be glimpsed through the veil of our discursivity: We tell ourselves what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, and what might yet happen. We ceaselessly reiterate our hopes and fears about the future. Rather than simply exist as ourselves, we seem to presume a relationship with ourselves. It's as though we are having a conversation with an imaginary friend possessed of infinite patience. Who are we talking to? CONTINUED AT LINK ABOVE

[brvheart 1,752]

http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_12.html#myerspzP.Z. MYERSBiologist, University of Minnesota; blogger, PharyngulaThe Mediocrity PrincipleAs someone who just spent a term teaching freshman introductory biology, and will be doing it again in the coming months, I have to say that the first thing that leapt to my mind as an essential skill everyone should have was algebra. And elementary probability and statistics. That sure would make my life easier, anyway — there's something terribly depressing about seeing bright students tripped up by a basic math skill that they should have mastered in grade school. But that isn't enough. Elementary math skills are an essential tool that we ought to be able to take for granted in a scientific and technological society. What idea should people grasp to better understand their place in the universe? I'm going to recommend the mediocrity principle. It's fundamental to science, and it's also one of the most contentious, difficult concepts for many people to grasp — and opposition to the mediocrity principle is one of the major linchpins of religion and creationism and jingoism and failed social policies. There are a lot of cognitive ills that would be neatly wrapped up and easily disposed of if only everyone understood this one simple idea. CONTINUED AT LINK ABOVE

http://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Planet-Co...3328&sr=8-1

[Balloon guy 158]

[Roll the Bones 74]

http://www.amazon.com/Privileged-Planet-Co...3328&sr=8-1

Show a savage a watch and ask him what makes it go, and he will say, "a spirit." Show a theist the world and ask him what makes it go, and he will say, "a spirit."

[Roll the Bones 74]

haha

[Balloon guy 158]

Show a savage a watch and ask him what makes it go, and he will say, "a spirit." Show a theist the world and ask him what makes it go, and he will say, "a spirit."

Show an evolutionist a watch and he will say, 'The Watch Maker theory was disproved already so don't try to play that on me even though the logic used is weak"Show an atheist a watch and he will say, "Looks like its time to twist what the Bible says to justify my goal to shove my lack of belief down believer's throats"

[Roll the Bones 74]

[phlegm 6]

http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_12.html#myerspzP.Z. MYERSBiologist, University of Minnesota; blogger, PharyngulaThe Mediocrity PrincipleAs someone who just spent a term teaching freshman introductory biology, and will be doing it again in the coming months, I have to say that the first thing that leapt to my mind as an essential skill everyone should have was algebra. And elementary probability and statistics. That sure would make my life easier, anyway — there's something terribly depressing about seeing bright students tripped up by a basic math skill that they should have mastered in grade school. But that isn't enough. Elementary math skills are an essential tool that we ought to be able to take for granted in a scientific and technological society. What idea should people grasp to better understand their place in the universe? I'm going to recommend the mediocrity principle. It's fundamental to science, and it's also one of the most contentious, difficult concepts for many people to grasp — and opposition to the mediocrity principle is one of the major linchpins of religion and creationism and jingoism and failed social policies. There are a lot of cognitive ills that would be neatly wrapped up and easily disposed of if only everyone understood this one simple idea. CONTINUED AT LINK ABOVE

This argument flies in the face of the fact that 10-12% of the population is either gay, or actively attempting to become so>After all, whats more mediocre than being gay.