Clipmarks | Human nature Clips

People misunderstand what paganism is about

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:35:58 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

It takes a lot to surprise me when it comes to human nature, but last night I met a woman in her 60s at a coffee shop who warned the people at our table about a 'devil' that was going to be at Departure Bay today.

At first I thought she was joking but she said no, she was serious there was going to be a group of devil worshippers gathering there today. She said groups from all the churches were gathering to protest. I asked her if it was the Pagan Pride festival and when she said yes' I said, 'well, my daughter is Wicca and I'm proud of her."

She had nothing to say to that. I really thought that self-righteous people like her had disappeared in the era when witches were being burned.

It's religious fanatics like her who cause destruction in this world because of the fervour of the their beliefs.

I had one daughter become a Catholic and one daughter become Wicca and I'm proud of both of them for making choices that were right for them (I'm Anglican).

Tags: pagan, witch, witchcraft, church, wicca, religion, belief

New evidence of Global Warming

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:59:54 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: For all the denialists--more fodder for your insanity

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2008) — Researchers confirm that surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were warmer over the last 10 years than any time during the last 1300 years, and, if the climate scientists include the somewhat controversial data derived from tree-ring records, the warming is anomalous for at least 1700 years.

"We looked at a much expanded database and our methods are more sophisticated than those used previously," says Mann. In today's (Sept. 2) online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers note, "Conclusions are less definitive for the Southern Hemisphere and globe, which we attribute to larger uncertainties arising from the sparser available proxy data in the Southern Hemisphere."

study shows that, with caveats, tree-ring data can be used, but that even without including that data, it is clear that the anomalous nature of recent warmth, which most scientists believe to be a result of human impacts on climate, is a reality.

-Are Humans Destroying the Planet's Web of Life?

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:33:28 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Very sobering, disturbing article. Just put global climate disruption aside and think about what we humans are doin to the life in the oceans and the air and land, the forests, the over fertilizing, the plastics...it's abominable and has to be changed or we die.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

“Humanity doesn’t need a moon-base or a manned trip to Mars. We need an expedition to planet Earth, where probably fewer than 10 per cent of species are known to science, and fewer than 1 per cent of those have been studied beyond a simple anatomical description and a few notes on natural history. At the same time, we are engaged in a genocide against those species, known and unknown; the sixth mass extinction has begun."

E.O. Wilson, Harvard evolutionary biologist and author of "The Creation."

n the 200 years since French naturalist Georges Cuvier first floated the concept of extinction, after examining fossil bones and concluding "the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some sort of catastrophe", we have slowly begun to recognize a potentially lethal threat to our planet and human existence.

forget about life's origins and focus on the fact that while nature achieves "sustainability through complexity," human activities are driving myriad species into extinction

Ten Futures

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:55:00 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: interesting reading

Clip Source: static-p3.fotolia.com

Clip Source: www.we-magazine.net

This is a bit linear, but has the virtue of identifying future trends, not things that are around today.

1. The Pragmatic Web

is all about context. Your tools know who you are, what you’re doing, who you’ve been talking to, what you know, where you want to go, where you are now, and what the weather is like outside.

2. Global Intelligence

The global mind is the sort of thing that raises questions about the meaning of live, the value of ethics, and the nature of knowledge.

3. Extended Reality

The physical world and the virtual world will act as one

4. Mobility

moving in tribes and herds through society, grazing on energy and information inputs as they become available.

5. The Human Grid

6. Smart Objects

7. Holoselves

No person can be in two places at once, of course, but one’s avatar can travel one place while you travel to another

8. Living Ar

we will create complex multi-faced forms of expression

9. Global (Non-)Government

10. Cyborgs

Utopia for a modern age.

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:01:00 GMT

clipped by: zalisan
clipper's remarks: Our goals include returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to community gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit.

We work to build thriving city and neighborhood centers while reversing sprawl development; to build whole cities based on human needs and “access by proximity” rather than cities built in the current pattern of automobile driven excess, wasteful consumption and the destruction of the biosphere.

We visualize a future in which waterways in neighborhood environments and prosperous downtown centers are opened for curious children and native plants and animals.

Clip Source: www.ecocitybuilders.org

An ecocity is a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources.

Its buildings make best use of sun, wind and rainfall to help supply the energy and water needs of occupants. Generally multistory to maximize the land available for greenspace.

It is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents access to nature for recreation.

Its food and other goods are sourced from within its borders or from nearby, in order to cut down on transport costs.

The majority of its residents live within walking or cycling distance of their workplace, to minimise the need for motorised transport.

The goods it produces are designed for reuse, remanufacture, and recycling.

It has a labour intensive rather than a material, energy, and water intensive economy, to maintain full employment and minimise material throughput

Clip Source: www.ecocitybuilders.org

Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature

Ecocity Berkeley

Village Wisdom/Future Cities

Clip Source: www.ecocitybuilders.org

[Video]

The Science of Mysticism

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:07:57 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Well worth reading the article. Another example of how the popularised emphasis on 'intelligence' and AI is well off the mark when it comes to assessing the biological nature of the human organism: feelings (cortical representations and re-representations) are the basis of human experience including reason and language. The hundred years of suggestion in this area from James onwards are now being supplemented by modern neurobiological research. Such a key word as representation offers a potentially rich bridge between neuroscience and philosophy, linguistics and the humanities.

Clip Source: www.science-spirit.org

A stunning new description of how the human body and brain communicate to produce emotional states -- including our feelings, cravings, and moods -- has all the elements needed to explain how the human brain might give rise to spiritual experiences, without the necessary involvement of a supernatural presence, according to Dr. Martin Paulus, a psychiatrist at the University of California in San Diego who is also a Zen practitioner.

Called interoception, it offers a radically new view of human anatomy and physiology based on how information from the body reaches the brain and how that information is processed uniquely in humans.

In this view, spirituality -- an emotional feeling from the body, a sense of timelessness, a suspension of self and dissolution of personal boundaries -- can be explained in terms of brain physiology, which means, of course, that it is subject to experimentation and manipulation.

Tags: neuroscience

On Law and Neuroscience

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:06:32 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: An interesting read describing the influence of evolution theory and neuroscience on basic legal and moral concepts such as responsibility and free will.

Clip Source: darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com

Farahany is a law professor at Vanderbilt University who brings together law, philosophy, and biology in studying the fundamental assumptions about human nature in criminal law.

paper on "Law and Behavioral Morality

In this paper, she considers how research in evolutionary science and neuroscience might influence our view of criminal responsibility and culpability.

She claims that as evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience provide biological explanations of human morality, this will strengthen the power of "behavioral morality--the idea that any behavior with a physical cause is either not blameworthy, or is less so.

She seems to assume that "blameworthiness" presupposes "free will" understood as an uncaused cause.

I disagree with her. As I have said in some previous posts, I see no reason to believe that legal responsibility and culpability must rest on the idea of "free will" understood as uncaused cause.

Tags: law, morality, neuroscience

How do you look? well it depends...

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:52:04 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: Interesting study into how perception is influenced and shaped. What seems so natural and true, is relative and biased.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Face Recognition: Nurture Not Nature

Fixation biases for Western Caucasian (WC - red) and East Asian (EA - blue) observers are highlighted by subtracting WC and the EA Z-scored fixation distribution maps during WC and EA face learning, recognition and categorization by race. (Credit: Caroline Blais et al, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003022.g002)

researchers at the University of Glasgow have discovered that cultural differences cause us to look at faces differently.

We found that Westerners tend to look at specific features on an individual's face such as the eyes and mouth whereas East Asian observers tend to focus on the nose or the centre of the face which allows a more general view of all the features.

Western societies are generally more individualistic, whereas East Asian societies are collectivistic

Westerners appear to think and perceive focally and Easterners globally.

external environment, including the society in which we develop, is very influential in basic human mechanisms

Tags: neuroscience, culture

Transformers - The Nature of Alien Life

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:52:47 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The driving factor is a pragmatic desire to improve mental capacity. Alien beings may have already reached a point in their evolution where, having exhausted the potential of their biological brains, they have taken the next logical step and opted for robotic brains equipped with artificial intelligence. This brain swap may not be as far off for humans as one might think. In only a few decades, the computer revolution here on Earth has produced supercomputers capable of performing more than a quadrillion calculations per second.

According to research by Hans Moravec, an artificial-intelligence expert at Carnegie Mellon University, that rate trumps the human brain’s estimated top speed of 100 trillion calculations per second. Some scientists speculate that in a few decades, an event called the technological singularity will occur, and machines armed with computer brains will become sentient and surpass human intelligence. Civilizations equipped with technology light-years ahead

Clip Source: kemo-d7.livejournal.com

The existence of a race of sentient alien robots might be
not just possible, but inevitable.

Daniel C. Dennett points out that we do not consider chemicals to be alive. Even self-replicating crystals and clever nanobots are not "living"; we consider them to be completely mechanical. Yet we are made of these non-living, "mechanical" chemicals. Not only are we made of robots, and we still consider ourselves to be valid conscious life, but the evolution of all life is from such mindless robots.

As life is based in biology, and biology in biochemistry, chemistry is based on the cold, non-living laws of physics.

Given the current pace of development, it is easy to imagine artificial life venturing out into the universe and leaving us fragile humans behind.

In fact, we might be living in a "post-biological universe" right now, in which intelligent extraterrestrials somewhere have exchanged organic brains for artificial ones.

Tags: ai, science fiction, alien life

New giant clam species discovered

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:25:08 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Fossils suggest that, about 125,000 years ago, the species Tridacna costata accounted for more than 80% of the area's giant clams.

"The new species are mid-sized clams - up to 40cm long and a couple of kilograms heavy," explained co-author Dr Claudio Richter, from the Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany.

The new species has a distant relative, T. gigas, which can grow up to 1.4m long.

Live specimens of T. costata appear to be restricted to very shallow waters. Other species were also found in deeper reef zones.

In "pre-human times", T. costata may have been up to 60cm long. Since then, shell size has also decreased dramatically.

"The overall decline in giant clam stocks - with the striking loss of large specimens - is a smoking gun indicating over-harvesting," said Dr Richter.

"The coral reefs in particular... may still harbour very large surprises," said Dr Richter.

Tags: nature

Why it's so hard to swat a fly

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:03:43 GMT

clipped by: Kelika

Clip Source: www.newsdaily.com

At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their preflight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies so easily evade swipes from their human foes.

"These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming from and activates an appropriate set of movements to position its legs and wings," Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement.

"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," said Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology.

The findings offer new insight into the fly nervous system, and lends a few clues on how to outsmart a fly.

"It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position," Dickinson said. Instead, aim for the escape route.

Tags: nature, bugs

The Holocene Extinction Event -Are Humans Destroying the Planet's Web of Life?

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:24:18 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Best to read the whole article.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Harvard's E.O. Wilson, our modern-day Thoreau, believes that the "depth and complexity of living Nature still exceeds human imagination" -somewhere between 1.5 million and 1.8 million species of plants, animals and microorganisms have been discovered to date, and most of the world around us remains unknowable. Each species functions as a self-contained universe with its own evolutionary history, its own genetic structure and its own ecological role. Human life is tangled inextricably in this intricate and fragile web. Understanding these small universes, Wilson says, can foster human life.

Unchain your dogs

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:38:23 GMT

clipped by: bignosemousie
clipper's remarks: Lots of information at the source. Photos that will break your heart.

Unchain your dog, please.

Clip Source: www.unchainyourdog.org

What is meant by "chaining" or "tethering" dogs?

These terms refer to the practice of fastening a dog to a stationary object or stake, usually in the owner's backyard, as a means of keeping the animal under control. These terms do not refer to the periods when an animal is walked on a leash.

Why is tethering dogs inhumane?

Dogs are naturally social beings who thrive on interaction with human beings and other animals. In the wild, dogs and wolves live, eat, sleep, and hunt with a family of other canines. Dogs are genetically determined to live in a group.

A chained animal is caught in a vicious cycle; frustrated by long periods of boredom and social isolation, he becomes a neurotic shell of his former self—further deterring human interaction and kindness. In the end, the helpless dog can only suffer the frustration of watching the world go by in isolation—a cruel fate for what is by nature a highly social animal.

Tags: animals need love and protection

Pelosi, Catholic light.

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:02:35 GMT

clipped by: sillysam
clipper's remarks: Further, it cites Vatican instruction: “The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.”

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

What Makes a Speaker Catholic?

His comments — part of his homily during the Mass — came hours after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, describing herself as an “ardent practicing Catholic,” announced that when life begins “shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to choose.” She explained that “over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy.” Ignoring both embryology and the Vatican, she insisted on giving the impression that abortion is somehow an open, undecided question in the Roman Catholic Church.

“Abortion always, deliberately kills an innocent unborn child. Nobody can honestly claim to be a faithful Catholic and then support a false ‘right’ to abortion; it’s just an elegant way of evading the brutality of what abortion actually does.” He explained, “Abortion is never morally justified.”

Film Reveals CIA's 'Most Secret Place on Earth'

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:42:36 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: This film's analysis sets it apart from other books and documentaries on the subject, most of which justify the conflict, lauding the CIA operatives and their Air America pilots as heroes.

The reality, as Alfred McCoy says towards the end of the film, was very different. "We destroyed a whole civilisation, we wiped it off the map. We incinerated, atomised human remains in this air war and what happened in the end? We lost."

The covert nature of the conflict meant that U.S. forces were able to ignore virtually all the rules of engagement operating in Vietnam. Every building was a potential target and the civilian toll was huge.

The situation grew worse in 1970 when U.S. President Nixon authorised massive B-52 bombing strikes on Laos, which remained classified information until many years later.

American planes dropped an average of one planeload of bombs on targets in Laos every eight minutes, 24 hours a day for nine years, making it the most heavily bombed country on earth

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

A view of Long Chen. The most secret location in 'the secret war' against Laos was the former CIA air base of Long Chen, a place that remain off limits even today.

PHNOM PENH - It was known as the ‘secret war', a covert operation waged by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the sixties and early seventies against communist guerrillas in Laos.

A new film, ‘The Most Secret Place on Earth', to be released in cinemas across Europe later this year, explores this little known conflict.

"I first got the idea to do the film when I visited the Plain of Jars in Laos in 2002," recalled Marc Eberle,36, the German director in an interview with IPS.

Little is known about the Lao conflict despite the fact that it remains the largest and most expensive paramilitary operation ever run by the U.S.

"Laos was the progenitor of the way America fights wars in the 21st century," he says.