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Galileo's Credo

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:09:55 GMT

“Galileo's Credo”: http://www.thenation.com/article/166261/galileos-credo (The Nation 2-14-12)

The publication of two recent biographies of Galileo, by John Heilbron and David Wootton, coincided with the 400th anniversary of the publication of Starry Messenger (1610), the treatise in which Galileo reported the astronomical observations he had made with the instrument not yet called the telescope. Heilbron, a distinguished historian of physics and mathematics, has spent many years studying the relations between science and religion, including how the Roman Catholic Church stimulated and materially supported a research program of Catholic astronomy. Wootton has previously written on the history of atheism and unbelief, and about Galileo's controversial Venetian friend Paolo Sarpi-a theologian and tireless critic of the papacy. In Venice there is a statue of Fra Paolo in Campo Santa Fosca commemorating his survival of a botched assassination attempt in October 1607. The cutthroats were sheltered and paid by Rome, yet Sarpi continued to defend freedom of thought and belief, both in conversation and in print, and to discuss science with Galileo. In Heilbron's account, Galileo is a versatile connoisseur and critic; in Wootton's, he is all but a modern scientist without faith.

For-Profit College Chiefs Unwind At Lavish Tahoe Resort

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:53:47 GMT

For-Profit College Chiefs Unwind At Lavish Tahoe Resort (Huffington Post 2-17-12)

Students at for-profit colleges often end up with enormous debt burdens and lean job prospects, resulting in a disproportionate number of student loan defaults. But the scene at this resort tucked into the Sierra Nevada Mountains served as testament to the fact that those running the institutions have fared far better.

Five dozen executives, who flew in on Sunday from states as far afield as Florida, Indiana and Virginia, gathered at the Ritz-Carlton, paying nearly $400 a night. They enjoyed the ski slopes, a spa and cocktail lounges, putting their taxpayer-financed revenues to lavish effect.

The occult obsessions of Britain's greatest scientist Sir Isaac Newton

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:14:19 GMT

The occult obsessions of Britain's greatest scientist Sir Isaac Newton (UK Daily Mail 2-16-12)

He laid the foundations of classical physics and is considered to be one of the greatest scientists of all time.

But Sir Isaac Newton was also deeply interested in the occult and applied a scientific approach to the study of scripture and Jewish mysticism.

Now Israel's national library, which contains a vast trove of Newton's esoteric writings, has digitised his occult collection and posted it online.

The Materialist Fallacy by David Brooks

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:36:44 GMT

The Materialist Fallacy by David Brooks (NY Times 2-13-12)

Liberal economists haven't silenced conservatives, but they have completely eclipsed liberal sociologists and liberal psychologists. Even noneconomist commentators reduce the rich texture of how disadvantage is actually lived to a crude materialism that has little to do with reality.

I don't care how many factory jobs have been lost, it still doesn't make sense to drop out of high school. The influences that lead so many to do so are much deeper and more complicated than anything that can be grasped in an economic model or populist slogan.

This economic determinism would be bad enough if it was just making public debate dumber. But the amputation of sociologic, psychological and cognitive considerations makes good policy impossible.

Animal charity sues SeaWorld on behalf of five 'slave' whales

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Tue, 7 Feb 2012 19:14:51 GMT

Animal charity sues SeaWorld on behalf of five 'slave' whales (UK Telegraph 2-7-12)

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller called the hearing in San Diego after SeaWorld asked the court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) that names five orcas as plaintiffs in the case.

PETA claims the captured killer whales are treated like slaves for being forced to live in tanks and perform daily at its parks in San Diego and Orlando, Florida.

“This case is on the next frontier of civil rights,” said PETA's attorney Jeffrey Kerr, representing the five orcas.

Top five regrets of the dying

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Tue, 7 Feb 2012 18:18:32 GMT

Top five regrets of the dying (UK Guardian 2-1-12)

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'.

Colbert v. the Court

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Mon, 6 Feb 2012 19:58:52 GMT

Colbert v. the Court (Slate 2-2-12)

The Supreme Court has always had its critics. Chief Justice John Marshall had to contend with the temper of President Andrew Jackson (“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!”). And Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes went toe-to-toe with FDR, who wouldn't let up with the court-packing. But in the history of the Supreme Court, nothing has ever prepared the justices for the public opinion wrecking ball that is Stephen Colbert. The comedian/presidential candidate/super PAC founder has probably done more to undermine public confidence in the court's 2010 Citizens United opinion than anyone, including the dissenters. In this contest, the high court is supremely outmatched.

Citizens United, with an assist from a 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo, has led to the farce of unlimited corporate election spending, “uncoordinated” super PACs that coordinate with candidates, and a noxious round of attack ads, all of which is protected in the name of free speech. Colbert has been educating Americans about the resulting insanity for months now. His broadside against the court raises important questions about satire and the court, about protec...[Truncated, view original post for the full entry.]

An education in occupation--what happened to Iraqi universities

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Mon, 6 Feb 2012 15:21:20 GMT

An education in occupation—what happened to Iraqi universities (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 2-2-12)

Until the 1990s, Iraq had perhaps the best university system in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein's regime used oil revenues to underwrite free tuition for Iraqi university students — churning out doctors, scientists, and engineers who joined the country's burgeoning middle class and anchored development. Although political dissent was strictly off-limits, Iraqi universities were professional, secular institutions that were open to the West, and spaces where male and female, Sunni and Shia mingled. Also the schools pushed hard to educate women PDF, who constituted 30 percent of Iraqi university faculties by 1991. (This is, incidentally, better than Princeton was doing as late as 2009.) With a reputation for excellence, Iraqi universities attracted many students from surrounding countries — the same countries that are now sheltering the thousands of Iraqi professors who have fled US-occupied Iraq.

The Same-Sex "Marriage" Proposal is Unjust Discrimination by Patrick Lee

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:32:01 GMT

The Same-Sex 'Marriage' Proposal is Unjust Discrimination by Patrick Lee (Public Discourse 1-30-12)

The “marriage equality movement”: that's the name chosen for themselves by same-sex “marriage” supporters. The implicit argument is that the state's granting marriage licenses only to opposite-sex couples is undue discrimination. The claim has an initial plausibility” the state grants a marriage license to John and Mary but not to Jim and Steve. Isn't that unequal treatment? But this charge, I will show, rests on a profound confusion about both marriage and equality. A state's recognition that marriage is only between a man and a woman is not unjust. What's more, a state's endorsement of same-sex “marriage” does create an arbitrary and invidious discrimination.

The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake - review by Mary Midgley

noreply@asisaid.com (David Brown) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:24:27 GMT

The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake - review by Mary Midgley (UK Guardian 1-27-12)

We need a new mind-body paradigm, a map that acknowledges the many kinds of things there are in the world and the continuity of evolution. We must somehow find different, more realistic ways of understanding human beings—and indeed other animals—as the active wholes that they are, rather than pretending to see them as meaningless consignments of chemicals.

Rupert Sheldrake, who has long called for this development, spells out this need forcibly in his new book. He shows how materialism has gradually hardened into a kind of anti-Christian faith, an ideology rather than a scientific principle, claiming authority to dictate theories and to veto inquiries on topics that don't suit it, such as unorthodox medicine, let alone religion. He shows how completely alien this static materialism is to modern physics, where matter is dynamic. And, to mark the strange dilemmas that this perverse fashion poses for us, he ends each chapter with some very intriguing “Questions for Materialists”, questions such as “Have you been programmed to believe in materialism?”, “If there are no purposes in nature, how can you have purposes yourself?”, “How do you explain the placebo response?” and so on.