I do sometimes wonder what some of the people one meets online are on. For instance today brings:
This morning saw 10:10:10 on 10/10/10. 101010101010 is the binary representation of 2730, which you will instantly recognise as a multiple of 42.
[Mark Wigmore @ Cix]
My life is now utterly complete!
The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
[William Blake]
The following is from Scientific American of October 1860 (yes you did read that right!) and reprinted in the October 2010 issue. Methinks some of my friends out there may appreciate it!
Against Homework
A child who has been boxed up six hours in school might spend the next four hours in study, but it is impossible to develop the child’s intellect in this way. The laws of nature are inexorable. By dint of great and painful labor, the child may succeed in repeating a lot of words, like a parrot, but, with the power of its brain all exhausted, it is out of the question for it to really master and comprehend its lessons. The effect of the system is to enfeeble the intellect even more than the body. We never see a little girl staggering home under a load of books, or knitting her brow over them at eight o’clock in the evening, without wondering that our citizens do not arm themselves at once with carving knives, pokers, clubs, paving stones or any weapons at hand, and chase out the managers of our common schools, as they would wild beasts that were devouring their children.
Here’s one of those longer quotes I mentioned earlier. I leave it here, without comment, for your consideration.
Religions are always stridently opposed to the world of the Supernatural. Alleged paranormal events represent competition for the miracles [aka paranormal events!] necessary to any religious belief system and thus compete for the allegiance and contributions of their believers […]
We can observe many members of society who appear to be intelligent and rational in the pursuit of their daily life. However, on Sundays they go to their church or temple. There they participate in incomprehensible and irrational rituals involving magic, prayer and other activities demeaning to their rational minds. Their rational mind tells them that a god does not exist and yet, there they sit and pray to him […]
[…] people tend to associate in communities of like-minded people. Believers restrict their circle of friend and family to other believers. They surround themselves with mirror images of themselves.
If people wear blinders successfully, then the young and naïve among them hear nothing but the desired belief. No reputable person in his or her sphere of life ever disagrees with or objects to the tenets of their common belief system. As time goes on, people in a mentally incestuous society consider it normal that all seemingly intelligent people believe as the community believes […]
[…] the believer sees non-believers as abnormal and undesirable. Thus, religious belief maintains itself through self-affirmation, insulation and demonization of non-believers.
[cliffkirtley at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/]
It’s been an odd week, apart from the fact I’ve been ill, with not many good quotes which are short enough for here, but lots of long ones. Maybe I’ll blog the long quotes in separate posts later, meanwhile here are a handful of short ones.
James Joyce fans in Dublin spend up to 36 hours reading Ulysses aloud every year on June 16.
[Times; 29 September 2010]When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
[Isaac Asimov]The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.
[Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]Life is change that we don’t attend to.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]Our experience of sexuality is inseparable from our experience of life.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]
This year’s Nobel Prizes are being announced this week. In general the Nobel Committee makes good decisions on who deserves recognition in the sciences and it isn’t often that I would quarrel with their choice. I’m not really competent to judge when it comes to the Literature prize. And it seems to me the Peace prize is always something between the doings of the court jester and a political football.
The first of this year’s prizes, announced on Monday, was the prize for Medicine which was awarded to Prof. Robert Edwards who devised (and with Prof. Patrick Steptoe developed) IVF.
I apologise in advance if my view upsets anyone (I know it will some) but this is one science award I will quarrel with. In my view IVF should have been strangled at birth.
I take a basically “egalitarian” view of our relationship with Nature: “Nature must be interfered with as little as possible. There are no safe limits so we must always show caution. Nature is fragile. Any risk is unacceptable.” (OK like all these generalisations that is a slight exageration of the detail of what I believe, but I certainly tend more towards the “egalitarian” view than any other.)
In consequence I feel that if a couple are unable to have children naturally then Nature has some good underlying reason for this and perhaps we should not be playing God. To me IVF is not a step forward but something which we should not be meddling in; it is the medicalisation of a normal part of normal life. Not being able to have children isn’t a life-threatening, debilitating or even disfiguring disease. Compare it with, for instance, on the one hand elective cosmetic surgery and on the other type 1 diabetes. (It is also the first step on the path to eugenics, but that’s a completely different argument which we won’t go into here.)
As such to me IVF is not something worthy of a Nobel prize. That is in no way to belittle Prof. Edwards’ and Prof. Steptoe’s undoubted medical and technical skills and their vision of how to solve the problems from which much has indeed been learnt. (For example, Prof. Steptoe was a pioneer in the development of laparoscopy as a surgical technique.) But just because we have the technology to do something does not mean we have to do it.
Prof. Edwards is on record as saying “The most important thing in life is having a child. Nothing is more special than a child.” All I can say is that if he thinks that putting another mouth to be fed on this planet is the most important thing ever, well I despair. Where are his ethics? Where was his Ethics Committee? Oh, hang on, back in ’60s and ’70s when the work was being done there probably wasn’t an Ethics Committee. Hmmm.
Here, in random order, is this week’s rather rich helping of amusing and insightful quotes.
The first two are from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert; right on the money as always:
A CEO has something called a “vision.” That is a view of the future that is not supported by evidence.
[Scott Adams at The Scott Adams Blog]The primary function of a CEO is hurting other people, specifically the stockholders and employees of competing companies. He wants to take their market share, their wealth, and their happiness. And a CEO isn’t too affectionate with his vendors and employees either.
[Scott Adams at The Scott Adams Blog]
I can think of many who won’t like the next, but again it is so true:
Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right.
[Found on Tumblr]
And this was from a video clip of an interview with a couple of gays; it cracked me up!
Love at first innuendo.
[Dan Savage]
This one is for Katy …
Eat cake. Change lives.
[Macmillan Cancer Support advertisement]
I couldn’t resist this wonderful critical put-down on a paragraph of absolute scientific mumbo-jumbo:
That paragraph reads like he authors were cobbling together a braille sentence using the random distribution of acne on someone’s back.
[Jesse Bering at www.scientificamerican.com/blog/, 22/09/2010]
If only I’d been told this next many years ago!
The only disability in life is a bad attitude
[Quoted by Kittypinkstars at Flickr]
How the other half live:
Glamour model Katie Price has been found guilty of not being in proper control of her pink horsebox after veering into another lane in Sussex.
[BBC News]
Needless to say it was the very idea of a pink horsebox which got me! And so finally an interesting “off the wall” take which again contains a huge element of truth:
I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people. Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.
[Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists]
That’s all for this week.
I’ll spare everyone another picture of Rye or the Romney Marsh today and instead I offer this week’s crop of amusing and/or thought-provoking quotes.
Plan B and Arcade Fire get Q nods
[BBC News website headline]We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.
[Lily Tomlin]Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
[Antoine de Saint-Exupery]Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.
Baths, wine and sex spoil our bodies; but baths, wine and sex make up life.
[Epitaph of Tiberius Claudius Secundus]Inside every old person is a younger person wondering what the fuck happened.
[unknown]Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.
[Aristophanes, The Knights]Leadership is a form of mental illness.
[Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert]
Oh and I thought I’d spare you more from the Dalai Lama on Compassion – that’s all he seems to talk about at the moment, although I do see why as that is largely, at rock bottom, what Buddhism is all about.
A rich crop of thought-provoking and amusing quotes from which to pick this week, so here’s my selection:
The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.
[Tom Bodett]Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since one who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences, or the things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy.
[Roger Bacon]We apprehend time only when we have marked motion … not only do we measure movement by time, but also time by movement because they define each other.
[Aristotle]Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
[John Ciardi, poet]To familiarize ourselves with the virtue of patience, it is very helpful to think of adversity not so much as a threat to our peace of mind but rather as the very means by which patience is attained. From this perspective, we see that those who would harm us are, in a sense, teachers of patience. Such people teach us what we could never learn merely from hearing someone speak, be they ever so wise or holy.
[Dalai Lama]A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
[Herm Albright]
If you think you are too small or insignificant to make a difference, then you have never been in bed with a mosquito
[Dalai Lama]