Category Archives: Science And Society

Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

Mind Your Own Business

2 Comments

I was going to comment on this the other day, but Ezra Levant, who has more of a dog in the fight (so to speak), has:

NASA used to be about exploring space — that’s what the S stands for. But NASA’s new boss, Charles Bolden, recently told Al Jazeera TV that Obama has given him new marching orders: Inspire children to learn math, expand international relationships. “Perhaps foremost. he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.”

I guess that’s what happens when a “community organizer” becomes president.

But when you think about it, Hansen is following Obama’s instructions perfectly: The Saudis probably do “feel good” that NASA is trying to shut down their Canadian oil competitors.

I wish that Hansen was muzzled half as much as he pretends he is. He is, or at least should be, an embarrassment to the agency.

Philosophy, Science And Society

Monkey Self Awareness

28 Comments

I continue to be baffled by research such as this:

It was once thought that only humans could pass the mark test. Then chimpanzees did, followed by dolphins and elephants.

What I continue to not understand is why they don’t think that (e.g.) cats are self aware. My cats recognize each other, so they clearly recognize cats. When they see themselves in a mirror, they don’t treat it like another cat — they basically ignore it. Is there any other explanation for this than they recognize it as themselves? What am I missing here?

According to Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal, the new findings fit with his work on capuchin monkeys who don’t quite recognize themselves in mirrors, but don’t treat the reflections as belonging to strangers. “As a result, we proposed a gradual scale of self awareness. The piece of intriguing information presented here may support this view,” he said.

However, de Waal cautioned that “many scientists would want more tests and more controls” — a warning especially salient in light of a high-profile controversy involving Marc Hauser, a Harvard University evolutionary biologist who appears to have overstated the cognitive powers of his own monkeys.

“What you’re seeing in the videos is subject to all kinds of interpretations,” said Gordon Gallup, a State University of New York at Albany psychologist who invented the mirror test, and has administered it with negative results to rhesus monkeys. “I don’t think these findings in any way demonstrate that rhesus monkeys are capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors.”

It seems to me that, for whatever reason (Homo Sapiens chauvinism?), some scientists go out of their way to deny the obvious. It reminds me of the arguments during Descartes’s day that animals couldn’t feel pain, and the even more absurd ones that babies couldn’t, either, used as an excuse to not have to use anaesthesia to operate on them.

[Update a while later]

I should add that there is no definitive test for self awareness. There is no way to know for certain that anyone other than yourself is self aware.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

But Don’t Call Them Fascists

56 Comments

What were they thinking? It’s amazing to see them so willing to show their true totalitarian nature so blatantly. And it’s too late to pull it, despite the attempts. That’s the magic of the Internet.

[Update a few minutes later]

A comment that Iowahawk left at the Youtube page (and reposted on his FB page):

In order for your “No Pressure” advert to have been made, I am assuming several writers pitched a professionally-prepared storyboard to a committee, detailing shot-by-shot each second of …the film. The committee approved it, along with a minimum $250,000 budget to hire actors, director, & crew. Each scene probably took 3-10 takes, and weeks of post production by special effects wizards.

At no time did a single person involved in this clusterf**k say, “hey, maybe it isn’t the best PR to air our fantasies about detonating the people who don’t agree with us into a mist of blood meat and bone fragments.”

This has got to be the biggest FAIL in the entire history of the internet. Anyone remotely associated with the production of this film should forever be banished from any public institution in the English speaking world, and immediately referred for psychiatric evaluation.

I know what my evaluation would be.

[Update a while later]

More thoughts from a James Delingpole:

With No Pressure, the environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness.

Again, what were they thinking?

They were thinking something like the things these people (who were finally brought to justice) were thinking. Because they’re all children of the first totalitarian, Rousseau. It’s what the left does.

[Update a few minutes later]

Spring time for Al Gore — the eco-Anschluss.