I feel slightly guilty about appending an ‘astronomy’ tag to this, because it’s going to seem not just distantly-related, but wholly out of place to some reading. Yet, there really is a legitimate bearing, as I hope to demonstrate. So let’s take a brief look at the history of extra-terrestrial encounters, because sometimes it helps to know the perspectives of the time.
I am
On Saturday, I was chasing bug pics when I got an expected call to meet with friends, and snagged one frame of some amorous flies on the parsley flowers before I had to put down the camera (sacrilege I know) and head off. I couldn’t see these eyes in the viewfinder (for the reason illustrated at right,) so the surprise came much later when I unloaded the memory card.
Now, the big question:
I’m very fond of pushing different perspectives, because I believe it helps us to understand many things better, and changes our predefined views of our world. Some perspectives, however, are heavily ingrained, and perhaps even self-perpetuating, so introducing something ‘new’ is complicated.
With the lead-in out of the way, let’s take consciousness, and to do so,
So not only is today the summer solstice, but also World Humanist Day – which is, admittedly, an odd thing. Not in that I believe we shouldn’t bother with it, but in the implication that there’s only one day to consider or celebrate humanism. It’s like having a National Don’t Set Your Neighbor On Fire Day it’s something that we shouldn’t
We’ve been seeing some steamy weather lately, high heat preceding wicked thunderstorms, and I was dumb enough to go down to the river in the former looking for subjects. Between bad sinus reactions and sweating buckets, without finding much of anything to shoot, I elected not to stay long. But I did bring back an eyed click beetle (Alaus oculatus) to get some more
This is another of those ponderous, philosophical posts – I’ll try to follow up with pics and fewer words soon, I promise…
Given that we understand that evolution by natural selection is effective, in sometimes astounding ways, but also a bit haphazard and imprecise, questions sometimes arise about whether conscious decisions might be able to accomplish better results more directly.
This past Tuesday I met with a student down by the river, and afterward poked around to see what items of interest could be found. In the distance I espied a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) that appeared to be hunting, but a closer look revealed that it had been successful. I hadn’t brought the tripod and thus should not have been shooting with a long lens handheld,
I think most people know that there are certain kinds of fires that you don’t throw water on to extinguish, primarily grease, oil, gasoline, and electrical. In such cases, water is simply going to make matters much worse, either by splashing and floating the burning substances to disperse in a wider range, or by producing greater damage to equipment and creating the potential for electrocution.
Twenty-three years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low-earth orbit (meaning about 555 km, or 345 mi, above the surface of the Earth.) Since that time, it has produced perhaps the largest body of work of any single telescope, and certainly some of the most detailed. And just recently, NASA released a sweetheart.
Let’s start with some perspective. Everyone (who matters)
At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne has tackled yet another foofaraw among philosophers this particular topic is one of frequent appearance, being Does science assume naturalism? And ever so typical of philosophy, it begins with traditional assumptions and goes even further off course from there.
The duel comes over the various definitions of terms like naturalism and supernatural,
