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POPSFalse Journalistic Balance (On Oreskes, Schulte, ...) There are far too many false controversies in the American public discourse, which are not so elsewhere. There is a difference between Ethical statements, Factual statements, Convention statements and Taste statements. Many of the current debates are treated by the media as if they were Ethical, Convention or Taste statements, although they really are Factual statements. In other words, many policy debates, which should rely on readily available empirical information are treated as if they were matters of mere opinion. And all opinions are equal .
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POPSThe Simulated Universe ... In this article, I provide an exposition of the Simulated Universe argument and explain why some philosophers believe that there is a high possibility that we exist in a simulation. I will then discuss the type of evidence that we would need to determine whether we exist in a simulation. Finally, I will describe two objections to the argument before concluding that while interesting, we should reject the Simulated Universe argument. This article is a critique on Nick Bostroms article Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
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POPSCivilization Threatened by Global Warming - Six Leading Scientists Say See first source for the full article. Present knowledge does not permit accurate specification of the dangerous level of human-made GHGs. However, it is much lower than has commonly been assumed. If we have not already passed the dangerous level, the energy infrastructure in place ensures that we will pass it within several decades. We conclude that a feasible strategy for planetary rescue almost surely requires a means of extracting GHGs from the air. Development of CO2 capture at power plants, with below-ground CO2 sequestration, may be a critical element. Injection of the CO2 well beneath the ocean floor assures its stability (House et al. 2006). If the power plant fuel is derived from biomass, such as cellulosic fibres grown without excessive fertilization that produces N2O or other offsetting GHG emissions, it will provide continuing drawdown of atmospheric CO2.
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POPSInfant Collaborators & the Evolution of Speech Full paper We argue for the importance of processes of shared intentionality in children's early cognitive development. We look briefly at four important social-cognitive skills and how they are transformed by shared intentionality. In each case, we look first at a kind of individualistic version of the skill – as exemplified most clearly in the behavior of chimpanzees – and then at a version based on shared intentionality – as exemplified most clearly in the behavior of human 1- and 2-year-olds. We thus see the following transformations: gaze following into joint attention, social manipulation into cooperative communication, group activity into collaboration, and social learning into instructed learning. We conclude by highlighting the role that shared intentionality may play in integrating more biologically based and more culturally based theories of human development.
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POPSDemocratizing the Information Revolution. The Technological Proletariat Through the illustrative work of Sugata Mitra, an Indian computer scientist, we will turn to Dewey’s understanding of both inquiry and education – how we think and how we should learn – with an eye towards their potential for the ‘furnishing of proper conditions’ that Dewey speaks of in our first quotation. More strongly, this paper shows that Dewey’s philosophy of inquiry and education can provide the model for a mass computer-literacy initiative along the lines of those already devised by Sugata Mitra. Given the enormous amount of tools and information available on the Internet , the possibilities today for communication and learning as selfeducation are fantastic. It becomes our job, then, to explain precisely how we might allow this ‘technological proletariat’ to gain access to the democratizing possibilities of the ‘Information Revolution.’
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POPSA Simpler Origin for Life - by Robert Shapiro Shapiro's article (1st link) outlines the case against an "RNA First"-theory and presents some basic ideas of a competing "Metabolism First" group of theories. 2nd link points (indirectly) to comments on the article. 3rd link provides the Reply by Shapiro on some of those comments. Interesting stuff. Recommended reading for anybody who has a slight interest in how life (could have) originated.
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POPSDiscovery and Confirmation in Evolutionary Psychology - By Machery E From the (unclippable) pdf: In this article, I propose to clarify and evaluate various aspects of evolutionary psychologists’ methodology, with a special focus on their heuristics of discovery—i.e., their methods for developing plausible hypotheses—and their strategies of confirmation—i.e., their methods for providing empirical support for these hypotheses.2 I will also evaluate several well-known objections raised against evolutionary psychology. Source points to other publications by Machery (who focuses on theoretical issues that are raised by psychology and cognitive science)
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POPSThe Denial Industry very interesting article on climate change denial, its deniers, frontgroups, funding & the so called 'debate'. must read
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POPSOpen Source Science: A New Model for Innovation Very interesting article & interview on the open sourcing of science. Recommended reading Personally, I think its absurd to keep anything in the scientific realm closed source. See here for the author's blog Some weeks ago CERN announced it's trying open source academic publishing, the Open Acces format
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