Interesting Stuff Thread

I've actually been waiting two weeks to post this and even in that amount of time I still want one of these for Christmas.:D

I was reading a piece about the Duggars, that "Quiverfull" family in the USA who believe in having as many children as possible. It's a review of their latest book, not really a religious piece, and focuses on the practicalities involved in raising that many children. One bit that caught my eye, though, was the question of education.

I know there are many Christian colleges in the USA, but I'd never heard of Verity Institute before. They're not an accredited institution: instead, they offer Christian students a controlled environment while studying by distance learning:

Verity Institute exists to integrate God’s truth (“verity”) into every area of life and learning. Established in 2001, Verity Institute was founded to disciple college students to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ as they pursue higher education. Verity helps students avoid the pitfalls of traditional college campuses such as non-Christian professors, secular humanism, and loose campus morals. In our innovative, 21-month program, Verity students complete a Bachelor of Arts or Science degree through an outside, fully-accredited university at a fraction of traditional costs for higher education.

(emphasis added)

I just thought that was hilarious - the idea that a Professor's religion (or lack thereof) carries more weight that his/her expertise in the subject being studied. If you're going to learn Calculus or Java programming, you have to learn it in a Christian way! That and the idea that "secular humanism" is a threat somehow. It's pretty clear to me that this kind of thinking is not for the benefit of students themselves, but for their parents instead, who can't trust their kids to maintain their religion after exposure to the real world.

It gets worse, though. An article in the New Yorker a while ago scared the bejesus (?) out of me. It was about Patrick Henry College, in Virginia. They are accredited, and aim to train the next generation of the US government so that it might be run on Christian principles, regardless of what the Constitution says. The scary part is that it's a self-sustaining cycle, with current congressmen recruiting staff directly from the same school. Again, we see the role of home-schooling parents in setting the whole thing up:

Patrick Henry’s president, Michael Farris, is a lawyer and minister who has worked for Christian causes for decades. He founded the school after getting requests from two constituencies: homeschooling parents and conservative congressmen. The parents would ask him where they could find a Christian college with a “courtship” atmosphere, meaning one where dating is regulated and subject to parental approval. The congressmen asked him where they could find homeschoolers as interns and staffers, “which I took to be shorthand for ‘someone who shares my values,’ ” Farris said. “And I knew they didn’t want a fourteen-year-old kid.” So he set out to build what he calls the Evangelical Ivy League, and what the students call Harvard for Homeschoolers.

In other words: we have people who will grow up with no exposure to the real world, study in a private college, go to work in politics for Christian lawmakers, and who may eventually be in a position to remake the US Government according to their cherished moralistic delusions. Their religion says one thing, the world says different ... so much for the world, eh? :eek:

Sarky wrote: »

Animal's genetic code re-engineered to include a 21st amino acid.

The piece mentions how they plan to do the same thing with its brain so that they can turn off/on individual neurons with lasers. How freaking cool is that?

I just saw a documentary about something very similar I think the chimp was called Caesar but the documentary was incomplete and ended abruptly.:(

Sarky wrote: »

Animal's genetic code re-engineered to include a 21st amino acid.

The piece mentions how they plan to do the same thing with its brain so that they can turn off/on individual neurons with lasers. How freaking cool is that?

Admittedly cool, but it'd be cooler if it could turn on/off lazers with it's neurons.

Curiosity with Stephen Hawking. This was on Discovery Channel.

recedite wrote: »

There seems to be an element of avian hypocrisy going on here, in regard to "monogamy".

It's just their way of getting a sperm doner. They just haven't invented artificial insemination yet.

In fairness, if there's anyone who's a philosophical and intellectual successor to Sagan, it's Tyson. This video is rather marvelous:

recedite

In a primitive society of spear throwing hunter/gatherers, who is more responsible for human progress; the local shaman with his mystical superstitions, or the guy who invents the bow and arrow?

I'll go with the rational optimist theory that human development in the last several thousand years is mainly due to trade. Trade that allows specialisation and the creation of a much larger amount of stored knowledge then relying on a single local group to hold all the knowledge. An example he gives is that Tasmanian locals returned back to stone age living because they did not have enough numbers to sustain an iron age level of trade.

In this model the most important person is the one who persuades you to trade your arrow heads with the next tribe over for something else. Whoever it was that persuaded us not to carry out the fairly standard 'kill anyone I don't know' rule probably has most responsibility IMHO.

*On an unrelated note "I don't know, so I'm an atheist libertarian
By Penn Jillette" http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/jillette.atheist.libertarian/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Really think the fallacy should have been called something else, but still a nice video.



Reckon the point is too good and non exclusive to post it in the A&A video related thread.

vibe666 wrote: »

a type of female insect has started making clones of its father internally to fertilise it's own unborn female offspring before they are even born. or something...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110817-insects-sex-hermaphrodites-science-evolution-clones-mate-fathers/

i keep thinking of fry in futurama.

It's like past nastification, but in the present...

quite nicely put.

cavedave wrote: »

I thought this was interesting "Abortion may be legal, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get one" with a survey of what religion of ob-gyns are most likely to perform abortions.

Without looking who is most and least likely to provide abortions? No religion, Jewish, Hindu, Catholic, Evangelicals, other Protestants and Muslim?

Hmm. I don't know much about the moral systems of the Jews and Hindus so they're placement is arbritrarily in the middle.
From Most likely to least likely.
Other Protestants
Catholic
Jewish/Hindu
No religion
Evangelicals
Muslims

Edit: Read the article. Hmmm...

Possible ancestor of all placental mammals from the time of the dinosaurs found.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056367784