Category: ideas

“The gods worshipped by billions either exist or they do not. And those gods, if they exist, must have observable consequences. Thus, the question of their existence is a legitimate scientific issue that has profound import to humanity. We can consider the existence of God to be a scientific hypothesis and look for the empirical evidence that would follow.”

“The fears and trepidation of so many believers – and the jubilant anticipation of so many critics of religion – that science will eventually displace religion are wrong-headed on many counts. … Not everyone is religious, but religious ideas and actions spontaneously and inevitably arise in human populations. Second, [the skeptics] underestimate the creativity and imaginativeness of theology.”

“The vast majority of humans are ‘born believers’, naturally inclined to find religious claims and explanations attractive and easily acquired, and to attain fluency in using them. This attraction to religion is an evolutionary by-product of our ordinary cognitive equipment, and while it tells us nothing about the truth or otherwise of religious claims it does help us see religion in an interesting new light.”

“Up until about 12,000 years ago all humans lived in relatively small bands. Today, virtually everyone lives in vast, cooperative groups of mostly unrelated strangers. How did this happen? … [Religion] forged anonymous strangers into moral communities tied together with sacred bonds under a common supernatural jurisdiction.”

“Worries about the effect of technology on conversation are not new; George Orwell bemoaned houses having a radio in every room. And this was no class of Luddites. Everyone said they were on Facebook and several were avid tweeters. However, there was unease about how email, instant messaging and texting had crept into the space formerly occupied by conversation.”

“There is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.”

The Creator’s Project in San Francisco draws artists of all stripes, and breathes creativity (and hipness) into a tech world that deeply needs it.

Like the U.S.’s LEED program, England’s BREEAM awards ecologically sound building practices – and there are more awards this year than ever before.

Pretty well, actually. “Artists and professionals in the field agree that the early returns indicate that crowd-sourcing is widening the pool of contributors to include people who might not have previously considered giving to the arts.”

You can wear a trefoil on St. Paddy’s Day, but do you know which plant it comes from? In the 1890s, a naturalist found “five very different species of plant which were being used around the country as shamrock: the yellow, white and red clovers (in that order of popularity); also wood sorrel; and, a small herb called black medic (Medicago lupulina ), that resembles a cross between a clover and a small creeping buttercup.”