May 11, 2011
The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone to last from 2000 to 12,000 CE; it is run by the Long Now Foundation. Its goal is a meaningful survey and near permanent archive of 1,500 languages. Some of these languages have fewer than one thousand speakers left in the world. Others are considered to be dying out because government centralization and globalization are increasing the prevalence of English and other major languages. The intention is to create a unique platform for comparative linguistic research and education, as well as a functional linguistic tool that might help in the recovery or revitalisation of lost languages in the future.
The Project is creating this broad language archive through an open contribution, open review process similar to the strategy that created the original Oxford English Dictionary. The resulting archive will be publicly available in three different media: a micro-etched nickel alloy disc three inches (7.62 cm) across with 2,000 year life expectancy; a single volume monumental reference book; and a growing online archive.
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May 11, 2011
Stephen Hawking (b. 1942) is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes (he first predicted that black holes emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation).
He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. Hawking has a motor neurone disease that is related to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralyzed.
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May 10, 2011
‘A Briefer History of Time‘ is a popular-science book published in 2005 from the English physicist Stephen Hawking and the American physicist Leonard Mlodinow. It is an update and rewrite of Hawking’s 1988 ‘A Brief History of Time.’
In this book Hawking and Mlodinow present quantum mechanics, string theory, the big bang theory, and other topics in a more accessible fashion to the general public. The book is updated with newly discovered topics, and informs of recurring subjects throughout the book in greater detail.
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May 10, 2011
‘A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes’ is a 1988 popular science book written by English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, which attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology (e.g. the Big Bang, black holes, and light cones) to the nonspecialist reader.
Its main goal is to give an overview of the subject but, unusual for a popular science book, it also attempts to explain some complex mathematics. The author notes that an editor warned him that for every equation in the book the readership would be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E=mc2.
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May 9, 2011
The clustering illusion refers to the tendency to erroneously perceive small samples from random distributions as having significant ‘streaks’ or ‘clusters,’ caused by a human tendency to underpredict the amount of variability likely to appear in a small sample of random or semi-random data due to chance. Illusionary clusters were found in the locations of impact of V-1 flying bombs on London during World War II and as streaks in stock market price fluctuations over time.
The clustering illusion was central to a widely reported study by Gilovich, Robert Vallone and Amos Tversky. They found that the idea that basketball players shoot successfully in ‘streaks,’ sometimes called by sportcasters as having a ‘hot hand’ and widely believed by Gilovich et al.’s subjects, was false. In the data they collected, if anything the success of a previous throw very slightly predicted a subsequent miss rather than another success. Using this cognitive bias in causal reasoning may result in the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. It may also have a relationship with gambler’s fallacy. More general forms of erroneous pattern recognition are pareidolia and apophenia.
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May 9, 2011
The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a logical fallacy in which information that has no relationship is interpreted or manipulated until it appears to have meaning. The name comes from a joke about a Texan who fires some shots at the side of a barn, then paints a target centered on the biggest cluster of hits and claims to be a sharpshooter.
The fallacy does not apply if one had a prior expectation of the particular relationship in question before examining the data. It is related to the clustering illusion, which refers to the tendency in human cognition to interpret patterns in randomness where none actually exist.
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May 5, 2011
The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. It is a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually. However, the premise of the story is not literally true; an actual frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out. (Similarly, the metaphor of an ostrich with its head buried in the sand is also not base in fact.)
The moral of the story is that people should make themselves aware of gradual change lest they suffer eventual undesirable consequences. At times it is told in support of a slippery slope argument. It is also used in business to illustrate the idea that change needs to be gradual to be accepted. It was used in 1960 to describe the dangers of sympathy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War; in 1980 about the impending collapse of civilization anticipated by survivalists; and in the 1990s about inaction in response to climate change and staying in abusive relationships. It has also been used by libertarians to warn about slow erosion of civil rights. In philosophy the boiling frog story has been used as a way of explaining the ‘sorites paradox’: if you remove grains one at a time from a heap of sand, at what point does it cease to be a ‘heap.’
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May 5, 2011
Unobtrusive research is a method of data collection used primarily in the social sciences first described in 1966, which do not involve direct elicitation of data from the research subjects. Unobtrusive measures are contrasted with interviews and questionnaires, in that they try to find indirect ways to obtain the necessary data. The unobtrusive approach often seeks unusual data sources, such as garbage, graffiti and obituaries, as well as more conventional ones such as published statistics. Unobtrusive measures should not be perceived as an alternative to more reactive methods such as interviews, surveys and experiments, but rather as an additional tool in the tool chest of the social researcher. Unobtrusive measures can assist in tackling known biases such a subjective bias towards a result expected.
The proliferation of digital media opened a new era for communication researchers in search of unobtrusively obtained data sources. Online communication creates digital footprints that can allow an analysis of data that are obtained through unobtrusive methods, and are also much larger than previous studies. These footprints can now be used to analyze topics such as the content of communication events, the process of communication, and the structure of the communicative network. The surge of Internet-sourced research data rekindled the discussion of the ethical aspects of using unobtrusively obtained data. For example, can all data collected in the public domain be used for research purposes? When should we seek consent, and is it realistic to require informed consent from sources of unobtrusively collected data? These questions do not have a simple answer, and the solution is a result of a careful and ongoing dialog between researchers, and between researchers and society.
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May 5, 2011
People watching is the act of observing people and their interactions, usually without their knowledge. This differs from voyeurism in that it does not relate to sex or sexual gratification. Though often a casual hobby, it can be used formally as a means for sociological, anthropological or psychological research.
Naturalistic observation is a more formal way of describing people watching in an academic sense, and involves observing subjects in their natural habitat, taking great care to avoid interfering with the behavior being observed. People watching is often accompanied by eavesdropping, surreptitiously listening to the private conversation of others without their knowledge.
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May 4, 2011
Sir Ken Robinson (b. 1950) is an author, and expert on education and the arts.
Robinson’s 2001 book, ‘Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative,’ argues that creativity is undervalued and ignored in Western culture and especially in its educational systems.
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May 3, 2011
Theistic evolution is a concept that asserts that classical religious teachings about God are compatible with the modern scientific understanding about biological evolution. In short, theistic evolutionists believe that there is a God, that God is the creator of the material universe and (by consequence) all life within, and that biological evolution is simply a natural process within that creation. Evolution, according to this view, is simply a tool that God employed to develop human life.
Theistic evolution is not a scientific theory, but a particular view about how the science of evolution relates to religious belief and interpretation. Theistic evolution supporters can be seen as one of the groups who reject the conflict thesis regarding the relationship between religion and science – that is, they hold that religious teachings about creation and scientific theories of evolution need not contradict. Proponents of this view are sometimes described as Christian Darwinists.
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May 3, 2011
Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) was an American astronomer. He devoted his life to popularizing science. He speculated about what life from other planets would be like, and promoted the search for extraterrestrial life. He is world famous for his popular science books and the television series Cosmos, which he co-wrote and presented.
He was born in Brooklyn New York where his father, Sam Sagan, was a Jewish clothes maker and his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, was a housewife. Sagan attended the University of Chicago earning two degrees in physics. He followed with a doctorate in Astronomy in 1960 and taught at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University.
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