and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:2
Yesterday’s farewell sermon of Joachim Funk in Gröbenzell reminded me to the chapter that I once learned by heart (in Greek) and let me today go for some pictures of Kapuzinergasse in Munich, where the walls of St. Anton hold this inscription in big letters (Schmerzhafte Kapelle und Kapuzinerkloste, St. Anton).

Wikipedia describes the last year’ financial crisis as “an economic bubble (sometimes referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble, a price bubble, a financial bubble, or a speculative mania) as a “trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values”. A new and excellent Embo Report (thanks to WK) arrives at the same description of current science, a

dangerous cocktail of short-term gains prevailing over long-term interests, herding, increasing pressure to deliver results, the absence of effective oversight, and blind trust that the system would regulate itself (Show me more…)

Funny to see this title at PNAS “Numbering the hairs on our head”

Evolution and medicine share a dependence on the genotype–phenotype map. Although genotypes exist and are inherited in a discrete space convenient for many sorts of analyses, the causation of key phenomena such as natural selection and disease takes place in a continuous phenotype space whose relationship to the genotype space is only dimly grasped.

The author was aware of the association to (Show me more…)

Yes, again some thoughts about the limits of science and the horizon of religion, triggered by The Mermaid who writes about cause and effect and is itself

triggered in part by watching a video of a BBC television series called The Impressionists. It is a very fine dramatization of the 19th century French impressionism movement in art: Degas, Manet, Monet, Cezanne and others. At the same time these painters were working, realist painters were working as well (and there was conflict between the two groups, of course). So why did impressionism arise? Why is impressionist art so impressive (to some, at least)?

There are different ways to describe reality – and clearly the impressionist’s painters have developed their own way – neither better nor worse, just different.
But why are there so many materialistic scientists who want us to show that all religion is either caused by genes (VMAT2 – the “god gene”), by neuro-anatomy (Ramachandran’s god modul) by psychology (Freud’s “phantasy structure”) or just politics (“Opium des Volkes”). Why is it unacceptable that religion may be just the “impressionistic” way that may be even advantageous in some if not many situations?

Bach cantatas are at a nice page of cs.ualberta.ca incuding my favorite BWV 227

Trotz dem alten Drachen,
Trotz des Todes Rachen,
Trotz der Furcht darzu!
Tobe, Welt, und springe,
Ich steh hier und singe
In gar sichrer Ruh.
Gottes Macht hält mich in acht;
Erd und Abgrund muss verstummen,
Ob sie noch so brummen.

A review of “Unscientific America” on p 678 in Science Magazine 7 Aug 2009 finds

According to Mooney and Kirshenbaum, atheistic scientists such as Richard Dawkins and P. Z. Myers [who runs the immensely popular science blog Pharyngula] drive people away from science by forcing them to choose between the facts and their faith.