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.
I am curently working on a new lecture series on that topic – having a gut feeling that the evolutionary history will explain how and why we get diseases. Some German magazines (“Fehlkonstruktion Mensch” DER SPIEGEL 40/2009) even write about that topic quoting a forthcoming book of Ganten / Deichmann / Spahl). I will rely, however, mostly on Continue reading evo-devo-dis
Reading what FAZ’ Frank Schirrmacher writes in his new book about loosing control over his brain “Mein Kopf kommt nicht mehr mit” (“My head lost me”) Continue reading Sei doch in sich selbst vergnügt
NG has a remarkable retraction – one of the few that are ever published which is a fact that that may otherwise rise severe doubts Continue reading So few retractions
I have just discovered that the book of Helmut Kiene”Komplementäre Methodenlehre der klinischen Forschung. Cognition-based Medicine. Berlin – Heidelberg – New York: Springer; 2001, 193 S. ISBN 3-540-41022-8 is now being online available as PDF – a must read for all clinical researchers.
Addendum 26 Feb 2021
Sorry for the title that involuntarily replicated a title from paper published already 14 years before https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7647644/
A recent opinion article in Nature may serve as my diving board here. Althoug texts are much better edited by professional journalists, the content isn’t better (driven mainly by press release). And of course, journalists must write about topics outside of their knowledge zone. Funny, they resemble
more that of a priest, taking information from a source of authority and communicating it to the congregation.
Journalists don’t have enough time for the details while bloggers can restrict themselves to their main expertise ;-) raising also a large amount of public awareness.
A slide set that I would have liked as a trailer for my recent talk about science and religion…
Neuroscientists largely see the “free will as an illusion” – according to a recent essay in Nature. As the author of this interesting essay, I have a major problem to give up the idea of a “free will” (mainly for theodicy reasons that needs a free will of humans). Maybe our will is being influenced by many factors, it is not always a conscious decision and it can of course be altered by chemicals or diseases. Nevertheless the subjective, sudden and not anticipated impetus to do something – for example writing a blog about free will – is a symptom of free will even with all existing antinomies, yea, yea.
During my recent lecture series on science and religion, I tried to make clear that science includes many beliefs in addition to hard facts while religions encompasses hard facts in addition to many beliefs.
So what about the fuzzy approach of intuition or educated guess in a prototypical biological experiment? If this is not just a dose or time variation from a previous experiment, it will always involve an extrapolation from somewhat related facts believing that the next experiment will be better than the last Continue reading In-tui-tion, In-tui-fiction and educated guess
Dieter Hattrup pointed me today to Nietzsche
Der tolle Mensch sprang mitten unter sie und durchbohrte sie mit seinen Blicken. Wohin ist Gott? rief er, ich will es euch sagen! Wir haben ihn getödtet, ihr und ich! Wir alle sind sein Mörder! Aber wie haben wir diess gemacht? Wie vermochten wir das Meer auszutrinken? Wer gab uns den Schwamm, um den ganzen Horizint wegzuwischen? Was thaten wir, als wir diese Erde von ihrer Sonne losketteten?
But see also Nietzsche’s account to all Darwin admirers (page 119 of Hattrups book)
Die Behauptungen Darwin’s sind zu überprüfen – durch Versuche! Ebenso die Entstehung höherer Organismen aus den niedersten. Es müssen Verscuhe auf 1000de von Jahren hin geleitet werden! Affen zu Menschen erziehen!
Gaya scienza is close to todays’ synthetic biology, yea, yea.
Giovanni Abbadessa, Roberto Accolla, Fernando Aiuti, Adriana Albini, Anna Aldovini, Massimo Alfano, Guido Antonelli, Courtenay Bartholomew, Zvi Bentwich, Umberto Bertazzoni, Jay A. Berzofsky, Peter Biberfeld, Enzo Boeri, Luigi Buonaguro, Franco M. Buonaguro, Michael Bukrinsky, Arsène Burny, Continue reading Never complain never explain
The new Edge Magazine has the annual question 2009 online
New tools equal new perceptions.
Through science we create technology and in using our new tools we recreate ourselves. But until very recently in our history, no democratic populace, no legislative body, ever indicated by choice, by vote, how this process should play out.
… While science may or may not be the only news, it is the news that stays news.
And our politicians, our governments? Always years behind, the best they can do is play catch up.
But unfortunately it continues Continue reading Our politicians, our governments? Always years behind
According to Wikipedia on May 24, 1844 Samuel Morse sent his famous words “What hath God wrought” from the B&O’s Baltimore station to the Capitol Building along the wire – the first email. Continue reading First email or the driving force of science
