exposure to absurdity may improve the mind

I found this article interesting – new research suggests that exposure to the absurd or irrational may provoke higher levels of thinking – for example, pattern recognition – in humans.  The theory appears to be that when confronted…

politician tells truth

Shock, horror.

Kudos to Kelvin Thompson, federal Labor MP, for having the courage to stand up to the “eternal growth” fools who currently dictate economic and development policies in the western world and point out that excessive population…

collaborating in another holocaust

Epic win:

rationality vs political expediency – australia’s problem with water

You might recall this post from a couple of years back about water use in Australia – basically, the point was that as a matter of measurable, objective fact urban water use is utterly dwarfed by agricultural use,…

perspective refresher

Pictures like these seem like a good enough reason to continue exploring space – it’s an excellent tool for reflecting the utter triviality of the apparently significant matters with which we fill our days.

Now if only we could find…

hey, my shoes are talking

Uh oh: three+ cups of coffee a day increases the risk of hallucinations. Also:

In moderation, caffeine can increase the capacity for mental or physical labor, but when used in excess, it also can be intoxicating, causing nervousness, irritability,

…

i’ve made a huge mistake

This is just awesome – we may not be all that far off being able to clone an actual wooly mammoth. Occasionally, despite our major effort to annihilate ourselves and the planet, humans do…

unscientific superstition quietly gaining influence in australian schools

The Age reports on the pressing issue of the growth of independent schools teaching from a faith-based curriculum in Australia.  Presenting religious indoctrination in the Howard era clothing of “choice”, some such schools are teaching creationism in science…

two thoughts on nuclear power

There are increasing signs that Australia is going to go nuclear in the medium term.

First Thought

One way of looking at the benefits of nuclear power versus the risks is to consider the worst…

what are you, gay?

I’m sure you’re familiar with the old “homophobes are really closet gays” line of reasoning.  Interestingly, this research seems to confirm that theory. From the abstract:

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men

…

petitio principii

This is a dangerous piece of circular reasoning: the solution to the problems created by an ageing population is to increase population growth.

The ‘logic’ employed appears to be that, in order to sustain the current number of…

on teaching science

I enjoyed this article about the teaching of physics to school children in the United Kingdom, and reforms which seem to be focused on teaching kids to talk “about” science rather that teaching kids science itself.

Perhaps the…

are we, or the media really this stupid?

This is the headline this afternoon from the ABC news website:

The headline is a reference to the proposal that Australia implement a carbon trading scheme to (finally) start doing something about our greenhouse…

god presents: dinosaurs with saddles

You have probably heard about this by now: evangelical Christians will today open a “Creation Museum” (or, ‘moron magnet’, as this blog eloquently puts it) in the USA. Rather than being designed along the lines of a giant…

stacked ABC board forces network to show documentary promoting idiotic non-science

You may or may not recall that over the last few years, the federal government has carefully stacked the ABC’s board with right wing nutcases, including Keith “we never did nuffink to the Aborigines, it was like that…