I’m no expert on stem-cell therapy research and I won’t try to say too much, but anyone who thinks miracles are guaranteed by any form of stem-cell therapy, morally acceptable or otherwise, should read this mostly optimistic but realistic article, Carving the Neural Stem Cell ‘Niche’ . Researchers have known for a while that many … [Read more…]
While reading an abridged version of the cosmological sections of Pierre Duhem’s massive study of Medieval science, Medieval Cosmology — published by the University of Chicago, I paid closer attention to some mathematical discussions by later Scholastics. As Duhem noted, those discussions were very sophisticated anticipations of the concept of limit which matured in the … [Read more…]
[The original version of this essay was published at The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 5. The Einsteinian Universe. It was finished and uploaded on 2007/02/24. This version includes some changes made for the approaching publication of a collection of most of my weblog entries over the past 5+ years.] Einstein gave a great … [Read more…]
I’ve drawn some insight from Norman Cantor’s Medieval History: The Life and Death of a Civilization on the subject of the destruction by Catholic philosophers and theologians of respect for the mind. There’s still more to be said on that topic but I’m commenting on another topic where Cantor had some views which would not … [Read more…]
The so-called World War I, was actually the beginning of a war not yet over in this year of 2011, though now consisting of the hugely expensive American military bumbling about in a number of countries as our political leaders dance and speak their chosen roles of blood-soaked buffoons. That first phase of the ongoing … [Read more…]
I’ve spoken of this issue before but we see a fresh study, Children’s Personalities Linked to Their Chemical Response to Stress, that indicates: Is your kid a “dove” — cautious and submissive when confronting new environments, or perhaps you have a “hawk” — bold and assertive in unfamiliar settings? These basic temperamental patterns are linked … [Read more…]
[The original version of this essay was published on the as The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 4. The Cosmos of Thinkers Prior to Einstein. It was finished and uploaded on 2007/02/06. This is a slightly corrected version which will be included in a collection of weblog entries I’ll be making available before many … [Read more…]
Let me propose a new definition of a liberal: A liberal is one who values will greatly and thus is inclined to exaggerate his power over the thing-like world, over his own nature and the nature of other human beings, over a merely factual world, and — maybe — over truths. This seems strange in … [Read more…]
[This entry was originally published as The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 1. An Overview on 2007/01/11. This is a slightly corrected version which will be printed under the current title, Why I Misuse the Term ‘Universe’ in my upcoming collection of weblog writings to be published as a big ebook.] In my book … [Read more…]
See Astronomers Reveal a Cosmic ‘Axis of Evil’ to learn: Astronomers are puzzled by the announcement that the masses of the largest objects in the universe appear to depend on which method is used to weigh them. … Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe containing thousands of galaxies like … [Read more…]