Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

Book: Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible

July 5, 2015

“In his provocative new book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions.

“Coyne is responding to a national climate in which over half of Americans don’t believe in evolution (and congressmen deny global warming), and warns that religious prejudices and strictures in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, he demolishes the claims of religion to provide verifiable “truth” by subjecting those claims to the same tests we use to establish truth in science.”

http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatible/dp/0670026530/ref=cm_wl_huc_item

Can Religion and Science Coexist?

July 5, 2015

“A new book by the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne tackles arguments that the two institutions are compatible.

“In the book’s 262 pages, Coyne tackles arguments stating that belief in God is a laudable quality, and reasons instead that faith is detrimental, even dangerous, and fundamentally incompatible with science, even while peacemakers try to find common ground between the two. Coyne, it should be noted, has spent much of his career objecting to religious rejection of Darwinism—he published a bestseller, Why Evolution Is True, that was based on his blog of the same name. In Faith Versus Fact, his overarching argument is that religion and science both make claims about the universe, but only one of the two institutions is sufficiently open to the fact that it might be wrong.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/religion-science-coexist-faith-versus-fact-coyne/396362/?utm_source=SFTwitter

The right to die

June 28, 2015

“Doctors should be allowed to help the suffering and terminally ill to die when they choose.

“One fear is that assisted dying will be foisted on vulnerable patients, bullied by rogue doctors, grasping relatives, miserly insurers or a cash-strapped state. Experience in Oregon, which has had a law since 1997, suggests otherwise. Those who choose assisted suicide are in fact well-educated, insured and receiving palliative care. They are motivated by pain, as well as the desire to preserve their own dignity, autonomy and pleasure in life.”

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21656182-doctors-should-be-allowed-help-suffering-and-terminally-ill-die-when-they-choose?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/st/therighttodie

Can an Algorithm Hire Better Than a Human?

June 25, 2015

“Hiring and recruiting might seem like some of the least likely jobs to be automated. The whole process seems to need human skills that computers lack, like making conversation and reading social cues.

“But people have biases and predilections. They make hiring decisions, often unconsciously, based on similarities that have nothing to do with the job requirements — like whether an applicant has a friend in common, went to the same school or likes the same sports.”

The American Medical Association is finally taking a stand on quacks like Dr. Oz

June 15, 2015

The issue of has taken on increasing significance of late. Wrapped up in this issue are several key issues:

  • What is the role of professional organizations and authorities in enforcing certain practices and ethical standards?
  • How do we define and distinguish between science and pseudoscience?
  • What does “evidence based” practice mean?
  • How do we determine “truth” in the natural sciences and in particular, the medical sciences?
  • Upon what should ethical standards in medicine be based? How should those standards be enforced? Who should do the enforcing?

“The AMA will look at creating ethical guidelines for physicians in the media, write a report on how doctors may be disciplined for violating medical ethics through their press involvement, and release a public statement denouncing the dissemination of dubious medical information through the radio, TV, newspapers, or websites.”

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/13/8773695/AMA-dr-oz

The Fallen of World War II

June 12, 2015

A really interesting video giving visual representations of the deaths during World War II. Watching this raises many interesting questions.

How do these visual representations give us a different sense of the war than history books would or simply looking at numbers on a page?

How can we accurately communicate truth?

What does it mean that after a certain point, numbers get so large that that we lose any sense of reality with them?

What is also interesting is that our sense of World War II is painted by our involvement in the war but when you look at the number of people killed, the United States was far from the worst off nation. Because the Soviet Union became our enemy after the war was over, we never really learn about (or care about) how disastrous the war was for them or how much they lost during the war.

How does our historical perspective distort our sense of accuracy and historical truth? What role do our emotions play when it comes to topics like this?

Steven Strogatz on the Elements of Math

June 10, 2015

“Steven Strogatz, an award-winning professor, takes readers from the basics to the baffling in a 15-part series on mathematics. Beginning with a column on why numbers are helpful, he goes on to investigate topics including negative numbers, calculus and group theory, finishing with the mysteries of infinity.”

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/series/steven_strogatz_on_the_elements_of_math/index.html

Does the Golden Ratio Not Measure Up?

June 10, 2015

“The professor has also conducted numerous experiments in Stanford’s psychology department wherein he asks students to pick out which rectangle they like best out of a diverse group. He said the ones they select are always random and frequently change. If the golden rectangle were really the most pleasing, wouldn’t students choose it every time?”

http://hyperallergic.com/211921/does-the-golden-ratio-not-measure-up/

Oliver Sacks on Language, Interpretation and Mishearing

June 10, 2015

“But speech must be decoded by other systems in the brain as well, including systems for semantic memory and syntax. Speech is open, inventive, improvised; it is rich in ambiguity and meaning. There is a huge freedom in this, making spoken language almost infinitely flexible and adaptable — but also vulnerable to mishearing.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/oliver-sacks-mishearings.html?_r=0