An interesting article about the growth and the challenges faced in India:
“India’s 200m-strong middle class is the most economically dynamic group on the planet, but is largely uninterested in politics or social reform. Until it begins to engage politically, India will suffer from a lop-sided modernisation”
More of this here: [The Link]
The bad news for science supporters boils down to a single sentence from a recent report by Yale Psychology professor Paul Bloom: “Some resistance to scientific ideas is a human universal.” This resistance, Bloom reports in the May issue of Science, comes from the tendency for the young human mind to see the world as “designed” and to see the brain as separate from the physical body, both of which are traditional tenets of religion. Science has tried to refute both ideas with the concept of evolution and the argument that the “mind” is a chemical process in the brain.
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Meanwhile, most adults accept scientific beliefs more because of authority figures than understanding. Take electricity. Most people don’t know how electrons, circuits, and alternating currents work, but they “believe” in electricity nevertheless. Electricity turns on the lights. “You can’t know everything, life’s too short,” Bloom said. “There’s nothing wrong with an educated deference [to authority].”
More about this here: [The Link]
Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travelers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it.
Instead he devises a more complicated scheme. He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating. In that case, he will pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty–the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more as a reward for honesty and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less as a punishment. For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44.
What numbers will Lucy and Pete write? What number would you write?
Traveler’s Dilemma (TD) achieves those goals because the game’s logic dictates that 2 is the best option, yet most people pick 100 or a number close to 100–both those who have not thought through the logic and those who fully understand that they are deviating markedly from the “rational choice. Furthermore, players reap a greater reward by not adhering to reason in this way. Thus, there is something rational about choosing not to be rational when playing Traveler’s Dilemma.
For complete article follow the link: [The Link]
In summary the article says: “Forget game-theoretic logic. I will play a large number (perhaps 95), and I know my opponent will play something similar and both of us will ignore the rational argument that the next smaller number would be better than whatever number we choose. What is interesting is that this rejection of formal rationality and logic has a kind of meta-rationality attached to it. If both players follow this meta-rational course, both will do well. The idea of behavior generated by rationally rejecting rational behavior is a hard one to formalize. But in it lies the step that will have to be taken in the future to solve the paradoxes of rationality that plague game theory and are codified in Traveler’s Dilemma.”
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
More of this from here: [The Link]
However on a more positive note the article indicates “….It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can be a boon.”
Given the centrality of work teams, it is more than a bit remarkable how much our society’s perspective is focused on the individual. We school our children as individuals. We hire, train and reward employees as individuals. Yet we have great faith that individuals thrown into a team that has been put together with little thought devoted to its composition, training, development and leadership will be effective and successful. Science strongly suggests otherwise.
More of this from the Scientific American Article from June 2007 issue
Normative principles of science: A principle is normative if people publicly endorse it and there is a system of rewards and punishments for enforcing it .
As described in David Resnik in his book, Price of Truth
These principles are guidelines rather than absolute rules.
These are the principles that a scientist should value and strive for.
Eithcal Principles/normls/guidelines
Honesty: Be honest in all scientific communications. Do not fabricate, falsify or misrepresent data or results, do not plagiarize.
Carefulness: Avoid careless erros, sloppiness and negligence. carefully and critically scrutinize your own work. Keep good records of all your research activities. Use research methods and analytical tools appropriate to the topic under investigation.
Objectivity: Eliminate personal, social, economical and political biases from experimental design, testing, data analysis and interpretation, peer review and publication. Seek to develop unbiased data, methods and results.
Openness: Share ideas, data, theories, tools, methods, and results. Be open to criticism, advise and new ideas.
Freedom: Do not interfere with scientists liberty to pursue new avenues of research or challenge existing ideas, theories and assumptions. Support freedom of thought and discussion in the research environment.
Credit: Give credit where credit is due.
Respect for Intellectual property: Honor patents, copyrights, collaboration agreements, and other forms of intellectual property. Do not use ubpublished data, results, or ideas without permission.
Respect for colleagues and students: Treat your colleagues and students fairly. Respect their rights and dignity. Do not discriminate against colleagues or students or exploit them
Respect for research subjects: Treat human and animal subjects with respect. Protect and promote human welfare and do not violate the dignity or rights of human subjects.
Competence: Maintain and enhance your competence and expertise through lifelong education. Promote competence in your profession and report incompetence.
Confidentiality: Protect confidential communications in reserach.
Legality: Obey relevant laws and regulations
Social responsibility: Stive to benefit society and to prevent or avoid harm to society through research, public education, civic engagement, and advocacy.
Stewardship of resources: Make fair and effective use of scientific resources. Do not destroy, abuse, or waste scientifc resources.
Epistemological principles/norms/guidelines
Testability: Propose theories and hypothesis that are testable
Consistency: Propose theories and hypothesis that are internally consistent
Coherence (conservation): propose and accept theories or hypothesis that are consistent with other well-established sci theories, laws or facts.
Empirical support: Propose and accept theories or hypothesis that are supported by evidence (data)
Precision: Propose theories and hypothesis that are precise and well defined
Parsimony: Propose and accept theories or hypothesis that are simple, economical or elegant.
Generality: Propose, infer and accept theories and hypothesis that are general in scope.
Novelty: Propose, infer and accept new theories and hypothesis; use new methods and techniques
We are in danger of losing our grip on the concepts of truth, evidence, objectivity, disinterested inquiry. The preposterous environment in which academic work is presently conducted is inhospitable to genuine inquiry, hospitable to the sham and the fake. Encouraging both envy and resentment of the sciences, it has fed an increasingly widespread and articulate irrationalism.
Most of the times when people demand respect they mean it to based on friendship, to be treated equally. But sometimes many people mistake respect to be based on inequality, often accompanied by special previlages. If that is the prevailing understanding of respect then I want to describe how the relationship between two people would look like. But first, what do I mean by friendship and respect.
Friendship between two people is about being open, honest, forgiving, having argmuents, supporting each other, it is about being EQUAL. There could be difference of opinion, difference of ideas, one person can make the other person angry, but inspite of all those they are honest and support each other and be there for one another. Establishing friendship is about establishing EQUALITY. Equality is the essensce of friendship. If any of these does not hold, then the relationship is not friendship, but something else (could be acquantaince, co-worker, pupil, ….etc).
Respect towards one person means holding that person in high esteem. Whatever that person say or do can go unquestioned, it is taken as given, to some extent taken on the basis of belief or faith. The person who respect the other feels inferior w.r.t to the other. When the question of respect comes in a relationship, then as a consequence there is inequality between the people in that relationship. Establishing respect in a relationship is all about establishing inequality.
By their inherent nature these two aspects conflict each other. If we want friendship then we
can cannot hope to have respect. If we want respect then we cannot hope to have friendship. We have to chose one or the other. What I am trying to do is describe the relations: what happens when we go for one or the other. The choice is ours, we are solely responsible of what we choose to do.
When both want friendship, then there is no problem.
When both want respect, then clearly it is a clash of ego. We can expect the relationship to be filled with friction and conflict. Basically both of them are trying to establish inequality, with one on top of the other. It is ones authority over the other. They are both competing for the same higher position, but only one can previal. It is a zero-sum situation. One of them wins other person loses. This relationship will be difficult.
The situation is more complex when there is a mix. We need to go into more details. We need to know who wants and who offers. In a relationship One person can either want(expect) friendship or offer friendship. Similarly, the other person can want(expect) respect or offer respect. Combination of these leads to the following four situations:
– When one wants friendship and other wants respect, both will be dissapointed and hurt. The person who wants friendship is dissapointed with lack of enthusiasm from the other. The person
who wants respect is hurt becuase the other person does not care about this persons status or accomplishments. This person wants to establish superiorty but the other person wants to establish equality. This combination usually leads to friction, uneasiness and conflict.
– When one wants friendship and other offers respect, then the person wanting friendship is embarressed and the person offering respect might be dissapointed. But this combination is usually ok, only that in the long-run one wanting friendship is dissapointed.
– When one offers friendship and other wants respect, then the person expecting respect is dissapointed & hurt. The person offering friendship might be ok, but the person expecting respect gets irritated by the other persons need to establish equality.
– When one offers friendship and other offers respect, then this combination is usually ok, in the long run they might turn out to be friends.
Does it mean, the relationship between people should always be friendship. Well it depends want one expects or wants and what consequences they can live with.
Till now the description was about relationship between two people. Now, should a person always seek respect or should a person always seek friendship? Well the answer is not so simple. It depends on the context of the relationship. Relationships are always set in some larger context: professional, personal, family, marriage, travel…etc Depending on the context, friendship or respect based relationship could be beneficial. e.g. for relationship between a child and and a parent. This should be based on respect when the childern are young. There is certainly an inequality between an adult and a child. If this relation is based on friendship, then the child is under pressure and could be detrimental for the childs grown. But, When they grow up the respect should gradually evolve into friendship.
Remember the saying -“it is lonely at the top”- there is some truth in it. One who always wants respect and if he/she succeedes, then inequality triumphs and person will be very lonely. It is our decision to make, but first know the consequences.
The essence of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is that you cannot have both completeness and consistency. A bold anthropomorphic conclusion is that there are three types of people; those that must have answers to everything; those that panic in the face of inconsistencies; and those that plod along taking the gaps of incompleteness as well as the clashes of inconsistencies in stride if they notice them at all, or else they succumb to the tragedy of the human condition.
The first kind are prone to refer to authorities; religion, bureaucracy, governments and their own prejudices. They postulate a Supreme Being that knows all the answers because everything must have an answer. With inconsistencies they deal by hopping over them, brushing them aside, sweeping them under a rug, ignoring them or making fun of them. These people are unpredictable and exasperating to deal with, though often disarmingly charming.
The second kind are the more heroic and independent thinkers. They are not afraid of vast expanses of the unknown; they forge ahead and rejoice over every new question opened up by questions answered. But when up against the walls of inconsistencies they go berserk. These claustrophobics are in fact the scientific minds.
And then, finally, there are the ordinary humans who make do with both inconsistencies and gaps in their experience of life and the world. Some of those, when driven to the brink of endurance by roadblocks of paradox and pitfalls of the unknown, go mad.
(VERENA HUBER-DYSON) in www.edge.org)
A clear-eyed defense of science needs to take seriously the original “bargain” that Haldane himself describes: that free research produces increased well-being. To investigate the meaning of well being, or doing well, means neither the dogmatic acceptance nor the dogmatic rejection of the moral values of one’s neighbors. It requires avoiding cynicism and utopianism about human motives and possibilities. It requires a willingness to look at the question of the human good with care and seriousness. And even if such an investigation yields a complex and mixed picture of what a good life is and how science contributes to it, the defense of science still requires the willingness to encourage what is valued and discourage what is troublesome, knowing that we will face many grave uncertainties and honest disagreements along the way. (more in this link).
