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A Stone for My Great-Grandmother - The New Yorker - 0 views

www.newyorker.com/...last-trial history ethics justice memory arts memorial
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 18 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Approximately a million Jews were killed at Auschwitz, and along with them at least a hundred thousand Polish, Roma, and Soviet prisoners. According to Andreas Eichmüller, a German historian in Munich, sixty-five hundred S.S. members who served at the camp survived the war. Of these, fewer than a hundred were ever tried for their crimes in German courts, and only fifty were convicted.
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BBC - Future - The surprising downsides of being clever - 1 views

www.bbc.com/...-the-downsides-of-being-clever reason intelligence IQ wisdom bias psychology human sciences SocialScience
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 19 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The first steps to answering these questions were taken almost a century ago, at the height of the American Jazz Age. At the time, the new-fangled IQ test was gaining traction, after proving itself in World War One recruitment centres, and in 1926, psychologist Lewis Terman decided to use it to identify and study a group of gifted children. Combing California’s schools for the creme de la creme, he selected 1,500 pupils with an IQ of 140 or more – 80 of whom had IQs above 170. Together, they became known as the “Termites”, and the highs and lows of their lives are still being studied to this day.
  • The harsh truth, however, is that greater intelligence does not equate to wiser decisions; in fact, in some cases it might make your choices a little more foolish. Keith Stanovich at the University of Toronto has spent the last decade building tests for rationality, and he has found that fair, unbiased decision-making is largely independent of IQ. Consider the “my-side bias” – our tendency to be highly selective in the information we collect so that it reinforces our previous attitudes. The more enlightened approach would be to leave your assumptions at the door as you build your argument – but Stanovich found that smarter people are almost no more likely to do so than people with distinctly average IQs.
  • A tendency to rely on gut instincts rather than rational thought might also explain why a surprisingly high number of Mensa members believe in the paranormal; or why someone with an IQ of 140 is about twice as likely to max out their credit card.Indeed, Stanovich sees these biases in every strata of society. “There is plenty of dysrationalia – people doing irrational things despite more than adequate intelligence – in our world today,” he says. “The people pushing the anti-vaccination meme on parents and spreading misinformation on websites are generally of more than average intelligence and education.” Clearly, clever people can be dangerously, and foolishly, misguided.
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BBC - Ethics: Introduction to ethics - 2 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...introduction TOK ethics
shared by markfrankel18 on 20 Apr 15 - Cached
  • markfrankel18 on 20 Apr 15
     
    Great resource for an overview of Ethical systems
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FDA Ponders Putting Homeopathy To A Tougher Test : Shots - Health News : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...whether-homeopathy-is-medicine science medicine health pseudo-science placebo
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 20 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • In 1988, the Food and Drug Administration decided not to require homeopathic remedies to go through the same drug-approval process as standard medical treatments. Now the FDA is revisiting that decision. It will hold two days of hearings this week to decide if homeopathic remedies should have to be proven safe and effective.
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N.Y. Judge Grants Legal Rights To 2 Research Chimps : The Two-Way : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...al-rights-to-2-research-chimps TOK ethics animals science
shared by markfrankel18 on 21 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • A New York judge has granted two research chimps the writ of habeas corpus — a move that allows them to challenge their detention. The decision, says Science magazine, effectively recognizes chimps as legal persons, marking the first time in U.S. history that an animal has been given that right.
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The new argument against gay equality: Same-sex marriage kills - The Washington Post - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html TOK bias reason
shared by markfrankel18 on 22 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • markfrankel18 on 22 Apr 15
     
    A great example of faulty/biased logic Can you spot all the fallacies?
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How Societies Should Organize: Balancing Freedom and Community | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/...ancing-freedom-and-community-2 TOK ethics community
shared by markfrankel18 on 24 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Now most people would probably agree that whatever is the greatest good for the greatest number of people is the right action. But what if you came in for a routine medical operation and they carved you up and gave your organs to those in need?! It's a problem called the Transplant Surgeon Objection and it demonstrates how tricky our beliefs can be when we're pressed to defend them.
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Does the digital era herald the end of history? - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...technology-32315449 history technology data
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 27 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Data specialist EMC estimates that in 2013 the world contained about 4.4 zettabytes (4.4 trillion gigabytes) of data. By 2020, it expects this to have risen tenfold.History, in other words, has gone online. While this means unprecedented instant access to vast stores of human knowledge and culture, it also means that mountains of digital data of crucial importance to archivists and future historians are potentially under threat from deletion, corruption, theft, obsolescence and natural or man-made disasters.
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These are the memories you're most likely to get wrong - Quartz - 0 views

qz.com/...u-are-most-likely-to-get-wrong TOK memory psychology
shared by markfrankel18 on 27 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Cross-cultural studies of flashbulb memories show that although the types of events and the memories that result are quite similar from person to person, the specific events that lead to these memories vary dramatically.
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Mathematicians dispute claims that the 'golden ratio' is a natural blueprint for beauty... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...print-for-beauty-10204354.html TOK math beauty
shared by markfrankel18 on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • But the widespread belief that the golden ratio is the natural blueprint for beauty is pseudo-scientific “hocus-pocus” and a “myth that refuses to go away”, according to leading mathematicians.
  • Dr Devlin, who campaigns against myths associated with the golden ratio, pointed to “considerable evidence” that people do not find golden rectangles more appealing than others. On the contrary, they tend to favour aspect ratios they are familiar with, such as an A4 piece of paper or a computer screen.
  • Theories that the Parthenon in Athens and Great Pyramid in Egypt were built according to the golden ratio have also been disproved, he said. “The golden ratio stuff is in the realm of religious belief. People will argue it is true because they believe it, but it’s just not fact.”
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How do you memorise an entire symphony? - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...magazine-32428022 arts memory
shared by Lawrence Hrubes on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Memorised music performance has interested scientists since as far back as the 1800s. One type of memory that musicians use is commonly called "muscle memory", but the memories are not actually stored in the muscles. Muscle memory instead refers to a type of "procedural" memory called motor learning, in which memories for movement patterns are acquired through repetition. Procedural memory is separate from other types of memory, such as our memory for events (autobiographical memory) or general knowledge about the world (semantic memory).
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Digital Preservation (Library of Congress) - 0 views

digitalpreservation.gov digital archiving preservation Library
shared by Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15 - Cached
  • Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15
     
    LOC's Digital Preservation department. Lots of discussion about preservation technology and philosophy.
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Internet Archive: About IA - 0 views

archive.org/about Internet Archive digital archiving preservation
shared by Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15
     
    The leading independent non-profit organisation dedicated to digital preservation.
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Digitisation & Digital Preservation | Digital Agenda for Europe | European Commission - 0 views

ec.europa.eu/...itisation-digital-preservation digital preservation preservation europe
shared by Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15
     
    The EU's digital preservation agenda is well established.
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Print out digital photos or risk losing them, Google boss warns - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...ng-them-Google-boss-warns.html digital preservation digital archiving Google
shared by Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Michael Peters on 28 Apr 15
     
    Even Google VPs worry about digital preservation.
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