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anonymous

Sizing Up Consciousness by Its Bits - NYTimes.com - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...21consciousness.html

consciousness Human Science psychology methodology measurement

shared by anonymous on 22 Sep 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 22 Sep 10
     
    Researchers want to build a meter that can measure consciousness as easily as body temperature.
anonymous

On Language - Redefining Definition - NYTimes.com - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...20FOB-onlanguage-t.html

language definition meaning dictionary

shared by anonymous on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • If anything is guaranteed to annoy a lexicographer, it is the journalistic habit of starting a story with a dictionary definition. “According to Webster’s,” begins a piece, blithely, and the lexicographer shudders, because she knows that a dictionary is about to be invoked as an incontrovertible authority. Although we may profess to believe, as the linguist Dwight Bolinger once put it, that dictionaries “do not exist to define but to help people grasp meanings,” we don’t often act on that belief. Typically we treat a definition as the final arbiter of meaning, a scientific pronouncement of a word’s essence.
  • But the traditional dictionary definition, although it bears all the trappings of authority, is in fact a highly stylized, overly compressed and often tentative stab at capturing the consensus on what a particular word “means.”
  • anonymous on 22 Sep 10
     
    If anything is guaranteed to annoy a lexicographer, it is the journalistic habit of starting a story with a dictionary definition. "According to Webster's," begins a piece, blithely, and the lexicographer shudders, because she knows that a dictionary is about to be invoked as an incontrovertible authority. Although we may profess to believe, as the linguist Dwight Bolinger once put it, that dictionaries "do not exist to define but to help people grasp meanings," we don't often act on that belief. Typically we treat a definition as the final arbiter of meaning, a scientific pronouncement of a word's essence. But the traditional dictionary definition, although it bears all the trappings of authority, is in fact a highly stylized, overly compressed and often tentative stab at capturing the consensus on what a particular word "means."
  • anonymous on 22 Sep 10
     
    Very important to read this before your next essay!!!
anonymous

Six ways that artists hack your brain - New Scientist - 2 views

www.newscientist.com/...s-that-artists-hack-your-brain

brain Sense Perception The Arts illusion

shared by anonymous on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 22 Sep 10
     
    "Since humankind first put brush to canvas, artists have played with the mind and the senses to create sublime atmospheres and odd impressions. It is only recently, with a blossoming understanding of the way the brain deconstructs images, that neuroscientists and psychologists have finally begun to understand how these tricks work. "
anonymous

The Perils of Being Too Cute in Your Application - NYTimes.com - 3 views

thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/...reider

college application admission university

shared by anonymous on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 22 Sep 10
     
    "Are there certain hobbies, passions or accomplishments you've excluded from your college application, feeling they're not worthy or relevant?"
anonymous

Karl Popper and Antarctic Ice: The Climate Debate and Its Problems - 0 views

thecore.uchicago.edu/...feature-karl-popper.shtml

Popper science falsification methodology truth proof

shared by anonymous on 21 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 21 Sep 10
     
    The Core: College Magazine of the University of Chicago
anonymous

Op-Ed Contributor - Scientifically Tested Tests - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...20engel.html

education methodology Human Science testing

shared by anonymous on 21 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 21 Sep 10
     
    Standardized tests don't truly measure the qualities of well-educated children.
anonymous

CEOs with top college degrees no better than the average ones - The Economic Times - 0 views

economictimes.indiatimes.com/...6572758.cms

economic college ceos university degree top

shared by anonymous on 20 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 20 Sep 10
     
    A new study has revealed that whether or not a company's CEO holds a college degree from a top school has no bearing on the firm's long-term performance.
anonymous

Does Chaos Have Meaning? | The New York Academy of Sciences - 1 views

www.nyas.org/...PodcastDetail.aspx

Physics chaos science Sense Perception podcast

shared by anonymous on 16 Sep 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 16 Sep 10
     
    Award-winning filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and astrophysicist Piet Hut discuss what chaos is and what it means when it comes to the universe.
anonymous

What Time Is It? | The New York Academy of Sciences - 0 views

www.nyas.org/...PodcastDetail.aspx

Sense Perception physics time Math math is invented_discovered podcast

shared by anonymous on 16 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 16 Sep 10
     
    Famed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and theoretical physicist Brian Greene dissect time as we know it. What is the smallest unit of time, and what does it look like? For starters, you should stop looking at the clock, and start looking at the universe.
anonymous

NPR: Shakespeare Had Roses All Wrong on Huffduffer - 0 views

huffduffer.com/4296

Sense Perception Language rose science Shakespeare podcast

shared by anonymous on 16 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 16 Sep 10
     
    "From NPR Science Correspondent Robert Krulwich: Through Juliet's lips, Shakespeare said "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But the Bard may have been wrong - names do matter. Language researchers say your sense of the rose depends on what you call it."
anonymous

What's that Smell? | The New York Academy of Sciences - 1 views

www.nyas.org/...PodcastDetail.aspx

Sense Perception smell science perfume biology podcast

shared by anonymous on 16 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 16 Sep 10
     
    Biologist Stewart Firestein and world-renowned perfumer Christophe Laudamiel team up to tackle the science of smell.
anonymous

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...07mind.html

education research Human Sciences psychology evidence

shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 09 Sep 10
       
      This is such a comment complaint of teachers, namely that students act, from year to year, as if they don't remember every even being introduced to something that the current year teacher thinks is review. Many grade level teachers begin the year thinking their predecessors in the previous year didn't do a good job preparing their students.
  • These findings extend well beyond math, even to aesthetic intuitive learning.
  • The finding undermines the common assumption that intensive immersion is the best way to really master a particular genre, or type of creative work, said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College and the lead author of the study. “What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,” often subconsciously.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • But at the very least, the cognitive techniques give parents and students, young and old, something many did not have before: a study plan based on evidence, not schoolyard folk wisdom, or empty theorizing.
  • “With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”
  • That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.
  • Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring a property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.
  • “Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”
  • Motivation matters. So do impressing friends, making the hockey team and finding the nerve to text the cute student in social studies.
  • The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.
  • “In lab experiments, you’re able to control for all factors except the one you’re studying,” said Dr. Willingham. “Not true in the classroom, in real life. All of these things are interacting at the same time.”
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 09 Sep 10
       
      Perfect explanation of why the so-called "soft" sciences (Psych, Econ, Sociology, etc) are actually quite hard while the "hard" sciences (Physics in particular) are actually compartively easy!
anonymous

Economic View - College Studies for the Business of Life - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...05view.html

economic statistics college education

shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Which raises these questions: What should they be learning? And what kind of foundation is needed to understand and be prepared for the modern economy?
  • There may be no better place than a course in introductory economics. It helps students understand the whirlwind of forces swirling around them. It develops rigorous analytic skills that are useful in a wide range of jobs. And it makes students better citizens, ready to evaluate the claims of competing politicians.
  • Even if you are a skeptic of my field, as many are, there is another, more cynical reason to study it. As the economist Joan Robinson once noted, one purpose of studying economics is to avoid being fooled by economists.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • There is a large leap, however, between having data and learning from it. Students need to know the potential of number-crunching, as well as its limitations.
  • Economists like me often pretend that people are rational. That is, with mathematical precision, people are assumed to do the best they can to achieve their goals.
  • or many purposes, this approach is useful. But it is only one way to view human behavior. A bit of psychology is a useful antidote to an excess of classical economics. It reveals flaws in human rationality, including your own.
  • I don’t know if it made me a better economist. But it has surely made me a more humble one, and, I suspect, a better human being as well.
  • Adults of all stripes have advice for the college-bound. Those leaving home and starting their freshman year should listen to it, consider it, reflect on it but ultimately follow their own instincts and passions.
  • anonymous on 09 Sep 10
     
    To better understand the world in which they will live, students need foundations in economics, statistics, finance and psychology.
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