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Contents contributed and discussions participated by johnsonma23

johnsonma23

Getting It Right - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • What is it to truly know something? In our daily lives, we might not give this much thought — most of us rely on what we consider to be fair judgment and common sense in establishing knowledge
  • is a form of action, comparable to an archer’s success when he consciously aims to hit a target.
  • fix the justified-true-belief account with minor modifications, philosophers tried more radical departures.
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  • can be accurate (successful in hitting the target). It can also be adroit (skillful or competent). An archery shot is adroit only if, as the arrow leaves the bow, it is oriented well and powerfully enough. But a shot that is both accurate and adroit can still fall short.
  • fully successful attempt is good overall only if the agent’s goal is good enough. An attempt to murder an innocent person is not good even if it fully succeeds.
  • affirmation is one aimed at attaining truth, at getting it right
  • Virtue epistemology begins by recognizing assertions or affirmations
  • Virtue epistemology gives an AAA account of knowledge: to know affirmatively is to make an affirmation that is accurate (true) and adroit (which requires taking proper account of the evidence).
johnsonma23

Women Describe Their Struggles With Gender Roles in Military - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • “My male counterparts were deemed competent and capable until they proved otherwise, where on the other hand it was often assumed that I was incompetent until I proved I was not.”
  • Because we are female, a lot of respect slips through the cracks and we are treated as though we aren’t worth as much as a male
  • “I learned to blend in with the guys. I changed the way I talk and eliminated many so-called feminine characteristics so as not to draw attention to myself.
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  • “At one point, my supervisor was so concerned that he suggested that I wear my belt backward so that a rapist would have more difficulty pulling down my pants.
johnsonma23

Gay Marriage Arguments Divide Supreme Court Justices - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The questions from the justices suggested that they were divided along the usual lines — conservative and liberal —
  • That, coupled with his earlier judicial opinions, gave gay rights advocates reason for optimism by the end of the arguments, which lasted two and a half hours.
  • Justice Kennedy said he was concerned about changing a conception of marriage that has persisted for so many years
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  • qualms about excluding gay families from what he called a noble and sacred institution.
  • same-sex marriage might require some members of the clergy to perform ceremonies that violate their religious teaching.
johnsonma23

Brain signature of emotion-linked pain is uncovered - health - 14 January 2015 - New Sc... - 0 views

  • Brain signature of emotion-linked pain is uncovered
  • it is possible to distinguish between brain activity associated with pain from a physical cause, such as an injury, and that associated with pain linked to your state of mind.
  • Hearing or vision, for example, can be traced from sensory organs to distinct brain regions, but pain is more complex, and incorporates thoughts and emotions.
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  • depression and anxiety to the development of pain conditions, and volunteers put in bad moods have a lower tolerance for pain.
  • As the heat became painful, a range of brain structures lit up. The pattern was common to all the volunteers, so Wager's team called it the neurologic pain signature.
  • a distinct set of brain structures linking the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex became active
  • This could benefit those with conditions such as fibromyalgia, which is poorly understood and characterised by pain all over the body.
  • "In the next five to 10 years, we'll see a huge change in the way clinicians deal with pain," says Seymour. "Rather than being based on what the patient says, we'll be building a richer picture of the connections in that person's brain to identify what type of pain they have."
johnsonma23

BBC News - Antibiotics: US discovery labelled 'game-changer' for medicine - 0 views

  • Antibiotics: US discovery labelled 'game-changer' for medicine
  • The decades-long drought in antibiotic discovery could be over after a breakthrough by US scientists.
  • ielded 25 new antibiotics, with one deemed "very promising".
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  • The researchers, at the Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, turned to the source of nearly all antibiotics - soil.
  • It allowed the unique chemistry of soil to permeate the room, but kept the bacteria in place for study.
  • The scientists involved believe they can grow nearly half of all soil bacteria.
  • uncultured bacteria do harbour novel chemistry that we have not seen before. That is a promising source of new antimicrobials and will hopefully help revive the field of antibiotic discovery."
  • The researchers also believe that bacteria are unlikely to develop resistance to teixobactin.
  • There are limits to the discovery of the antibiotic teixobactin, which has yet to be tested in people.
johnsonma23

Unprecedented Level of Human Harm to Sea Life Is Forecast - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Unprecedented Level of Human Harm to Sea Life Is Forecast
  • A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.
  • A number of experts said the result was a remarkable synthesis, along with a nuanced and encouraging prognosis.
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  • “We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,”
  • There are clear signs already that humans are harming the oceans to a remarkable degree, the scientists found. Some ocean species are certainly overharvested, but even greater damage results from large-scale habitat loss, which is likely to accelerate as technology advances the human footprint, the scientists reported.
  • Coral reefs, for example, have declined by 40 percent worldwide,
  • Fragile ecosystems like mangroves are being replaced by fish farms, which are projected to provide most of the fish we consume within 20 years.
  • Mining operations, too, are poised to transform the ocean. Contracts for seabed mining now cover 460,000 square miles underwater, the researchers found, up from zero in 2000.
  • ecosystems may seem impervious to change.
  • The fossil record indicates that a number of large animal species became extinct as humans arrived on continents and islands.
  • But it was only after 1800, with the Industrial Revolution, that extinctions on land really accelerated.
  • Humans began to alter the habitat that wildlife depended on, wiping out forests for timber, plowing under prairie for farmland, and laying down roads and railroads across continents.
  • Over the past five centuries, researchers have recorded 514 animal extinctions on land
johnsonma23

BBC News - Ebola tests in Edinburgh for patient who recently returned from west Africa - 0 views

  • Ebola tests in Edinburgh for patient who recently returned from west Africa
  • A woman who recently returned from west Africa is being tested for Ebola at a hospital in Edinburgh.
  • However, there has been no confirmation that she is suffering from the
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  • "We have robust systems in place to manage patients with suspected infectious diseases and follow agreed and tested national guidelines."
  • "As a precautionary measure, and in line with agreed procedures, the patient will be screened for possible infections and will be kept in isolation.
  • deadly virus.
  • The suspected Ebola case in Edinburgh comes around 24 hours after Northampton General Hospital said it was treating a possible case.
  • that the female patient, who has a history of travel to west Africa, tested negative for the virus.
  • "Scotland has a robust health protection surveillance system which monitors global disease outbreaks and ensures that we are fully prepared to respond to such situation
  • ondon's Royal Free Hospital and was in a critical condition although she has since improved.
  • The virus has killed more than 8,400 people, almost all in West Africa, since it broke out a year ago.
johnsonma23

BBC News - US race relations: Six surprising statistics - 0 views

  • US race relations: Six surprising statistics
  • Violent protests have taken place in several US cities, sparked by a jury's decision not to charge a policeman over the killing of an unarmed black teenager
  • 2 black billionaires
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  • Unemployment remains far higher among the black population,
  • Black students appear to do well in high school - just over 30% of over-25s have a diploma, compared with 27% of white over-25s. But fewer than 10% of black over-25s completed a bachelor's degree, compared with 14.4% of whites.
  • while 65% of black Americans reported only having black friends, 75% of white Americans said they had only whites in their social circle.
  • 4.8% of white Americans are out of work
  • black Americans made up a disproportionate number of inmates. Some 32% were white and 22% Hispanic.
johnsonma23

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on Why Women Stay Quiet at Work - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Almost every time they started to speak, they were interrupted or shot down before finishing their pitch. When one had a good idea, a male writer would jump in and run with it before she could complete her thought.
  • When a woman speaks in a professional setting, she walks a tightrope. Either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive.
  • male senators with more power (as measured by tenure, leadership positions and track record of legislation passed) spoke more on the Senate floor than their junior colleagues. But for female senators, power was not linked to significantly more speaking time.
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  • Suspecting that powerful women stayed quiet because they feared a backlash, Professor Brescoll looked deeper.
  • Male executives who spoke more often than their peers were rewarded with 10 percent higher ratings of competence.
  • female executives spoke more than their peers, both men and women punished them with 14 percent lower ratings.
  • But female employees who spoke up with equally valuable ideas did not improve their managers’ perception of their performance.
  • But when women spoke up more, there was no increase in their perceived helpfulness.
  • businesses need to find ways to interrupt this gender bias.
  • increase women’s contributions by adopting practices that focus less on the speaker and more on the idea
  • SINCE most work cannot be done anonymously, leaders must also take steps to encourage women to speak and be heard
johnsonma23

Abortion Views, Not Always Predictable - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • “The Abortion Stereotype” (Op-Ed, Jan. 3), about polls showing that more men than women support abortion rights, is a useful analysis of a perennially fraught issue.
  • even those women who may be passionately anti-abortion for personal or religious reasons, choose to assume that other women who do opt to have abortions
johnsonma23

Is Islam to Blame for the Shooting at Charlie Hebdo in Paris? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Outraged Christians, Jews or atheists might vent frustrations on Facebook or Twitter. Yet it looks as if Islamic extremists once again have expressed their displeasure with bullets.
  • Is there something about Islam that leads inexorably to violence, terrorism and subjugation of women?
  • fanatical Muslims so often seem to murder in the name of God, from the 2004 Madrid train bombing that killed 191 people to the murder of hostages at a cafe in Sydney, Australia, last month
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  • the most systematic terrorism in the Islamic world has been the daily persecution of Christians and other religious minorities, from the Bahai to the Yazidi to the Ahmadis.
  • Terror incidents lead many Westerners to perceive Islam as inherently extremist, but I think that is too glib and simple-minded
  • they aren’t representative of a complex and diverse religion of 1.6 billion adherents.
  • The vast majority of Muslims of course have nothing to do with the insanity of such attacks — except that they are disproportionately the victims of terrorism.
johnsonma23

Social media stirs fear at Salesianum - 1 views

  • A verbal comment made by a Salesianum School student was fanned across social media stirring enough concern that some parents pulled their children out of classes Monday, and left the student explaining what he meant to legal authorities
  • "My understanding is that he did give sort of a time-frame," she said. "You never know."
  • he removed her son because she felt there were too many distractions.
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  • "I just felt for his own mental stability, at least whatever goes on at school, that he's at home safe."
johnsonma23

There Has Been a Fatal School Shooting Every 5 Weeks Since Sandy Hook | Mother Jones - 0 views

  • In the two years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, no school shooting has claimed as many lives, nor ones as young, as on that terrible day. But fatal gun attacks at schools and on college campuses remain a fixture of American life. They have occurred once every five weeks on average since Sandy Hook, including two attacks—one in Santa Monica and another near Seattle—in which four or more victims were killed.
  • dozens of other gun incidents on school grounds that caused injuries, as well as seven additional cases where someone committed suicide with a firearm, but no one else died
  • Gun violence has regularly been at the political forefront since Newtown. While Congress failed to pass a background check bill four months after the devastation, state lawmakers nationwide approved more than a hundred laws either strengthening or weakening restrictions on firearms in the first year after Sandy Hook alone
johnsonma23

Ohio Men Wrongly Convicted of Murder After 39 Years Released - NBC News.com - 0 views

  • Two Ohio men wrongly accused of murder four decades ago are walking free Friday morning after spending 39 years behind bars.
  • Jackson had been the longest-held U.S. prisoner to be exonerated.
  • convicted along with Bridgeman and Bridgeman’s brother, Ronnie, in the 1975 shooting death and robbery of Harold Franks, a Cleveland-area money order salesman.
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  • But that witness, now 53, recanted his testimony last year, saying he was coerced by detectives, according to court documents.
  • Jackson was originally sentenced to death but that sentence was vacated because of a paperwork error. The Bridgeman brothers remained on death row until Ohio declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1978.
johnsonma23

Learning How Little We Know About the Brain - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Brain scientists may speculate on a grand scale, but they work on a small scale.
  • ow identity, personality, memory — all the things that define a human being — grow out of the way brain cells and regions are connected to each other.
  • way to link brain cells to a computer to manipulate their activity and test ideas about how cells and networks of cells work.
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  • “Theory is beautiful and internally consistent. Biology, not so much.”
  • ere sending out a delayed copy of the command that another part of the brain was sending to its electric organ. The delayed signal went straight to the passive sensing system to cancel out the information from the electric pulse.
  • In the brain, somehow, stored memories and desires like hunger or thirst are added to information about the world, and actions are the result. This is the case for all sorts of animals, not just humans. It is thinking, at the most basic level.
johnsonma23

What 'White Privilege' Really Means - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Critical philosophy of race, like critical race theory in legal studies, seeks to understand the disadvantages of nonwhite racial groups in society (blacks especially) by understanding social customs, laws, and legal practices.
  • What’s happening in Ferguson is the result of several recent historical factors and deeply entrenched racial attitudes, as well as a breakdown in participatory democracy.
  • Middle-class and poor blacks in the United States do less well than whites with the same income on many measures of human well-being: educational attainment, family wealth, employment, health, longevity, infant mortality.
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  • people in such circumstances would vote for political representatives on all levels of government who would be their advocates.
  • It’s too soon to tell, but “Don’t Shoot” could become a real political movement — or it could peter out as the morally outraged self-expression of the moment, like Occupy Wall Street.
  • But the value of money pales in contrast to the tragedy this country is now forced to deal with. A tragedy is the result of a mistake, of an error in judgment that is based on habit and character, which brings ruin
  • People are now stopped by the police for suspicion of misdemeanor offenses and those encounters quickly escalate. The death of Michael Brown, like the death of Trayvon Martin before him and the death of Oscar Grant before him, may be but the tip of an iceberg.
  • Exactly why unarmed young black men are the target of choice, as opposed to unarmed young white women, or unarmed old black women, or even unarmed middle-aged college professors, is an expression of a long American tradition of suspicion and terrorization of members of those groups who have the lowest status in our societ
johnsonma23

No, Movies and Video Games Don't Make People More Violent - Mic - 0 views

  • And while there have been plenty of studies rejecting the link, most of them have consisted of lab trials and psychological research; this latest study, on the other hand, used crime data for a macro look at how violent media is often used as a scapegoat for actual acts of violence.
  • media violence, may distract society from more pressing concerns such as poverty, education and vocational disparities and mental health," Ferguson said in a statement.
  • "This research may help society focus on issues that really matter and avoid devoting unnecessary resources to the pursuit of moral agendas with little practical value."
johnsonma23

A Disturbing Reports Reveals a Dangerous Behavior Most Americans Do Every Day - Mic - 0 views

  • Roughly 66% said they have read text messages while waiting at a stop sign or red light, while another 25% defended their texting-while-driving habits because they think they "can easily do several things at once, even while driving."
  • Distracted drivers on their phones caused more than 1.3 million crashes in 2011. And you'll see tragic stories in the news practically every day involving accidents because a driver was texting. 
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