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Skeptical Debunker

Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...story.php

social science individuals communitarians climate change disagreement

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 25 Feb 10 - Cached
  • "People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view," Braman says. The Cultural Cognition Project has conducted several experiments to back that up. Participants in these experiments are asked to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise. They are labeled the "individualistic" group. Others are suspicious of authority or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them "communitarians." In one experiment, Braman queried these subjects about something unfamiliar to them: nanotechnology — new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products. "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms," Braman says. The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information. "It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.
  • "Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project. Kahan says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work. "If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way," he says. And if the information doesn't, you tend to reject it. In another experiment, people read a United Nations study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers told the participants that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution, says Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem."And for the communitarians, climate danger seemed less serious if the only solution was more nuclear power.
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  • Then there's the "messenger" effect. In an experiment dealing with the dangers versus benefits of a vaccine, the scientific information came from several people. They ranged from a rumpled and bearded expert to a crisply business-like one. The participants tended to believe the message that came from the person they considered to be more like them. In relation to the climate change debate, this suggests that some people may not listen to those whom they view as hard-core environmentalists. "If you have people who are skeptical of the data on climate change," Braman says, "you can bet that Al Gore is not going to convince them at this point." So, should climate scientists hire, say, Newt Gingrich as their spokesman? Kahan says no. "The goal can't be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want," he argues. "The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded."And Kahan says you can't do that just by publishing more scientific data.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 25 Feb 10
     
    "It's a hoax," said coal company CEO Don Blankenship, "because clearly anyone that says that they know what the temperature of the Earth is going to be in 2020 or 2030 needs to be put in an asylum because they don't." On the other side of the debate was environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. "Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent." To social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it's not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and part of The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars who study how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy
Skeptical Debunker

Gemfields discovers 6,225-carat 'elephant' emerald in Zambia - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...lephant-emerald-in-Zambia.html

huge emerald Zambia

shared by Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Gemfields said its experts "will continue to evaluate the gem before any final decision is taken in terms of its future". Ian Harebottle, chief executive of Gemfields, said: "This is a unique find. The Insofu displays wonderful colour and good translucency. Its sheer size, rich colour and fine protective biotite shell make it difficult to see deep into the gem. However, all indications suggest that the core of the emerald is competent and that it should yield a number of cut gems of significant size." The largest uncut emerald believed to have been found was in Carnaiba, Brazil in 1974. It was an incredible 86,136-carat natural beryl crystal. The stone was eventually valued at $1,120,080. The largest emerald crystal ever discovered was 7,025 carats and was found in a mine in Colombia.
  • Skeptical Debunker on 22 Feb 10
     
    The emerald was recovered during normal mining operations on February 5, the company said in a statement, and is being examined by Gemfields' experts to establish a clearer understanding of its value and significance. The emerald has been named "Insofu" (which means "elephant" in the language of the Bemba people indigenous to the region) due to its size and in honour of the World Land Trust's "Wild Lands Elephant Corridor Project", of which Gemfields is a participant.
fishead ...*∞º˙

Beyond Realtime Search: The Dawning Of Ambient Streams - 0 views

www.techcrunch.com/...ambient-streams-realtime

shared by fishead ...*∞º˙ on 31 Dec 09 - Cached
  • fishead ...*∞º˙ on 31 Dec 09
     
    "It was 1993 and I had just decided to drop out of college. I was a graphic design major in a great art school but decided I want to start my second company. Knowing this would mark the conclusion of my studies there I set out to create my final project. I would write a short story, design and produce it in print. I put out an edition of 300 and gave it to my friends and people who inspired me like author William Gibson. Cut to November, 2009, when I returned from sitting on a panel at the second Realtime CrunchUp. I had urged the audience and participants that when thinking about the realtime web we should not consider the challenge through the lens of how consumers behave today. I argued that the future potential of the realtime web is not in the misnomer "realtime search," as the consumption of this signal will predominantly be in what I call ambient streams. These are streams of information bubbling up in realtime, which seek us out, surround us, and inform us. They are like a fireplace bathing us in ambient infoheat. I believe that users will not go to a page and type in a search in a search box. Rather the information will appear to them in an ambient way on a range of devices and through different experiences. A few days after I got back from the CrunchUp, I was organizing some old documents when I stumbled on I Was Just Dead< , a cyberpunk short story I wrote 16 years ago. A story about a world of augmented reality. A world where at birth a chip is embedded in people's brains creating a reality where they no longer discern what is "real" and what is augmented in their surroundings (Hear the audio-book or download the free eBook below). It was strange to hear my former self calling out about the importance of augmented reality from across the span of almost two decades of experiences in the digital world, half of which were spent solving the problem of how to filter the massive realtime stream."
fishead ...*∞º˙

The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People | Zen Habits - 2 views

zenhabits.net/creative-habit

Creativity solitude participation

shared by fishead ...*∞º˙ on 29 May 10 - Cached
  • Creativity is a nebulous, murky topic that fascinates me endlessly — how does it work? What habits to creative people do that makes them so successful at creativity? I’ve reflected on my own creative habits, but decided I’d look at the habits that others consider important to their creativity. I picked a handful of creatives, almost at random — there are so many that picking the best would be impossible, so I just picked some that I admire, who came to mind when I thought of the word “creative”. This was going to be a list of their creative habits … but in reviewing their lists, and my own habits, I found one that stood out. And it stands out if you review the habits and quotes from great creative people in history. It’s the Most Important Habit when it comes to creativity. After you read the No. 1 habit, please scroll down and read the No. 2 habit — they might seem contradictory but in my experience, you can’t really hit your creative stride until you find a way to balance both habits. The No. 1 Creativity Habit In a word: solitude.
  • Creativity is a nebulous, murky topic that fascinates me endlessly — how does it work? What habits to creative people do that makes them so successful at creativity? I’ve reflected on my own creative habits, but decided I’d look at the habits that others consider important to their creativity. I picked a handful of creatives, almost at random — there are so many that picking the best would be impossible, so I just picked some that I admire, who came to mind when I thought of the word “creative”. This was going to be a list of their creative habits … but in reviewing their lists, and my own habits, I found one that stood out. And it stands out if you review the habits and quotes from great creative people in history. It’s the Most Important Habit when it comes to creativity. After you read the No. 1 habit, please scroll down and read the No. 2 habit — they might seem contradictory but in my experience, you can’t really hit your creative stride until you find a way to balance both habits. The No. 1 Creativity Habit In a word: solitude.
  • fishead ...*∞º˙ on 29 May 10
     
    "Creativity is a nebulous, murky topic that fascinates me endlessly - how does it work? What habits to creative people do that makes them so successful at creativity? I've reflected on my own creative habits, but decided I'd look at the habits that others consider important to their creativity. I picked a handful of creatives, almost at random - there are so many that picking the best would be impossible, so I just picked some that I admire, who came to mind when I thought of the word "creative". This was going to be a list of their creative habits … but in reviewing their lists, and my own habits, I found one that stood out. And it stands out if you review the habits and quotes from great creative people in history. It's the Most Important Habit when it comes to creativity. After you read the No. 1 habit, please scroll down and read the No. 2 habit - they might seem contradictory but in my experience, you can't really hit your creative stride until you find a way to balance both habits. The No. 1 Creativity Habit In a word: solitude."
François Dongier

Clickers in the Classroom: An Active Learning Approach (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE - 1 views

www.educause.edu/...157458

Active learning clickers

shared by François Dongier on 11 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Clickers, or student response systems, are a technology used to promote active learning
  • Clickers provide a mechanism for students to participate anonymously. Clickers integrate a "game approach" that may engage students more than traditional class discussion.
  • modern students are primarily active learners, and lecture courses may be increasingly out of touch with how students engage their world.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • clickers offer one approach to employing active learning in the classroom. They are more formally denoted as student response systems (SRS), audience response systems (ARS), or personal response systems (PRS).
  • Clickers help instructors actively engage students during the entire class period, gauge their level of understanding of the material being presented, and provide prompt feedback to student questions.
  • With clickers, students have an input device that lets them express their views in complete anonymity, and the cumulative view of the class appears on a public screen
  • In a normal class discussion situation, only one or two students have the opportunity to answer a question
  • Despite the lack of statistically significant results in this study, the perception survey data show that students perceive value in the use of clickers and would recommend their use in future classes. Contrary to expectations, learning outcomes of students using clickers did not improve more than the traditional active learning approach of using class discussion. Perhaps the value of the active learning pedagogy outshadowed the benefit of using clickers.
  • Sharing questions between instructors, or even providing a library or model curriculum of predesigned question sets, can make a big difference to a new instructor trying to climb a steep learning curve
  • fishead ...*∞º˙ on 11 Apr 10
     
    gives a new meaning to getting the 'high score'
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