You must have met one!!!!

Nutty Professors from The Chronicle

"The absent-minded professor becomes more difficult to handle, however, when his behavior verges on the dysfunctional. All vocations attract certain personality types; academe appeals particularly to introspective, narcissistic, obsessive characters who occasionally suffer from mood disorders or other psychological problems. Often, these difficulties go untreated because they are closely tied to enhanced creativity, as can be the case with obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, bipolar disorder, and the kind of high-functioning autism known as Asperger's syndrome.
According to the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic criteria, those with Asperger's syndrome will often manifest "marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction," a "failure to develop peer relationships," a "lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people," and a "lack of social or emotional reciprocity." In addition, those with Asperger's may be preoccupied with "stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest" that are "abnormal either in intensity or focus"; they may stick to "specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals"; they may manifest "stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms," or a "persistent preoccupation with parts of objects.""

Mandir Break(that is what I call it)

Bare feet, cold marble floor, insense smell, flicking diyas, kids walking around, multitude of colors, and ofcourse Gods & devoties that is what I associate with a mandir.
But there is nothing like standing there eyes closed while the pooja is going on and just concentrating on the shloks that are being chanted. For that short duration mind does not wander around it feels that the shloks are just washing away on your soul. Or the time that I just sit at the mandir... it seems like a break form all that is going on. Kind of a fresh starting point collecting all the thoughts.

thought

Strange as life is, it just needs a crack in the strong walls that you have build to walk back in with all that you seems to have successfully thrown out..........

NPR

I am getting addicted to Health and Science section on NPR and ofcourse All Things Considered...

Creation vs Evolution (again)

Tracking How Evolution Theory Came to Be from NPR (Edward Larson's Interview)

History of teaching evolution in public school in US. Very very good interview.

String Theory?? Extra Dimensions?!

Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss from NPR
Interview of Lawrence Krauss. Very intresting... and abstract.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

group study, racism, sexism

The Inequality Taboo from http://www.commentarymagazine.com/

Note: Needs to be read with an open mind

This article was a very intresting read. It talks abt the difference/inequality of races and gender. Ofcourse the author is talking about genetic/biological diferences that give rise to these inequalities. Basically talking about group studies.

Brings about things like women are not apt for math and sciences and since there major contirbution in history has not been much what are the reasons for it(no social structure is not considered as a reason).
There are some other intersting things as girls do well in schools but not after that. The other side is then crimes are done mostly by men and almost 100% of the wars were by men.

Also brings about the issue of IQ difference between blacks and whites. Here is consedring that the social factor and only speculating that there might be a biological factor too.(I wonder why the difference though from the other group study)



"Elites throughout the West are living a lie, basing the futures of their societies on the assumption that all groups of people are equal in all respects. Lie is a strong word, but justified. It is a lie because so many elite politicians who profess to believe it in public do not believe it in private. It is a lie because so many elite scholars choose to ignore what is already known and choose not to inquire into what they suspect. We enable ourselves to continue to live the lie by establishing a taboo against discussion of group differences.
The taboo is not perfect—otherwise, I would not have been able to document this essay—but it is powerful. Witness how few of Harvard’s faculty who understood the state of knowledge about sex differences were willing to speak out during the Summers affair. In the public-policy debate, witness the contorted ways in which even the opponents of policies like affirmative action frame their arguments so that no one can accuse them of saying that women are different from men or blacks from whites. Witness the unwillingness of the mainstream media to discuss group differences without assuring readers that the differences will disappear when the world becomes a better place.
The taboo arises from an admirable idealism about human equality. If it did no harm, or if the harm it did were minor, there would be no need to write about it. But taboos have consequences.
The nature of many of the consequences must be a matter of conjecture because people are so fearful of exploring them.76 Consider an observation furtively voiced by many who interact with civil servants: that government is riddled with people who have been promoted to their level of incompetence because of pressure to have a staff with the correct sex and ethnicity in the correct proportions and positions. Are these just anecdotes? Or should we be worrying about the effects of affirmative action on the quality of government services?77 It would be helpful to know the answers, but we will not so long as the taboo against talking about group difference prevails.
How much damage has the taboo done to the education of children? Christina Hoff Sommers has argued that willed blindness to the different developmental patterns of boys and girls has led many educators to see boys as aberrational and girls as the norm, with pervasive damage to the way our elementary and secondary schools are run.78 Is she right? Few have been willing to pursue the issue lest they be required to talk about innate group differences. Similar questions can be asked about the damage done to medical care, whose practitioners have only recently begun to acknowledge the ways in which ethnic groups respond differently to certain drugs.79
How much damage has the taboo done to our understanding of America’s social problems? The part played by sexism in creating the ratio of males to females on mathematics faculties is not the ratio we observe but what remains after adjustment for male-female differences in high-end mathematical ability. The part played by racism in creating different outcomes in black and white poverty, crime, and illegitimacy is not the raw disparity we observe but what remains after controlling for group characteristics. For some outcomes, sex or race differences nearly disappear after a proper analysis is done. For others, a large residual difference remains.80 In either case, open discussion of group differences would give us a better grasp on where to look for causes and solutions.
What good can come of raising this divisive topic? The honest answer is that no one knows for sure. What we do know is that the taboo has crippled our ability to explore almost any topic that involves the different ways in which groups of people respond to the world around them—which means almost every political, social, or economic topic of any complexity.
Thus my modest recommendation, requiring no change in laws or regulations, just a little more gumption. Let us start talking about group differences openly—all sorts of group differences, from the visuospatial skills of men and women to the vivaciousness of Italians and Scots. Let us talk about the nature of the manly versus the womanly virtues. About differences between Russians and Chinese that might affect their adoption of capitalism. About differences between Arabs and Europeans that might affect the assimilation of Arab immigrants into European democracies. About differences between the poor and non-poor that could inform policy for reducing poverty."
...
"In university education and in the world of work, overall openness of opportunity has been transformed for the better over the last half-century. But the policies we now have in place are impeding, not facilitating, further progress. Creating double standards for physically demanding jobs so that women can qualify ensures that men in those jobs will never see women as their equals. In universities, affirmative action ensures that the black-white difference in IQ in the population at large is brought onto the campus and made visible to every student. The intentions of their designers notwithstanding, today’s policies are perfectly fashioned to create separation, condescension, and resentment—and so they have done."


I have never been in favor of reservation or % of representation of women or a race in a particular work force or university. But on the other hand is it possible for the society to be accepting if a actually qualified human for a group that is not "apt" for the job wants to take it up without being discreminated against.
This will remain a difficult unless we accept the difference and respect each other inspite of it. Not try to misuse the a greateer IQ or more phusical strength. And so far histroy tells us that has not been the case so far. That is why I would rather have people be taught that all of us are equal untill there is respect and then move on from there.

Just some thoughts from the top of my head.

Morality... differs

Do the Right Thing

"Consider the following dilemma: Mike is supposed to be the best man at a friend’s wedding in Maine this afternoon. He is carrying the wedding rings with him in New Hampshire, where he has been staying on business. One bus a day goes directly to the coast. Mike is on his way to the bus station with 15 minutes to spare when he realizes that his wallet has been stolen, and with it his bus tickets, his credit cards, and all his forms of ID.
At the bus station Mike tries to persuade the officials, and then a couple of fellow travelers, to lend him the money to buy a new ticket, but no one will do it. He’s a stranger, and it’s a significant sum. With five minutes to go before the bus’s departure, he is sitting on a bench trying desperately to think of a plan. Just then, a well-dressed man gets up for a walk, leaving his jacket, with a bus ticket to Maine in the pocket, lying unattended on the bench. In a flash, Mike realizes that the only way he will make it to the wedding on time is if he takes that ticket. The man is clearly well off and could easily buy himself another one.
Should Mike take the ticket?
My own judgment comes down narrowly, but firmly, against stealing the ticket. And in studies of moral reasoning, the majority of American adults and children answer as I do: Mike should not take the ticket, even if it means missing the wedding. But this proportion varies dramatically across cultures. In Mysore, a city in the south of India, 85 percent of adults and 98 percent of children say Mike should steal the ticket and go to the wedding. Americans, and I, justify our choice in terms of justice and fairness: it is not right for me to harm this stranger—even in a minor way. We could not live in a world in which everyone stole whatever he or she needed. The Indian subjects focus instead on the importance of personal relationships and contractual obligations, and on the relatively small harm that will be done to the stranger in contrast to the much broader harm that will be done to the wedding.
An elder in a Maisin village in Papua New Guinea sees the situation from a third perspective, focused on collective responsibility. He rejects the dilemma: "If nobody [in the community] helped him and so he [stole], I would say we had caused that problem.""

Intelligent Design

Why must intelligent design be stopped? [via AL Daily]

I have nothing against religion. But I surely have something against religion being taught as science!!!!!!

Meditation practice to train the brain

Scientists Bridle at Lecture Plan for Dalai Lama from NYTimes

"He has been an enthusiastic collaborator in research on whether the intense meditation practiced by Buddhist monks can train the brain to generate compassion and positive thoughts. Next month in Washington, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to speak about the research at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
But 544 brain researchers have signed a petition urging the society to cancel the lecture, because, according to the petition, "it will highlight a subject with largely unsubstantiated claims and compromised scientific rigor and objectivity."
Defenders of the Dalai Lama's appearance say that the motivation of many protesters is political, because many are Chinese or of Chinese descent. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese crushed a Tibetan bid for independence."

Splog by Sploggers

Tempted by blogs, spam becomes 'splog' from CNET

"The attacker, or splogger, used automated tools to manipulate the Blogger-BlogSpot service and create thousands of fake blogs loaded with links to specific Web sites (home mortgage, poker and tobacco sites among them). The move was designed to doctor search results and boost traffic to those sites by fooling the search-engine spiders that crawl the Web looking for commonly linked-to destinations.
The counterfeit blogs also triggered thousands of RSS--Really Simple Syndication--feeds and e-mail notifications, swamping RSS readers and in-boxes. "

Song stuck in my head!

Kuch tum socho,
Kuch hum soche,
Phir kushi ka mosam aye...

Sonu Nigam

No matter what I listen to can't seem get it out of my head.

thought

what if we all looked alike as if just have come out of a large production company?

Not a religious point of view....

Why do we believe in God? from The Guardian

"Richard Dawkins, our best-known Darwinist and a ferocious critic of organised religion, notes that religion seems to be, on the face of it, a cost rather than a benefit: "Religious behaviour in bipedal apes occupies large quantities of time. It devours huge resources. A medieval cathedral consumed hundreds of man-centuries in its building. Sacred music and devotional paintings largely monopolised medieval and Renaissance talent. Thousands, perhaps millions, of people have died, often accepting torture first, for loyalty to one religion against a scarcely distinguishable alternative. Devout people have died for their gods, killed for them, fasted for them, endured whipping, undertaken a lifetime of celibacy, and sworn themselves to asocial silence for the sake of religion."
It seems at first glance as if Dawkins is arguing that religion is an evolutionary disaster area. Religious belief, it seems, would be unlikely, on its own merits, to have slipped through the net of natural selection. But maybe that interpretation of what Dawkins is saying neglects some of the further benefits that religion might well offer in the human quest for survival and security.
In his book Darwin's Cathedral, David Sloan Wilson, professor of biology and anthropology at Binghamton University in New York state, says that religiosity emerged as a "useful" genetic trait because it had the effect of making social groups more unified. The communal nature of religion certainly would have given groups of hunter-gatherers a stronger sense of togetherness. This produced a leaner, meaner survival machine, a group that was more likely to be able to defend a waterhole, or kill more antelope, or capture their opponents' daughters. The better the religion was at producing an organised and disciplined group, the more effective they would have been at staying alive, and hence at passing their genes on to the next generation. This is what we mean by "natural selection": adaptations which help survival and reproduction get passed down through the genes. Taking into account the additional suggestion, from various studies of twins, that we may have an inherited disposition towards religious belief, is there any evidence that the Divine Idea might be carried in our genes?"

The Argumentative Indian

A Passage to India washingtonpost.com

(I am still looking for this book)