Entries by tag: education
--Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in Coddling of the American Mind; How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, p113.
The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson.
One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”
The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”
“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”
—Martin Buber, Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 (1991)
One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”
The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”
“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”
—Martin Buber, Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 (1991)
I attended the May 12 meeting not really expecting much, but the program was excellent, both informative and amusing. The speaker was Andrew Greenberg, and the subject was the Oregon Satellite Project and STEM Education. Specifically he taught us a thing of two about space, orbits and nanosatellites. I wanted to share just a few factoids that I got from him with you.
Andrew is adjunct faculty at PSU and helps students build rockets and satellites, in addition to his day job He had recently done an OMSI science pub about the same subject, so he was well prepared and practiced. The OreSat mission is to use an actual satellite project to bring STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) to all Oregon high schools and to study cirrus clouds.
The Von Karman line is an arbitrary line dividing outer space from not space. It is 100km above the surface of the earth. Some balloons fly at 30km above the earth. Cirrus clouds are the highest clouds and they are about 12km up.
There are three main layers of orbits, labelled LEO (low earth orbit), MEO (medium), and GEO (geostationary earth orbit). Geostationary satellites have to be highest up and go the fastest to maintain their position relative to the surface of the planet. Satellites cruise at around 200km from the earth, and they have to go really fast (8km/second or 17,500 miles per hour) to keep from falling back to the earth.
NASA has a research satellite that was just launched May 5 this year. It's the InSight mission and it intends to land on the surface of Mars. The rocket that launched InSight also launched the first two CubeSats, which are small satellites that can be designed individually then connected together. The high schoolers in Oregon are designing their own CubeSat, which NASA will launch! They didn't expect to get awarded the opportunity to launch the satellite when they applied, but NASA called their bluff and now they're working on it. All the software is open source. The 2U (two unit) CubeSats from Oregon will get "hucked" from the space station into its orbit. It will stay aloft for 6-12 months, or maybe longer if they get lucky.
The OreSat is scheduled to be deployed in fall 2019. For the sake of the high schoolers, he's calling the OreSat a "400km selfie stick", because each time it flies over Oregon the high schoolers will be able to receive a packet of information from it, including a picture of their location.
Then Andrew explained what he means when he says "Space Sucks". Quite literally it sucks because it is a vacuum. It speeds up the outgassing from any material that can, challenges welders to prevent leaks, and makes it tricky to keep anything at a reasonable temperature because it gets cold on the dark side and screaming hot in the sun. The radiation from space does harm to transistors. Solar cells are only ~30% efficient meaning it's not easy to power systems on satellites, and if they fail, they have to reboot without a mechanic coming to fix them. "Watchdog systems" monitor the functions of the satellite and attempt to make things right before there is a system failure.
He also mentioned Planet Lab Doves, which are privately owned satellites that basically remap the earth's surface every day. Exciting stuff.
Anyway, this talk was just a taste of what is happening. Satellite technology is moving fast and the very first satellite put into orbit by anyone in the state of Oregon will be built by high school and college kids. That's a fun way to approach STEM education.
Andrew is adjunct faculty at PSU and helps students build rockets and satellites, in addition to his day job He had recently done an OMSI science pub about the same subject, so he was well prepared and practiced. The OreSat mission is to use an actual satellite project to bring STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) to all Oregon high schools and to study cirrus clouds.
The Von Karman line is an arbitrary line dividing outer space from not space. It is 100km above the surface of the earth. Some balloons fly at 30km above the earth. Cirrus clouds are the highest clouds and they are about 12km up.
There are three main layers of orbits, labelled LEO (low earth orbit), MEO (medium), and GEO (geostationary earth orbit). Geostationary satellites have to be highest up and go the fastest to maintain their position relative to the surface of the planet. Satellites cruise at around 200km from the earth, and they have to go really fast (8km/second or 17,500 miles per hour) to keep from falling back to the earth.
NASA has a research satellite that was just launched May 5 this year. It's the InSight mission and it intends to land on the surface of Mars. The rocket that launched InSight also launched the first two CubeSats, which are small satellites that can be designed individually then connected together. The high schoolers in Oregon are designing their own CubeSat, which NASA will launch! They didn't expect to get awarded the opportunity to launch the satellite when they applied, but NASA called their bluff and now they're working on it. All the software is open source. The 2U (two unit) CubeSats from Oregon will get "hucked" from the space station into its orbit. It will stay aloft for 6-12 months, or maybe longer if they get lucky.
The OreSat is scheduled to be deployed in fall 2019. For the sake of the high schoolers, he's calling the OreSat a "400km selfie stick", because each time it flies over Oregon the high schoolers will be able to receive a packet of information from it, including a picture of their location.
Then Andrew explained what he means when he says "Space Sucks". Quite literally it sucks because it is a vacuum. It speeds up the outgassing from any material that can, challenges welders to prevent leaks, and makes it tricky to keep anything at a reasonable temperature because it gets cold on the dark side and screaming hot in the sun. The radiation from space does harm to transistors. Solar cells are only ~30% efficient meaning it's not easy to power systems on satellites, and if they fail, they have to reboot without a mechanic coming to fix them. "Watchdog systems" monitor the functions of the satellite and attempt to make things right before there is a system failure.
He also mentioned Planet Lab Doves, which are privately owned satellites that basically remap the earth's surface every day. Exciting stuff.
Anyway, this talk was just a taste of what is happening. Satellite technology is moving fast and the very first satellite put into orbit by anyone in the state of Oregon will be built by high school and college kids. That's a fun way to approach STEM education.
"...growing up in church desensitizes you to logical inconsistencies, and that opens up large numbers of people to manipulation tactics employed by individuals and institutions keen on controlling groups of people for their own self-serving purposes."
—Neil Carter in How Faith Breaks Your Thinker
APRIL 10, 2018
SOURCE: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2018/04/10/how-faith-breaks-your-thinker/
Excellent resource on logical inconsistencies:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
Whenever I bemoan the culture of "safe spaces" and "microaggressions" on college campuses, said Andrew Sullivan, people argue that "the real world isn't like that." But that's no longer true. More and more of our public discourse is now shaped by the neo-Marxist Left's "identity-based, 'social justice" worldview, in which all interactions are defined by a hierarchy of power and oppression. Free speech itself is falling into disrepute, as a tool of the patriarchy. When some feminists recently got wind of a forthcoming Harper's essay criticizing the #MeToo movement, they not only personally vilified author Katie Roiphe, they also tried to force the magazine to drop the piece before publication--a "real-world echo" of students shouting down speakers. Writers, like students, now know that one "incorrect" opinion on sensitive issues of race and gender can result in "instant social ostracism" and demands they be fired--so they remain silent. Men cannot discuss sexual harassment; whites cannot talk about racism. The goal of our society is not "the emancipation of the individual," but permanent placement of the individual in the proper identity group: white, black, brown, female, gay, etc. "We used to call that bigotry. Now we call it being woke."
--Summary of Andrew Sullivan's article (NYMag.com) from The Week February 23, 2018.
--Summary of Andrew Sullivan's article (NYMag.com) from The Week February 23, 2018.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
--H.L. Mencken
One fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
--Robert Kennedy
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant threat winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
--Isaac Asimov
Democracy if four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
--Ambrose Bierce
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston S. Churchill
The main problem in any democracy is that the crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards than the tube for a nickel apiece.
--Hunter S. Thompson
Quotes from page 18 of the Funny Times, September 2017
--H.L. Mencken
One fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
--Robert Kennedy
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant threat winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
--Isaac Asimov
Democracy if four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
--Ambrose Bierce
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston S. Churchill
The main problem in any democracy is that the crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy -- then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards than the tube for a nickel apiece.
--Hunter S. Thompson
Quotes from page 18 of the Funny Times, September 2017
Your confusion is not pathology, it is path. It has something to show you that clarity could never reveal. The nature of chaos is wisdom, but you must provide a home for it to receive its mysteries.
Your feeling of disconnection is not neurotic, it is intelligent. It has something to show you that oneness could never reveal. If you will practice the yoga of non-abandonment and provide safe passage – it will disclose an unmet doorway.
Your loneliness, your shakiness, and your fear are not mistakes. They are not obstacles on your path. They *are* the path. The freedom you are longing for will never be found in the eradication of the unwanted, but only in the core of the love and information it carries.
There are surges of somatic activity that contain very important information for your journey. If you will offer safe passage for the unknown aliveness, you will meet the messengers of illumination. Nothing is missing, nothing is out of place, and nothing need be sent away.
Yes, you may burn until you are translucent, but it is by way of this burning that your wholeness will be revealed.
~ Matt Licata
...modern science differs from all previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways:
a. The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunctioin ignoramus - 'we do not know'. It assumes that we don't know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge.
b. The centrality of observation and mathematics. Having admitted ignorance, modern science aims to obtain new knowledge. It does so by gathering observations and then using mathematical tools to connect these observations into comprehensive theories.
c. The acquisition of new powers. Modern science is not content with creating theories. It uses these theories in order to acquire new powers, and in particular to develop new technologies.
The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions.
(He goes on to discuss how the premodern religious traditions of the world all assert that we already knew everything that we needed to know, and tamped down inquiries.)
-p250-251 in Sapiens
a. The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunctioin ignoramus - 'we do not know'. It assumes that we don't know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge.
b. The centrality of observation and mathematics. Having admitted ignorance, modern science aims to obtain new knowledge. It does so by gathering observations and then using mathematical tools to connect these observations into comprehensive theories.
c. The acquisition of new powers. Modern science is not content with creating theories. It uses these theories in order to acquire new powers, and in particular to develop new technologies.
The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions.
(He goes on to discuss how the premodern religious traditions of the world all assert that we already knew everything that we needed to know, and tamped down inquiries.)
-p250-251 in Sapiens
I just saw something advertised under that title, and I clicked the link and was disappointed that the page did not come up. I could use some help regaining mine. I'm glad that there's been a shake up, hopefully it will get people talking across some lines again. I'm aggravated by the ascendancy of self righteous ignorance. What do you call it when you don't even know how much you don't know? Unconscious Imcompetence. Like the guy who told an MD/PhD infectious disease researcher "you should study microbes" because antibiotic resistance is no big deal. I'll take conscious incompetence any time, or even better conscious competence.
I've come to a bit of am impasse with my medical practice, writings, even studies. I'm losing interest. It seems so fruitless. I learn all this stuff and then nobody cares what I have to teach them. If they want it they think it should be free like what they get from wikipedia. Dr Google will be the death of me.
The more I read and study I am affronted by the tendency of humans to believe. We want to believe. We look for excuses to believe. It saves us a whole lot of trouble just to believe in something, that way we can ignore all evidence to the contrary and enshrine every tidbit that supports our belief, and voila, the world is meaningful and live is worth living. Just because we were believers.
Atheists and agnostics really have a hard row to how. How do you create meaning in life, how do you form a community or tribe, without a belief-based grouping? Can there be such a thing? I have seen skepticism elevated to dogma. Anything can be dogma. If you think you are not dogmatic, look again. Everyone is a hypocrite.
I've come to a bit of am impasse with my medical practice, writings, even studies. I'm losing interest. It seems so fruitless. I learn all this stuff and then nobody cares what I have to teach them. If they want it they think it should be free like what they get from wikipedia. Dr Google will be the death of me.
The more I read and study I am affronted by the tendency of humans to believe. We want to believe. We look for excuses to believe. It saves us a whole lot of trouble just to believe in something, that way we can ignore all evidence to the contrary and enshrine every tidbit that supports our belief, and voila, the world is meaningful and live is worth living. Just because we were believers.
Atheists and agnostics really have a hard row to how. How do you create meaning in life, how do you form a community or tribe, without a belief-based grouping? Can there be such a thing? I have seen skepticism elevated to dogma. Anything can be dogma. If you think you are not dogmatic, look again. Everyone is a hypocrite.
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