Intelligence is what you make of it?

Scientific American has an interesting article about the difference between kids who believe they are innately intelligent and those who think intelligence is a result of hard-work.

Bill English on the 2nd reading of the Electoral Finance Law

Good summary of what's wrong with this bill and not a bad piece of oratory - the response to Annette King's point of order is worth waiting for.

Veggie Tales Pirates who don't do anything

He. he. It reminds me of Scotty. (Not cause he's lazy, but he used to sing it.) And now I sometimes do too, so I've put this here for people who wonder what its about (hopefully now it all makes sense).

Great childhood memories

I recent rediscovered the name of some of the classic books of my childhood. The the Mad Scientists Club.

word: mörön

A common geographical name in Mongolia literally meaning river.

Source: Wikipedia.
Credit: DM.

Conspiracy theories & drug trials

A simple explanation about the need for randomized trials in testing medicine, critical of the exemption homeopathic medicine seems to expect from this. Also, how some homeopaths have reacted to criticism.

Has mainstream Western society lost a belief in the objective to try and gain back the romantic?

(PS. This is not say that "big pharma" are not capable of running their own scams, but that fairly conducted randomized trials are the way to test medicinal claims, regardless of who is making the claims.)

A satirist

My workmate has just introduced me to the music of mathematician come satirist, Tom Lehrer. But of equal interest was his comments on the futility of satire, in a recent interview in Sydney Morning Herald, touching on the challenges of modern issues:

The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines.

The people who go to comedy shows are kids that don't know anything, I think, and so you have to make jokes about your girlfriend or your family or that kind of thing only, make them as vulgar as possible.

I find it interesting that it seems Tom has noted a change from satire/humour as a form of engagement with thought and politics, to simply crass entertainment.

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.

Update 2Dec07. I thought I'd add what has to be his funniest song (for science geeks).

The difference between innocence and goodness

The difference between between innocence and goodness...Without the tree of knowledge, Adam could be innocent. Afterwards, only good.

Richard Bauckman as quoted in "Utopian Dreams" by Tobias Jones, ref Bauckman, "God and the Crisis of Freedom" (2002).

Churches are like swimming pools

The church is like a swimming pool in which all the noise comes from the shallow end.

— W. H. Vanstone, Anglican Theologian

Children of Men

Children of Men a dsytopian film.