Uma conversa com Jacques Barzun - 2010
sexta-feira, dezembro 23, 2011
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Duration/Duração: 1:11:20
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A decadência da civilização ocidental: o relaxamento duplo da seleção natural
Article in Press
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (2011) xxx–xxx
The decay of Western civilization: Double relaxed Darwinian Selection
Helmuth Nyborg
University of Aarhus (1968–2007), Adslev Skovvej 2, 8362 Horning, Denmark
Article info
Article history:
Received 18 January 2011
Received in revised form 23 February 2011
Accepted 24 February 2011
Available online xxxx
Abstract
This article briefly describes Lynn’s view on what makes modern populations rise and fall. It then provides a demographic analysis of what happens to modern sub-fertile high-IQ Western populations when Internal Relaxation of Darwinian Selection (IRDS) combines with External Relaxation (ERDS, in the form of super-fertile low-IQ non-Western immigration) into Double Relaxation of Darwinian Selection (DRDS). The genotypic IQ decline will ruin the economic and social infrastructure needed for quality education, welfare, democracy and civilization. DRDS is currently unopposed politically, so existing fertility differentials may eventually lead to Western submission or civil resistance.
Keywords: Western civilization, Eugenics, Dysgenics, Immigration, Demography, Fertility, Darwinian Selection
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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NOTA DESTE BLOGGER:
Ideias têm consequências, e não podemos esquecer o título completo do livro de Darwin: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life [Sobre a origem das espécies por meio da seleção natural, ou a preservação das raças favorecidas na luta pela vida].
A ideia de raça superior ficou melhor estabelecida por Darwin no seu livro menos lido e menos pesquisado: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Neste livro Darwin preconizou a destruição dos africanos, dos aborígenes australianos e outros povos primitivos pela raça superior - os europeus, num futuro não muito distante.
Isso se deu em 1871, e agora em 2011 Nyborg afirma que a decadência da civilização ocidental (leia-se países do Primeiro Mundo) se dá pelo influxo de imigrantes.
E ainda têm a cara de pau de negar que Darwin influenciou fortemente a Hitler na sua política arianista de raça superior que resultou no Holocausto de 6 milhões de judeus, e a morte de milhares de ciganos e homossexuais.
O que fazer desta pesquisa de Nyborg???
Ideias têm consequências... Quem pariu Mateus que o embale!!!
Isso se deu em 1871, e agora em 2011 Nyborg afirma que a decadência da civilização ocidental (leia-se países do Primeiro Mundo) se dá pelo influxo de imigrantes.
E ainda têm a cara de pau de negar que Darwin influenciou fortemente a Hitler na sua política arianista de raça superior que resultou no Holocausto de 6 milhões de judeus, e a morte de milhares de ciganos e homossexuais.
O que fazer desta pesquisa de Nyborg???
Ideias têm consequências... Quem pariu Mateus que o embale!!!
Programa empresta livros gratuitamente em São Paulo
quinta-feira, dezembro 22, 2011
22/12/2011
Agência FAPESP – O programa “De mão em mão”, parceria entre a Fundação Editora Unesp e a Prefeitura de São Paulo, por meio da Secretaria de Cultura, foi lançado no dia 21 de dezembro, em cerimônia na Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, na capital paulista.
O projeto promoverá o empréstimo gratuito de livros. O primeiro título da coleção será a coletânea A Missa do Galo e Outros contos, de Machado de Assis (1839-1908). Com apoio da SPTrans, a ação terá os terminais de ônibus Mercado (no Centro) e Lapa (na Zona Oeste) como primeiros pontos de distribuição.
Terminais de ônibus Mercado e Lapa são primeiros pontos de distribuição da iniciativa da Prefeitura e da Unesp que começa com 20 mil exemplares de coletânea de Machado de Assis
De acordo com a Secretaria, a edição da coletânea foi realizada especialmente para o lançamento desse projeto-piloto. São 20 mil exemplares, que poderão ser lidos gratuitamente. A partir de um cadastro, o interessado poderá levar as publicações com o compromisso de passá-las “de mão em mão”.
Após a leitura, as obras podem também ser entregues nos pontos de devolução, a qualquer tempo, possibilitando o compartilhamento com outros leitores. Cada pessoa poderá retirar um único exemplar.
Os quiosques do projeto funcionarão todos os dias da semana, das 10h às 20h, com distribuição até quando houver livros. Nos dias 24, 25 e 31 de dezembro e 1º de janeiro, os pontos estarão fechados.
A iniciativa, de caráter inicialmente experimental, busca promover a distribuição de livros em locais com ampla circulação de pessoas para incentivar o gosto pela leitura. Até o fim do primeiro semestre de 2012, término da fase de experiência, serão lançados mais cinco livros. O próximo título está previsto para março.
Os novos livros oferecidos serão selecionados pelo conselho editorial composto por José de Souza Martins (sociólogo e conselheiro da FAPESP), Luciana Veit (editora e escritora), Sérgio Vaz (poeta e fundador do sarau da Cooperifa), Heloísa Jahn (editora e tradutora), Jezio Hernani Bomfim Gutierre (professor de Filosofia da Unesp e Editor Executivo na Fundação Editora Unesp) e Samuel Titan Jr. (professor de teoria literária na Universidade de São Paulo).
As obras terão gêneros distintos como uma forma de atrair leitores de diferentes perfis e faixas etárias.
O “De mão em mão” foi inspirado na iniciativa colombiana “Libros al viento”, em que obras literárias foram distribuídas à população. O projeto recebeu o aval da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura (Unesco) e contribuiu para que Bogotá fosse declarada a Capital Mundial do Livro em 2007.
O Terminal Mercado fica na Avenida do Estado, 3350, no Centro. O Terminal Lapa está localizado na Praça Miguel Dell’Erba, na Zona Oeste.
Mais informações: www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidade/secretarias/cultura.
Pós-doutorado em química com Bolsa da FAPESP
Pós-doutorado em química com Bolsa da FAPESP
22/12/2011
Agência FAPESP – O Projeto Temático "Desenvolvimento de Compostos com Interesse Farmacológico ou Medicinal e de Sistemas para seu Transporte, Detecção e Reconhecimento no Meio Biológico", apoiado pela FAPESP, oferece uma oportunidade de pós-doutoramento com Bolsa da Fundação.
O projeto é coordenado por Ana Maria da Costa Ferreira no Laboratório de Bioinorgânica, Catálise e Farmacologia do Instituto de Química da Universidade de São Paulo.
A bolsa se destina a estudos de detecção e caracterização de interações entre complexos metálicos, especialmente de metais essenciais, e biomoléculas como DNA ou proteínas específicas, visando verificar ligações em sítios preferenciais, possíveis danos oxidativos decorrentes e prováveis mecanismos de atuação dos complexos como inibidor de proteína ou agente antitumoral.
Projeto Temático no Instituto de Química da USP tem oportunidade de pós-doutoramento em química bioinorgânica e bioquímica de macromoléculas (Wikimedia)
Um breve relato dos interesses do grupo na pesquisa e algumas publicações recentes estão disponíveis em:
Os candidatos devem ter experiência comprovada em química ou bioquímica, especialmente na síntese e caracterização espectroscópica de complexos metálicos e/ou em análise por espectrometria de massa (ESI-MS/MS) de adutos complexos metálico-biomoléculas e de produtos decorrentes. Experiência na síntese desses adutos ou compostos de adição também é desejável.
Os candidatos deverão enviar curriculum vitae, duas cartas de referência e uma carta contendo breve relato de sua experiência e seus objetivos de carreira para Ana Maria da Costa Ferreira (amdcferr@iq.usp.br) até o dia 1º de fevereiro de 2012.
Mais informações sobre a vaga estão disponíveis em www.fapesp.br/oportunidades/285.
A vaga está aberta a brasileiros e estrangeiros. O selecionado receberá Bolsa de Pós-Doutorado da FAPESP (no valor de R$ 5.333,40 mensais), Reserva Técnica e Auxílio Instalação. A Reserva Técnica de Bolsa de PD equivale a 15% do valor anual da bolsa e tem o objetivo de atender a despesas imprevistas e diretamente relacionadas à atividade de pesquisa.
O bolsista de PD, caso resida em domicílio diferente e precise se mudar para a cidade onde se localiza a instituição sede da pesquisa, poderá ter direito a um Auxílio Instalação. Mais informações sobre a Bolsa de Pós-Doutorado da FAPESP estão disponíveis em www.fapesp.br/bolsas/pd.
Outras vagas de Bolsas de Pós-Doutorado, em diversas áreas do conhecimento, estão no site FAPESP-Oportunidades, em www.oportunidades.fapesp.br.
Descoberta de planetas levanta questões sobre evolução das estrelas
22/12/2011
Agência FAPESP – Dois planetas de tamanhos comparáveis com o da Terra foram descobertos por um grupo internacional de cientistas. A descrição dos dois, que orbitam uma velha estrela que passou pelo estágio de gigante vermelha, está na edição desta quinta-feira (22/12) da revista Nature.
O sistema planetário se encontra próximo às constelações de Lira e Cygnus, a cerca de 3.900 anos-luz da Terra. De acordo com os cientistas responsáveis pela observação, a descoberta poderá ajudar a desvendar enigmas a respeito da evolução dos sistemas planetários e estelares de modo geral.
Planetas com tamanho parecido com o da Terra contribuíram para o processo de mudança de fase na estrela KIC 05807616. Estudo foi publicado na Nature(divulgação)
“Os dois planetas, denominados KOI 55.01 e KOI 55.02, encontram-se em órbitas muito curtas em torno de sua estrela. Por terem migrado para tão próximo, eles provavelmente mergulharam profundamente no envelope estelar durante a fase de gigante vermelha [uma das mais avançadas na evolução das estrelas], mas sobreviveram”, disse Gilles Fontaine, da Universidade de Montreal, no Canadá, um dos autores da descoberta.
“Os dois corpos que observamos devem ser os núcleos densos de antigos planetas gigantes cujos envelopes gasosos evaporaram durante a fase de imersão [aproximação à estrela]”, disse. Apenas o núcleo denso dos planetas, formado por ferro e outros elementos pesados, poderia sobreviver ao dramático processo de evolução estelar.
A estrela observada, denominada KIC 05807616, consiste do núcleo exposto de uma gigante vermelha que perdeu quase totalmente seu envelope gasoso.
De acordo com o estudo, os planetas observados devem ter contribuído para o aumento da perda de massa necessária para a evolução da estrela à sua fase atual. Segundo os pesquisadores, isso implicaria que os sistemas planetários em geral influenciam a evolução de suas estrelas.
Os planetas foram identificados a partir de dados obtidos pela missão Kepler, da Nasa, a agência espacial dos Estados Unidos. O grupo, formado por cientistas de oito países, observou inicialmente a presença intrigante de duas modulações minúsculas e periódicas, que alcançavam 0,005% do brilho da estrela.
Como as variações não poderiam ser atribuídas às oscilações da estrela ou a outras causas, a presença de dois planetas em torno da KIC 05807616 era a única explicação plausível para os dados obtidos.
Os dois planetas lembram a Terra apenas no tamanho. Eles estão muito próximos de sua estrela: 0,0060 e 0,0076 unidades astronômicas, respectivamente, sendo que cada uma dessas unidades é a distância entre o Sol e a Terra. Por conta disso, as condições nas superfícies dos planetas são extremas, com temperaturas entre 8.000 e 9.000º C.
O artigo A compact system of small planets around an evolved post red giant star(doi:10.1038/nature1063), de Stéphane Charpinet e outros, pode ser lido por assinantes da Natureem www.nature.com.
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Professores, pesquisadores e alunos de universidades públicas e privadas com acesso ao site CAPES/Periódicos podem ler gratuitamente este artigo da Nature e de mais 22.440 publicações científicas.
Escola de Verão em Química na UFSCar
21/12/2011
Agência FAPESP – Estão abertas, até 15 de janeiro, as inscrições para participação nos minicursos da 32ª edição da Escola de Verão em Química, promovida pelo Departamento de Química da Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar).
O evento, que ocorrerá entre 6 e 10 de fevereiro de 2012, tem o objetivo de promover o intercâmbio entre alunos e professores da UFSCar com os de outras instituições do país e divulgar a química por meio de cursos específicos.
Os minicursos da Escola serão ministrados por pesquisadores da França, Austrália, Suíça e Brasil e têm como público-alvo estudantes de graduação e pós-graduação.
Além dos minicursos, a Escola contará com palestras e mesas-redondas, emtre [sic] outras atividades. O evento também fará uma homenagem ao professor Otto Richard Gottlieb, por sua contribuição ao desenvolvimento da pesquisa em química no Brasil.
Mais informações e inscrições:
www.evqdq.ufscar.br, evq2012@ufscar.br ou (16) 3351-8206.
O universo acidental: a crise de fé da ciência
quarta-feira, dezembro 21, 2011
The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith
By Alan P. Lightman
In the fifth century B.C., the philosopher Democritus proposed that all matter was made of tiny and indivisible atoms, which came in various sizes and textures—some hard and some soft, some smooth and some thorny. The atoms themselves were taken as givens. In the nineteenth century, scientists discovered that the chemical properties of atoms repeat periodically (and created the periodic table to reflect this fact), but the origins of such patterns remained mysterious. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that scientists learned that the properties of an atom are determined by the number and placement of its electrons, the subatomic particles that orbit its nucleus. And we now know that all atoms heavier than helium were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars.
The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles. One can add to the list of the fully explained: the hue of the sky, the orbits of planets, the angle of the wake of a boat moving through a lake, the six-sided patterns of snowflakes, the weight of a flying bustard, the temperature of boiling water, the size of raindrops, the circular shape of the sun. All these phenomena and many more, once thought to have been fixed at the beginning of time or to be the result of random events thereafter, have been explained asnecessary consequences of the fundamental laws of nature—laws discovered by human beings.
This long and appealing trend may be coming to an end. Dramatic developments in cosmological findings and thought have led some of the world’s premier physicists to propose that our universe is only one of an enormous number of universes with wildly varying properties, and that some of the most basic features of our particular universe are indeed mere accidents—a random throw of the cosmic dice. In which case, there is no hope of ever explaining our universe’s features in terms of fundamental causes and principles.
It is perhaps impossible to say how far apart the different universes may be, or whether they exist simultaneously in time. Some may have stars and galaxies like ours. Some may not. Some may be finite in size. Some may be infinite. Physicists call the totality of universes the “multiverse.” Alan Guth, a pioneer in cosmological thought, says that “the multiple-universe idea severely limits our hopes to understand the world from fundamental principles.” And the philosophical ethos of science is torn from its roots. As put to me recently by Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg, a man as careful in his words as in his mathematical calculations, “We now find ourselves at a historic fork in the road we travel to understand the laws of nature. If the multiverse idea is correct, the style of fundamental physics will be radically changed.”
The scientists most distressed by Weinberg’s “fork in the road” are theoretical physicists. Theoretical physics is the deepest and purest branch of science. It is the outpost of science closest to philosophy, and religion. Experimental scientists occupy themselves with observing and measuring the cosmos, finding out what stuff exists, no matter how strange that stuff may be. Theoretical physicists, on the other hand, are not satisfied with observing the universe. They want to know why. They want to explain all the properties of the universe in terms of a few fundamental principles and parameters. These fundamental principles, in turn, lead to the “laws of nature,” which govern the behavior of all matter and energy. An example of a fundamental principle in physics, first proposed by Galileo in 1632 and extended by Einstein in 1905, is the following: All observers traveling at constant velocity relative to one another should witness identical laws of nature. From this principle, Einstein derived his theory of special relativity. An example of a fundamental parameter is the mass of an electron, considered one of the two dozen or so “elementary” particles of nature. As far as physicists are concerned, the fewer the fundamental principles and parameters, the better. The underlying hope and belief of this enterprise has always been that these basic principles are so restrictive that only one, self-consistent universe is possible, like a crossword puzzle with only one solution. That one universe would be, of course, the universe we live in. Theoretical physicists are Platonists. Until the past few years, they agreed that the entire universe, the one universe, is generated from a few mathematical truths and principles of symmetry, perhaps throwing in a handful of parameters like the mass of the electron. It seemed that we were closing in on a vision of our universe in which everything could be calculated, predicted, and understood.
However, two theories in physics, eternal inflation and string theory, now suggest that the same fundamental principles from which the laws of nature derive may lead to many different self-consistent universes, with many different properties. It is as if you walked into a shoe store, had your feet measured, and found that a size 5 would fit you, a size 8 would also fit, and a size 12 would fit equally well. Such wishy-washy results make theoretical physicists extremely unhappy. Evidently, the fundamental laws of nature do not pin down a single and unique universe. According to the current thinking of many physicists, we are living in one of a vast number of universes. We are living in an accidental universe. We are living in a universe uncalculable by science.
“Back in the 1970s and 1980s,” says Alan Guth, “the feeling was that we were so smart, we almost had everything figured out.” What physicists had figured out were very accurate theories of three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the strong nuclear force that binds atomic nuclei together, the weak force that is responsible for some forms of radioactive decay, and the electromagnetic force between electrically charged particles. And there were prospects for merging the theory known as quantum physics with Einstein’s theory of the fourth force, gravity, and thus pulling all of them into the fold of what physicists called the Theory of Everything, or the Final Theory. These theories of the 1970s and 1980s required the specification of a couple dozen parameters corresponding to the masses of the elementary particles, and another half dozen or so parameters corresponding to the strengths of the fundamental forces. The next step would then have been to derive most of the elementary particle masses in terms of one or two fundamental masses and define the strengths of all the fundamental forces in terms of a single fundamental force.
There were good reasons to think that physicists were poised to take this next step. Indeed, since the time of Galileo, physics has been extremely successful in discovering principles and laws that have fewer and fewer free parameters and that are also in close agreement with the observed facts of the world. For example, the observed rotation of the ellipse of the orbit of Mercury, 0.012 degrees per century, was successfully calculated using the theory of general relativity, and the observed magnetic strength of an electron, 2.002319 magnetons, was derived using the theory of quantum electrodynamics. More than any other science, physics brims with highly accurate agreements between theory and experiment.
Guth started his physics career in this sunny scientific world. Now sixty-four years old and a professor at MIT, he was in his early thirties when he proposed a major revision to the Big Bang theory, something called inflation. We now have a great deal of evidence suggesting that our universe began as a nugget of extremely high density and temperature about 14 billion years ago and has been expanding, thinning out, and cooling ever since. The theory of inflation proposes that when our universe was only about a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old, a peculiar type of energy caused the cosmos to expand very rapidly. A tiny fraction of a second later, the universe returned to the more leisurely rate of expansion of the standard Big Bang model. Inflation solved a number of outstanding problems in cosmology, such as why the universe appears so homogeneous on large scales.
When I visited Guth in his third-floor office at MIT one cool day in May, I could barely see him above the stacks of paper and empty Diet Coke bottles on his desk. More piles of paper and dozens of magazines littered the floor. In fact, a few years ago Guth won a contest sponsored by the Boston Globe for the messiest office in the city. The prize was the services of a professional organizer for one day. “She was actually more a nuisance than a help. She took piles of envelopes from the floor and began sorting them according to size.” He wears aviator-style eyeglasses, keeps his hair long, and chain-drinks Diet Cokes. “The reason I went into theoretical physics,” Guth tells me, “is that I liked the idea that we could understand everything—i.e., the universe—in terms of mathematics and logic.” He gives a bitter laugh. We have been talking about the multiverse.
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Read more here/Leia mais aqui: Harper's Magazine
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Alan Lightman, a physicist and novelist, teaches at MIT. His new book, Mr g: A Novel About the Creation, will be published in January by Pantheon.
Vaclav Havel (1936–2011)
20 December 2011
Vaclav Havel (1936–2011)
jbarham
There aren’t so many great men among us nowadays that we can afford to let the death of one of them go unremarked. So, a word about Vaclav Havel.
Havel, who died on Sunday (Dec. 18), aged 75, was certainly a great man. But he was not exactly a great writer, or a great thinker, or even a great statesman.
Rather, he was one of those “who have greatness thrust upon ‘em,” in Malvolio’s famous formula.(1) He tended to look ironically upon his own role on the world stage—as an unaccountable accident of fate that could easily have formed the subject for a play in the style of his beloved Theater of the Absurd.
Havel’s greatness lay primarily in the way he faced the moral challenges he was faced with. Part of this was simple physical courage—the mother of all the virtues.
It took courage to conceive and write plays that employed the tropes of existentialism to protest totalitarianism. It took courage to allow those plays to be produced abroad in the period leading up to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. It took courage to go on writing such plays afterwards, when they were banned, and he was fired from his position at the Theater on the Balustrade in Prague and sent to work in a brewery. It took courage to help produce the “Charter 77 Manifesto,” demanding that the freedoms guaranteed by the 1975 Helsinki Accords be respected. It took courage to withstand nearly five years in prison without going under. And it took perhaps the most courage of all to assume the presidency of a democratic, post-Soviet Czechoslovakia—a post he not only did not seek, but positively shunned—after the collapse of communism in 1989. Of his long struggle with lung cancer, there is no need to speak.
So, Vaclav Havel’s tremendous courage is not in question. But courage must be tethered to a moral vision in order to be great. It is worth pausing a moment, then, to ask precisely what his moral vision consisted in.
It seems that one place we must not look for elucidation of that vision is his private life. He could be vain to the point of betraying his own principles. His breakthrough play, The Garden Party, owed much of its success when it was first performed in 1963 to the editorial intervention of the director of the Theater on the Balustrade—a fact that Havel only grudgingly acknowledged in 1980. He was a compulsive philanderer, who repeatedly humiliated his devoted wife, Olga, in public. And many blame the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993 on his self-righteous inflexibility and political tone-deafness.
But all such character defects fade into insignificance in comparison with the grandeur of the moral vision he communicated in his best moments, both in his writings and in his public actions.
What was his vision? It can be summed up in a phrase: “living in truth.” But, what exactly did Havel mean by this?
The expression derives from his famous essay, “The Power of the Powerless“—most likely the piece of writing for which he will be best remembered—written in 1978 and originally circulated clandestinely. It is an elegant meditation on a striking image—that of a greengrocer forced to display a sign in his shop window, “Workers of the World, Unite!,” among the onions and the carrots, as Havel puts it. Here are some excerpts from this remarkable work:
Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic but, at the same time, an apparently dignified way of legitimizing what is above, below, and on either side. It is directed toward people and toward God. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo. It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class. The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe. . . .
The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.
Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system. . . .
Thus, living in truth, for Havel, is the only conceivable means of struggling against such a state of affairs, because the struggle for freedom under such conditions must begin in the individual human conscience. By taking down the hypocritical sign from his store window, the powerless greengrocer declares his refusal to participate in the system of lies. He will pay a heavy price as an individual for his act of resistence, but at the same time his act affirms his power, because his example poses an existential threat to the system. Thus, the power of the powerless consists in living in truth.
By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken through the exalted facade of the system and exposed the real, base foundations of power. He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. . . .
The original and most important sphere of activity, one that predetermines all the others, is simply an attempt to create and support the independent life of society as an articulated expression of living within the truth. . . . it is difficult to imagine that even manifest “dissent” could have any other basis than the service of truth, the truthful life, and the attempt to make room for the genuine aims of life.
What were these “genuine aims of life,” for Havel?
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Read more here/Leia mais aqui: The Best Schools Org
Uma nova teoria para explicar a recepção do ensaio de Wallace, de Ternate, recebido por Darwin em 1858?
Saiba mais no meu outro blog DarwinLeaks:
A forte suspeita de que Darwin plagiou as ideias evolucionárias de Wallace é embasada em dois aspectos:
1. Darwin sabia das ideias de Wallace desde 1855.
2. Darwin era zeloso com sua correspondência, mas a famosa carta de Wallace de 1858 e a de 1855 simplesmente não foram preservadas por ele. Por que???
A 'partícula de Deus': provavelmente uma descoberta - matemática ruim significa péssima comunicação científica
Probably a discovery: Bad mathematics means rough scientific communication
G. D'Agostini
(Submitted on 15 Dec 2011 (v1), last revised 19 Dec 2011 (this version, v2))
Image not related to this article/Imagem não relacionada a este artigo
According to the media, in spring of this year the experiment CDF at Fermilab has made most likely ("this result has a 99.7 percent chance of being correct", Discovery News) a great discovery ("the most significant in physics in half a century", NYT). However, since the very beginning, practically all particle physics experts did not believe that was the case. This is the last of a quite long series of fake claims based on trivial mistakes in the probabilistic reasoning. The main purpose of this note is to invite everybody, but especially journalists and general public, most times innocent victims of misinformation of this kind, to mistrust claims not explicitly reported in terms of how much we should believe something, under well stated conditions and assumptions. (A last minute appendix has been added, with comments on the recent news concerning the Higgs at LHC.)
Comments: 21 pages, 2 figures, note based on lectures at the University of Perugia, 15-16 April 2011 and at MAPSES School in Lecce, 23-25 November 2011
Subjects: Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); History and Overview (math.HO); Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph); Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:1112.3620v2 [physics.data-an]
Submission historyFrom: Giulio D'Agostini [view email]
[v1] Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:35:01 GMT (208kb)
[v2] Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:28:16 GMT (209kb)
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Passando adiante o Hanukkah
Authorized use/Uso autorizado
1. Nós cantamos nossas canções e acendemos nossas velas.
2. E nós passamos a nosso civilização
3. para uma nova geração.
4. É o verdadeiro presente de Hanukkah.
Hag Sameah! Feliz Feriado
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Para, por e com Israel, sempre! Apesar de [preencher as lacunas]
Aprendizagem colaborativa nas redes
terça-feira, dezembro 20, 2011
Collaborative learning in networks
Winter Mason a,1 and Duncan J. Watts b,1
Author Affiliations
aStevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030; and
bYahoo! Research, New York, NY 10018
Edited by Kenneth Wachter, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved November 3, 2011 (received for review June 27, 2011)
Abstract
Complex problems in science, business, and engineering typically require some tradeoff between exploitation of known solutions and exploration for novel ones, where, in many cases, information about known solutions can also disseminate among individual problem solvers through formal or informal networks. Prior research on complex problem solving by collectives has found the counterintuitive result that inefficient networks, meaning networks that disseminate information relatively slowly, can perform better than efficient networks for problems that require extended exploration. In this paper, we report on a series of 256 Web-based experiments in which groups of 16 individuals collectively solved a complex problem and shared information through different communication networks. As expected, we found that collective exploration improved average success over independent exploration because good solutions could diffuse through the network. In contrast to prior work, however, we found that efficient networks outperformed inefficient networks, even in a problem space with qualitative properties thought to favor inefficient networks. We explain this result in terms of individual-level explore-exploit decisions, which we find were influenced by the network structure as well as by strategic considerations and the relative payoff between maxima. We conclude by discussing implications for real-world problem solving and possible extensions.
collaboration, diffusion, exploration-exploitation trade off
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: wmason@stevens.edu or djw@yahoo-inc.com.
Author contributions: W.M. and D.J.W. designed research; W.M. performed research; W.M. analyzed data; and W.M. and D.J.W. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1110069108/-/DCSupplemental.
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Diversificação cultural acelerou evolução fenotípica dos xavante
20/12/2011
Agência FAPESP – Os fenótipos de grupos humanos derivados de um mesmo ancestral recente podem ter ritmos variáveis de divergência dependendo da diversificação de fatores culturais e sociais.
A conclusão é de um estudo internacional com participação brasileira que terá seus resultados publicados esta semana no site e em breve na edição impressa da revista Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
O trabalho teve participação de Tábita Hünemeier, Francisco Mauro Salzano e Maria Cátira Bortolini, da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Sandro Bonatto, da Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS), e de cientistas de instituições do México, Argentina, Estados Unidos, Espanha e Suécia.
Trabalho internacional, com participação de brasileiros, indica que fenótipos de grupos derivados de um mesmo ancestral podem ter ritmo de divergência variável dependendo de fatores culturais e sociais (Elza Fiúza/ABr)
De acordo com o estudo, mudanças na estrutura social e nas práticas culturais têm potencial para promover combinações inusitadas de frequências de alelos, que impulsionam a evolução de novidades genéticas e fenotípicas durante a evolução humana.
Essas práticas culturais, segundo os pesquisadores, agem em combinação com barreiras geográficas e linguísticas e podem promover mudanças evolutivas mais rápidas, moldadas pelas interações entre genética e cultura. No entanto, os casos específicos que atestam esse tipo de interação são escassos, segundo o estudo.
Os pesquisadores demonstraram que os parâmetros quantitativos obtidos a partir de dados cefalométricos extraídos de 1.203 indivíduos – analisados em combinação com dados genéticos, climáticos, sociais e de história de vida de seis populações indígenas sul-americanas – são compatíveis com um cenário de rápida evolução fenotípica e genética, provavelmente mediada por mudanças culturais.
O estudo mostrou que os xavante experimentaram um ritmo notável de evolução: a taxa de mudança morfológica é muito maior que a esperada para a sua época de separação de seu grupo irmão, os caiapó, que ocorreu há cerca de 1.500 anos.
O trabalho sugere também que essa rápida diferenciação foi possível graças às fortes diferenças na organização social. Os resultados demonstram como os grupos humanos que derivam de um ancestral comum recente podem ter ritmos variáveis de divergência fenotípica, provavelmente em decorrência de diferentes fatores culturais e sociais.
Os autores sugerem que reunir os bancos de dados compostos que envolvem dados biológicos e culturais será uma tarefa de importância central para desvendar casos de evolução modulada pelo ambiente cultural.
O artigo Cultural diversification promotes rapid phenotypic evolution in Xavánte Indians(doi:10.1073/pnas.1118967109), de Tábita Hünemeier e outros, poderá ser lido em breve por assinantes da PNAS em
Cultural diversification promotes rapid phenotypic evolution in Xavánte Indians
Tábita Hünemeier a, Jorge Gómez-Valdés b,Mónica Ballesteros-Romero c, Soledad de Azevedo d,Neus Martínez-Abadías e, Mireia Esparza f, Torstein Sjøvold g, Sandro L. Bonatto h,Francisco Mauro Salzano a,1, Maria Cátira Bortolini a, and Rolando González-José d,1
Author Affiliations
aDepartamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 91501-970 Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil;
bDepartamento de Anatomía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Interior, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 DF, Mexico;
cEscuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Periférico Sur y Zapote, 14030 DF, Mexico;
dCentro Nacional Patagónico, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, U9120ACV, Puerto Madryn, Argentina;
eDepartment of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802;
fSecció d'Antropologia, Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain;
gOsteologiska enheten, Stockholms Universitet, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; and
hFaculdade de Biociências, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, 90610-001 Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Contributed by Francisco Mauro Salzano, November 18, 2011 (sent for review July 11, 2011)
Abstract
Shifts in social structure and cultural practices can potentially promote unusual combinations of allele frequencies that drive the evolution of genetic and phenotypic novelties during human evolution. These cultural practices act in combination with geographical and linguistic barriers and can promote faster evolutionary changes shaped by gene–culture interactions. However, specific cases indicative of this interaction are scarce. Here we show that quantitative genetic parameters obtained from cephalometric data taken on 1,203 individuals analyzed in combination with genetic, climatic, social, and life-history data belonging to six South Amerindian populations are compatible with a scenario of rapid genetic and phenotypic evolution, probably mediated by cultural shifts. We found that the Xavánte experienced a remarkable pace of evolution: the rate of morphological change is far greater than expected for its time of split from their sister group, the Kayapó, which occurred around 1,500 y ago. We also suggest that this rapid differentiation was possible because of strong social-organization differences. Our results demonstrate how human groups deriving from a recent common ancestor can experience variable paces of phenotypic divergence, probably as a response to different cultural or social determinants. We suggest that assembling composite databases involving cultural and biological data will be of key importance to unravel cases of evolution modulated by the cultural environment.
cultural evolution, morphology, mtDNA, multiple factor analysis, Amerindians
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: francisco.salzano@ufrgs.br or rolando@cenpat.edu.ar.
Author contributions: T.H., J.G.-V., M.B.-R., S.L.B., F.M.S., M.C.B., and R.G.-J. designed research; T.H., J.G.-V., M.B.-R., S.d.A., N.M.-A., M.E., T.S., S.L.B., F.M.S., M.C.B., and R.G.-J. performed research; T.H., J.G.-V., S.d.A., N.M.-A., M.E., S.L.B., M.C.B., and R.G.-J. analyzed data; and T.H., F.M.S., M.C.B., and R.G.-J. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1118967109/-/DCSupplemental.
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Professores, pesquisadores e alunos de universidades públicas e privadas com acesso ao site CAPES/Periódicos podem ler gratuitamente este artigo do PNAS e de 22.440 publicações científicas.
A ciência da subjetividade: ela existe e domina a Nomenklatura científica mais do que você imagina!!!
The science of subjectivity
Andrew Curtis*
Author Affiliations
School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK
*E-mail: andrew.curtis@ed.ac.uk
While the evidence-based approach of science is lauded for introducing objectivity to processes of investigation, the role of subjectivity in science is less often highlighted in scientific literature. Nevertheless, the scientific method comprises at least two components: forming hypotheses, and collecting data to substantiate or refute each hypothesis (Descartes’ 1637 discourse [Olscamp, 1965]). A hypothesis is a conjecture of a new theory that derives from, but by definition is unproven by, known laws, rules, or existing observations. Hypotheses are always made by one individual or by a limited group of scientists, and are therefore subjective—based on the prior experience and processes of reason employed by those individuals, rather than solely on objective external process. Such subjectivity and concomitant uncertainty lead to competing theories that are subsequently pared down as some are proved to be incompatible with new observations.
Allowing subjectivity is a positive aspect of the scientific method: it allows for leaps of faith which occasionally lead to spell-binding proposals that prove to be valid. Some scientific studies have analyzed how subjectivity contributes to the progression of ideas, and some of those studies are in the geological sciences (Aspinall, 2010). Bond et al. (2012, p. 75 in this issue of Geology) showed a computer-generated seismic cross section, created from an underlying (invented) geological model, to several hundred individual geologists. The model included structural deformation and inversion of faults, with pre-, syn- and post-deformational stratigraphic development. Each geologist interpreted the cross section to hypothesize a geological model; they also provided information about their academic and professional background. Concepts employed by each geologist were categorized (e.g., as dominantly diapirism, thrusting, extension, inversion, etc.) and analyzed statistically. Importantly, the geologists’ background and experience correlated significantly with their likelihood of having invoked the correct concepts. Those with Master's or doctoral (Ph.D.) degrees were most likely to make a successful interpretation. Analyzing the techniques employed (e.g., feature identification, horizon picking, annotation, evolutionary sketches), successful interpretations were most often obtained from using multiple techniques, particularly if they included evolutionary sketches; academic staff were notably successful because they tended to use multiple techniques. Thus, variations in prior experience are shown to bias the formation of evidence-based geological hypotheses.
Such biases in geologists are quite expected as the processes through which they develop in experts in any field are well known to cognitive psychologists. Biases include over-confidence, anchoring and adjustment, availability, and motivational bias, and the definitions of these can be found in Kahneman et al. (1982) or O'Hagan et al. (2006). All such biases occur in situations of uncertainty (such as when forming hypotheses), when various heuristics (rules of thumb) are employed subconsciously.
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Uma senhora virada nas origens eucarióticas
segunda-feira, dezembro 19, 2011
Twist in the tail of eukaryotic origins
15:18 19 December 2011 by Wendy Zukerman
Complex life may have had parasitic origins. New evidence suggests that the relatives of the mitochondria within our cells once had a tail, like many parasitic bacteria.
Life on Earth is packaged into three domains: the simple bacteria, the archaea, and the complex eukaryotes that make up most of the life we see with the naked eye.
The first eukaryotes appeared around 2 billion years ago. One popular theory suggests they did so after an immobile bacterium was ingested by an archaeon. The bacterium somehow escaped being digested and instead formed a symbiotic relationship with its consumer. As that relationship blossomed, the engulfed bacteria evolved into mitochondria – the energy producers in our cells.
Different picture
Nathan Lo at the University of Sydney in Australia and Claudio Bandi at the University of Valencia in Spain think it is time to view this serendipitous encounter in a different light. They say that a few bacteria within the Rickettsiales – the closest genetic match to mitochondria – carry genes for a flagellum, a whip-like tail that some bacteria use to propel themselves.
That suggests that the bacteria might once have been mobile, like many parasitic bacteria. "Our results indicate that the mitochondrial ancestor may have acted as a parasite rather than prey," says Lo.
Lo and Bandi focused on Midichloria mitochondrii, a relatively little-known member of the Rickettsiales. Although the Rickettsiales do not boast a flagellum, the Midichloria genome contained 26 genes that help to build one in other bacteria. "We thought, that's strange," says Lo. "Where the hell did these genes come from?"
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Phylogenomic Evidence for the Presence of a Flagellum and cbb3Oxidase in the Free-Living Mitochondrial Ancestor
Davide Sassera†,1, Nathan Lo†,2, Sara Epis1, Giuseppe D'Auria3, Matteo Montagna1, Francesco Comandatore1, David Horner4, Juli Peretó3,5,6, Alberto Maria Luciano7, Federica Franciosi7,Emanuele Ferri8, Elena Crotti9, Chiara Bazzocchi1, Daniele Daffonchio9, Luciano Sacchi10, Andres Moya3,5,11, Amparo Latorre3,5,11 and Claudio Bandi1,*
Author Affiliations
1Dipartimento di Patologia Animale, Igiene e Sanità Pubblica Veterinaria, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
2School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
3Centro Superior de Investigación en Salud Pública, Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia, Spain
4Dipartimento di Scienze Biomolecolari e Biotecnologie, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
5Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva, Universitat de València, València, Spain
6Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular, Universitat de València, València, Spain
7Dipartimento di Scienze Animali, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
8Dipartimento di Biotecnologie e Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy
9Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Alimentari e Microbiologiche, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
10Dipartimento di Biologia Animale, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
11Departament de Genètica, Universitat de València, València, Spain
*Corresponding author: E-mail: claudio.bandi@unimi.it.
Abstract
The initiation of the intracellular symbiosis that would give rise to mitochondria and eukaryotes was a major event in the history of life on earth. Hypotheses to explain eukaryogenesis fall into two broad and competing categories: those proposing that the host was a phagocytotic proto-eukaryote that preyed upon the free-living mitochondrial ancestor (hereafter FMA), and those proposing that the host was an archaebacterium that engaged in syntrophy with the FMA. Of key importance to these hypotheses are whether the FMA was motile or nonmotile, and the atmospheric conditions under which the FMA thrived. Reconstructions of the FMA based on genome content of Rickettsiales representatives—generally considered to be the closest living relatives of mitochondria—indicate that it was nonmotile and aerobic. We have sequenced the genome ofCandidatus Midichloria mitochondrii, a novel and phylogenetically divergent member of the Rickettsiales. We found that it possesses unique gene sets found in no other Rickettsiales, including 26 genes associated with flagellar assembly, and a cbb3-type cytochrome oxidase. Phylogenomic analyses show that these genes were inherited in a vertical fashion from an ancestral α-proteobacterium, and indicate that the FMA possessed a flagellum, and could undergo oxidative phosphorylation under both aerobic and microoxic conditions. These results indicate that the FMA played a more active and potentially parasitic role in eukaryogenesis than currently appreciated and provide an explanation for how the symbiosis could have evolved under low levels of oxygen.
Key words: mitochondrion, symbiosis, eukaryogenesis, Midichloria mitochondrii, rickettsiales, phylogenomics
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