The answer is YES: according to the results of The Name Experiment at the opening of the 2008 Edinburgh International Science Festival.
Past research has shown that such perceptions can become self-fulfilling prophesies, with teachers giving higher marks to children with attractive names and employers being more likely to promote those who sound successful. These new findings could help parents wishing to find the perfect name for their children.
GALLUP, Princeton NJ: The boldest scientific endeavor of its kind, the Gallup World Poll is a window into the minds of 6 billion people.
Imagine the possibilities. What could you do with constant access to the opinions and behaviors of 6 billion global citizens?
The Gallup World Poll, an entity like nothing of its kind, brings the thoughts and actions of the world’s population to life. The Gallup World Poll is a new way to view the world.
More importantly, the World Poll is the single most accurate source of global behavioral economic data in existence today — the source necessary to drive change and create new opportunities around the world.
The Dilemma: A policeman arrives at a burning truck where the driver is trapped and is about to burn to death. To save him this final agony, should the policeman shoot him?
What do YOU think?
Bishop Harries and Richard Dawkins have collaborated on several occasions to promote the proper teaching of science in UK classrooms. They discuss the Policeman’s Dilemma and mercy kiling and other strong questions of religion, science and ethics including faith schools, homosexuality and Christianity, the school curriculum and the media. They also do it rationally and respectfully.
To Richard Dawkins believing in God is like believing in a teapot orbiting Mars. Although, Dawkins says he is ‘a member of Atheists for Jesus’.
This is a fascinating video interview with Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford by Richard Dawkins, the famed evolutionary biologist, atheist and popular science writer.
Dawkins holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, a position created for him in 1995 by Charles Simonyi, the Microsoft millionaire.
Wikipedia: Cognitive science is a rapidly evolving field that deals with complex cognitive processes, intelligent systems, and the emergent behavior of large-scale real-world computational systems. It is an interdisciplinary study. It draws from converging evidence and methodology of diverse fields, including psychology, physics, neuroscience, philosophy, information science, computer science, anthropology and linguistics.
The term cognitive science was coined by Christopher Longuet-Higgins in 1973.
Who are the Celebrities in Cognitive Science?
Here are writings by and about leading thinkers in cognitive science, and critics and observers of the philosophy of mind.
Some of the great thinkers in this field are:
Michael, you created the School of Thinking (SOT). For some people that might be an unusual concept that you need a school that teaches you how to think. A lot of people are of the opinion that they know already how to think. Why is there a necessity for having a School of Thinking?
From ‘Holy Wars’ to ‘Just Wars’. Time for a change!
An Australian army general on returning from the war in Iraq said that, whether they like it or not, Australian soldiers are widely referred to as ‘Crusaders’ along with their US allies.
Has the time come to escape from the concept of ‘Holy Wars’ and to return to the concept of ‘Just Wars’?
Since the ‘Holy War’ concept was invented by Augustine of Hippo, such a move could be accomplished by Pope Benedict XVI who is not only a thinker but also an Augustinian scholar. In fact, with his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, he may have already begun to do so.
Just Wars
Before Augustine, Aristotle coined the phrase ‘Just War’ in Politics to show acceptable warfare categories. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ and was acceptable in instances such as self-defence to avoid the state’s enslavement; or to obtain an empire to benefit the inhabitants of the state. There was no concept of a holy or religious war. Then the Romans built on Aristotle’s ideas and added causa belli, wars for a just cause. In God’s War, Christopher Tyerman says: “The practical consequences of these theories lent an aura of justice to all Rome’s wars against external enemies.”
Holy Wars
Later, Rome evolved into a Christian Empire under the authority of the popes. Pax Romana came to mean Christian Peace. To the enemies of the State were now added the enemies of the Faith. Now, even heresy could be positioned as treason. Then, along comes Augustine and to ‘just cause’ he adds ‘just intent’ and that means ‘the authority of God’. Now we can have ‘Holy Wars’ because … Deus Vult! God wills it
This began the disastrous move from ‘Just Wars’ to ‘Holy Wars’. Although Augustine was no warmonger himself, his new premise provided the basis for later warmongers to up the ante. Tyerman says: “Nonetheless, Augustine had moved the justification of violence from lawbooks to liturgies, from the secular to the religious.”
In the 9th century, Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade as a ‘Holy War’ and it’s been on for young and old ever since. Holy War became an enduring obsession of the papacy, part of the papal programme … bellum Dei, a war of God.
I think we have outlived Augustine’s concept of Holy War and it would be much better if we returned to Aristotle’s earlier concept of Just War. If we could manage such a move it would be a big step on the way to the ultimate humanitarian goal … of no wars at all!
Deus Caritas Est (God is Love)
No-one is in a better position to facilitate this than the current pope. Imagine if he undid the work of his predecessor, Urban II, and preached not that “God wants war” but that “God wants peace”. What a contribution Rome could make!
He already seems to be changing the position of the church from the ‘ownership of TRUTH’ to the ’search for TRUTH’ and from ‘God is Vengeful’ to ‘God is Love’. This is indeed revolutionary stuff for a pope. Maybe he can go one more step and discredit the whole concept of ‘Holy War’ once and for all. Watch this pope, he is a world class thinker and a quiet revolutionary.
Sir Steven Runciman in his modern epic, History of the Crusades, closes with, “Holy War itself was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God.”
From ‘Holy Wars’ to ‘Just Wars’. Time for a change?
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd shows the Sydney Opera House to the Pope
as his wife, Therese Rein looks on, in Sydney on July 17, 2008.
I think a new era begins today. A genuine quantum leap. A real tangential break-away.
What if you could hold in your hand a magic wand that could, in effect, give you an additional lobe to your brain?
What if, like Aladin, you could just tap it with your finger to make it work for you?
Well, abracadabra … you can. It’s a magic wand: an additional lobe for your brain.
It’s called the iPhone3G … from Steve Jobs and his clever team …
Is it true? Is it really that good?
Yes, it is!
It can help you escape like never before.
And, mirabile dictu, just like your brain it’s completely portable. You can take it with you wherever you go.
Watch how many people throw away their Blackberries in the coming weeks and months. I’m throwing mine away today and replacing it with an additional lobe to my brain, god knows I can use one!
SEMANTIC = MEANING
•
GOOGLE may eventually be displaced by a company that harnesses the power of the SEMANTIC WEB, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.
What is the semantic web?
The semantic web is the next-generation web technology.
One example frequently given is of typing a street address which, if it had “semantic data” built into it, would link directly to a map showing its location, dispensing with the need to go to a site like Google `maps, type in the address, get the link and paste it into a document or e-mail.
••• Click through to Australian IT for more on this article …
••• Click through to video of Tim Berners-Lee on the Semantic Web
This is a new branch of psychology which focuses on the empirical study of such things as positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.
His research has demonstrated that it is possible to be happier — to feel more satisfied, to be more engaged with life, find more meaning, have higher hopes, and probably even laugh and smile more, regardless of one’s circumstances.
Positive psychology interventions can also lastingly decrease depression symptoms. The research underlying these rigorously tested interventions is presented in the July/August edition of the American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychology Association.
There are some useful resources here including the Signature Strengths Questionnaire …
