The theory of evolution is supported by so many facts that as far as science goes, it’s as irrefutable as the theory of gravity. So, the widespread ignorance and denial of natural selection is baffling. Adam Rutherford: “So far, after a trifling 149 years, Darwin’s theory of evolution has withstood all attacks. As scientists, we are obliged to continue to test it and to further scrutinise and modify its meaning. I think it is staggering how right Darwin actually is in this book.”
Author Archives: Shanta Rohse
Mobile phones and the internet, two revolutionary technologies in their own right, are merging to create a global nomadic culture based on permanent connectivity not mobility:
Humans have always migrated and travelled, without necessarily living nomadic lives. The nomadism now emerging is different from, and involves much more than, merely making journeys. A modern nomad is as likely to be a teenager in Oslo, Tokyo or suburban America as a jet-setting chief executive. He or she may never have left his or her city, stepped into an aeroplane or changed address. Indeed, how far he moves is completely irrelevant. Even if an urban nomad confines himself to a small perimeter, he nonetheless has a new and surprisingly different relationship to time, to place and to other people. Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing, says Manuel Castells, a sociologist at the Annenberg School for Communication, a part of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Miguel Guhlin on the process of building personal learning networks: “..as we externalize our thinking, it becomes less of “I am an expert expounding on what I know” and more of “I am a learner, just like you, sharing what I’m learning so that we can learn together through our common errors and maximize our breakthroughs.”
The brain has a limited capacity for self-regulation, so exerting willpower in one area often leads to backsliding in others. The good news, however, is that practice increases willpower capacity.
Diana Oblinger on what it means to be educated in the digital age: “Learners need skills that go far beyond reading, memorisation and communication. Educational institutions have an obligation to help students cultivate those skills that learners have the most difficulty attaining on their own…judgement, synthesis, research, practice and negotiation.”
Ron asks if Anthony is building a new language: “It is my own feeling that the ubiquity of computers and digital technologies means that all cultural phenomena are now available for use by Anthony and his generation and they are producing a new framework of communications within which writing is only a piece and not the whole.”
Anders Albrechtslund looks at the social aspects of surveillance, and suggests it can be seen as empowering and participatory. An interesting alternative to the usual emphasis on potential dangers live privacy invasion and fraud.
David Weinberger on why online libraries are not libraries at all: “So, even if the distributed online library we’re building at first seems sort of like a library, it will quickly invent itself into something new, something unpredictable and quite possibly, something that will change us deeply.”
Catch up or catch you later. Social media will change your business: “But here’s betting that we [professional publishers] also forge ahead in the open world. The measure of success in that world is not a finished product. The winners will be those who host the very best conversations.”
Technology can make us forget the full meaning of craftsmanship, to lose sight of its human dimension. But even in our post-industrial society, western economies continually create niche markets for fine craftsmanship like wine-making, artisanal coffee, linux software, handmade furniture.
Lots of interesting conclusions in this study about social bookmarking’s role in web search: Tags are present in the pagetext of 50% of the pages they annotate and in the titles of 16% of the pages they annotate. Tags are in context and many tagged pages would be discovered by a search engine (p.8).
A pessimist’s view of why scientists do not participate in social networking sites. According to an anonymous postdoc: “I can barely keep up iwth the literature in my field and with what my labmates are doing. Who has time to spend reading some grad student’s blog?”
Stephanie Sandifer’s point, that purposeful networking is a 21st century skill and should become part of mainstream education, is a proof-of-concept post: it would not have happened without Twitter.
Nicholoas Kristof talks about the dumbing down of discourse in America, and suggests that “the complex and incomplete solution is a greater emphasis on education at every level.”
Stories can offer so much pleasure that studying them hardly seems like work. In fact, says Brian Boyd, “Attention–engagement in the activity–matters before meaning.”
It is the biggest encyclopedia in history and the most successful example of user-generated content. The inevitable result of growing pains, all kinds of rules have been devised to measure a subject’s worthiness for inclusion in Wikipedia (or “notabilityâ€, in the jargon of Wikipedians). But now the “threshold for writing articles for Wikipedia is now so high that very few people actually do it.”
Adam Kirsch on the convergence of east and west: “…if the West has achieved things we hold sacred–as we should–it has always been the result of internal struggle. What are now the cherished principles of Western civilization, from democracy to racial equality, have all started out as critiques and became generally accepted only after long and sometimes violent conflict.”
Why are we still surprised when “non-fiction” is less than truthful? “The sad truth is that “non-fiction” has been unreliable from the beginning, no matter how finely grained a section of human knowledge we wish to consider.” The sadder truth is that journalist fact-checking and academic peer review are still the best alternatives.
Kevin Kelly does the math for artists in a networked age, and makes it all seem possible: A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
