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Humans and their flaws

published by s.b.f on 6 November, 2009 - 22:54

Okay, so I am currently reading a book called 'Evolution and Healing' by Randolph Nesse and George Williams.

I always read the Preface first.

SO they begin by talking about the fact that Ageing has an evolutionary explanation. And they question why anxiety does not have a similiar explanation as well as disorders like Schizophrenia.

Okay so moving on from the Preface, Chapter 1 has the heading 'The Mystery Of Disease'.

And the first paragraph starts:

Why, in a body of such exquisite design, are there thousands flaws and frailties that make us vulnerable to disease?

The second sentence says:

How messy it all is

published by s.b.f on 5 November, 2009 - 21:39

The argument of this fascinating and deeply provoking book is easy to summarise: among rich countries, the more unequal ones do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator you can imagine.

The evidence that Wilkinson and Pickett supply to make their case is overwhelming. Whether the test is life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity levels, crime rates, literacy scores, even the amount of rubbish that gets recycled, the more equal the society the better the performance invariably is.

Death of Language

published by s.b.f on 17 October, 2009 - 16:02

The death of language?

An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades. What is lost when a language dies?

In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist.

"Most people are not at all interested in the death of languages," he says. "If we are not cautious about the way English is progressing it may eventually kill most other languages."

What is lost?

Understanding

published by s.b.f on 15 October, 2009 - 01:18

SS soldiers guard a church whilst the church burns down with people inside.

Everyone dies in the fire except one woman who is there to give evidence in court.

The SS soldiers refuse to open the doors whilst everyone in there screams to be let out.

One woman who was the soldier saw her role as the guard. 'There would be chaos if they are all let out. How do we control the chaos?'

She is illiterate and ashamed of it.

What is there to understand?

Good ol' Obama and his Nobel Prize

published by s.b.f on 9 October, 2009 - 21:17

The Nobel Peace Prize 2009 went to Barack Obama
"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

Nobel prize 2009

US President Barack Obama has said he was "surprised and deeply humbled" to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, less than 10 months into his presidency.

Speaking at the White House hours after the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee named him as a surprise winner, he said the award should be a "call to action".

The world faced challenges that "cannot be met by one person or by one nation alone," Mr Obama said.

The committee said he won for efforts to boost diplomacy and co-operation.

Contributing in something good without Islamic intention

published by s.b.f on 28 September, 2009 - 00:52

The title probably made no sense.

The idea is to become a facilitator of a Youth Group. What children are taught is to think about the world around them, how to work with people, how to accept people, encourage them to learn...

The ideas are from text from a different religion that isn't Islam.

So will it be wrong to teach children these ideas which are great and humanifying...but where the foundation is from a different religion which isn't Islam?

Hope that made sense.

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