This website includes over 150 interactive quizzes about basic sentence parts, verbs, prepositions, phrases and clauses,punctuation, pronouns, spelling and much more! In addition, clicking on the NUMBER immediately before the quiz's name will take you to the section of the Guide pertaining to the grammatical issue(s) addressed in that quiz.
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We might err, but science is self-correcting -John Krebs - Times Online
My non-scientist friends are beginning to ask me "What's gone wrong with science?" Revelations about melting glaciers and potentially dodgy emails about global warming, the resurfacing of Andrew Wakefield and the MMR scare, and the sacking of the Government's drugs adviser, have created the impression for some people that science is in a mess.
Of course science isn't in a mess, nor has anything changed. But the stories underline two important features of scientists and science...
My non-scientist friends are beginning to ask me "What's gone wrong with science?" Revelations about melting glaciers and potentially dodgy emails about global warming, the resurfacing of Andrew Wakefield and the MMR scare, and the sacking of the Government's drugs adviser, have created the impression for some people that science is in a mess.
Of course science isn't in a mess, nor has anything changed. But the stories underline two important features of scientists and science...
The Erasure of Islam -- The Philosophers' Magazine
What Enlightenment? It may have been good for Europe, but for the rest
of the world in general, and Islam in particular, the Enlightenment was
a disaster. Despite their stand for freedom and liberty, reason and
liberal thought, Enlightenment thinkers saw the non-West as irrational
and inferior, morally decadent and fit only for colonisation.Kant's Moral Philosophy
by Robert Johnson
(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - First published Mon Feb 23, 2004; substantive revision Sun Apr 6, 2008)
Kant argued that moral requirements are based on a standard of rationality he dubbed the "Categorical Imperative" (CI). Immorality thus involves a violation of the CI and is thereby irrational. Other philosophers, such as Locke and Hobbes, had also argued that moral requirements are based on standards of rationality. However, these standards were either desire-based instrumental principles of rationality or based on sui generis rational intuitions. Kant agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of practical reason will reveal only the requirement that rational agents must conform to instrumental principles. Yet he argued that conformity to the CI (a non-instrumental principle) and hence to moral requirements themselves, can nevertheless be shown to be essential to rational agency. This argument was based on his striking doctrine that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous, or free in the sense of being the author of the law that binds it. The fundamental principle of morality -- the CI -- is none other than the law of an autonomous will. Thus, at the heart of Kant's moral philosophy is a conception of reason whose reach in practical affairs goes well beyond that of a Humean 'slave' to the passions. Moreover, it is the presence of this self-governing reason in each person that Kant thought offered decisive grounds for viewing each as possessed of equal worth and deserving of equal respect.
Presentation Zen: Making presentations in the TED style
TED has earned a lot of attention over the years for many reasons, including the nature and quality of its short-form conference presentations. All presenters lucky enough to be asked to speak at TED are given 18-minute slots maximum (some are for even less time such as 3- and 6-minute slots). Some who present at TED are not used to speaking on a large stage, or are at least not used to speaking on their topic with strict time restraints. TED does not make a big deal publicly out of the TED Commandments, but many TED presenters have referenced the speaking guidelines in their talks and in their blogs over the years (e.g., Ben Saunders).
TED has earned a lot of attention over the years for many reasons, including the nature and quality of its short-form conference presentations. All presenters lucky enough to be asked to speak at TED are given 18-minute slots maximum (some are for even less time such as 3- and 6-minute slots). Some who present at TED are not used to speaking on a large stage, or are at least not used to speaking on their topic with strict time restraints. TED does not make a big deal publicly out of the TED Commandments, but many TED presenters have referenced the speaking guidelines in their talks and in their blogs over the years (e.g., Ben Saunders).
PsyBlog
This website is all about you and me. It's about understanding how our minds work and why we think and act the way we do. Of course bookshop shelves groan with this sort of material in the self-help section, but this site has one crucial difference with much of that material: PsyBlog focuses on scientific psychology. Research covered here has been published in reputable academic journals in many different areas of psychology.
This website is all about you and me. It's about understanding how our minds work and why we think and act the way we do. Of course bookshop shelves groan with this sort of material in the self-help section, but this site has one crucial difference with much of that material: PsyBlog focuses on scientific psychology. Research covered here has been published in reputable academic journals in many different areas of psychology.
A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash by Amy Harmon -NYTimes
ORANGE PARK, Fla. -- David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote "Evolution" in the rectangle of light on the screen.
He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.
"If I do this wrong," Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, "I'll lose him."
Infant Transplant Procedure Ignites Debate
Ethicists Question Strategy in Which Hearts Are Removed Minutes After They Stop Beating
By Rob Stein -Washington Post
Surgeons in Denver are publishing their first account of a procedure in which they remove the hearts of severely brain-damaged newborns less than two minutes after the babies are disconnected from life support, and their hearts stop beating, so the organs can be transplanted into infants who would otherwise die.
The Boundaries of Organ Donation after Circulatory Death
The New England Journal of Medicine
In the August 14, 2008 issue of the Journal, Boucek et al. report on three cases of heart transplantation from infants who were pronounced dead on the basis of cardiac criteria. Moderator Atul Gawande, of Harvard Medical School; George Annas, of the Boston University School of Public Health; Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania; and Robert Truog, of Harvard Medical School discuss key ethical aspects of organ donation after cardiac death.
Perspective Roundtable: Organ Donation after Cardiac Death (Flash Video)
1. Introduction
2. Criteria for Death
3. Dying vs. Dead
4. Rethinking the Dead Donor Rule
5. Public Trust
6. Consent and Prognosis
7. Conclusions
Bring Clarity to Writing | ThinkSimpleNow.com
Have you ever read an email from someone that was too wordy, lacked focus, and left you confused? How can we learn from reading such emails to improve our own communication? How do we compose emails and writings that others will actually want to read?
The ability to write clearly is crucial to getting your message across no matter what you're writing, whether it's an email, a blog post, a magazine article, or a letter to a friend. Clear and concise writing is vital to having your words read and understood.
English wiki browser by chainofthoughts.com
Type in a subject you would like to research and this generates a list (you choose its length) of related keywords and topics. You can visit a Wikipedia page at any time or continue navigating through the related keywords until you find what you want. It is a very cool way of diversifying a research effort.
Ever wonder where your donations go when you give to charity by mail or over the phone? On average, commercial fundraisers deliver just 46 cents of each donated dollar to the charity. Some charities enjoy much better success, but in other cases ineffective fundraisers can take all the money that's raised.
To see how your favorite charities or causes did from 1997-2006, search our database. You can look up individual causes like St. Jude's Hospital and The Heritage Foundation, browse by charity types like animal welfare and disaster relief, or just page through the whole list.
THE BERTRAND RUSSELL SOCIETY
Writings by Russell on the Web
A list of electronic texts of Russell's books and essays.
See also: Another excellent resource for texts east and west:
The Philosophy Pages at www.davemckay.co.uk
...a chronological list of Russell's books and essays.
From Big Bang to Us - Made Easy -A recently completed youtube series on Science and the history of the Universe. The 'Made Easy' series is designed to explain the evidence that shows how we got here, from the Big bang to human migration out of Africa. A better quality version will soon be available for free download from a website -- details to be announced. I will be happy to send DVDs free of charge to schools after the series is finished. (Full 11-part series)
By Potholer54 - I've been a journalist for 20 years, 14 years as a science correspondent. My degree is in geology, but while working for a science magazine and several science programs I had to tackle a number of different fields, from quantum physics to microbiology. My particular talent was my ignorance. By not understanding half of what I was assigned to cover, I had to reduce scientific discoveries from the complex to the simple. If I wrote it in a way that I could understand it, then my readers could understand it.
BBC/OU Open2.net - Ethics Bites Podcast - Practical ethics
We make decisions all the time. Some of these can be trivial (should I wear the white or the blue shirt?) and some can be important (should we operate or leave the patient to die?). Some of these decisions will involve thoughts about ourselves and what we want (where should we go for the weekend?) and some thoughts about other people (should we close the firm and make everyone redundant?). Some of these decisions will involve tastes and appetites (which chocolate?) and others questions of morals and ethics (should I tell my partner about my affair?)...
In the Ethics Bites you'll hear some of the leading contemporary philosophers talking about a whole range of issues. Some of these deal directly with ethical theory - for example, Miranda Fricker talking about making moral judgements about people6 distant from us in time or space - and some with issues of immediate practical relevance - for example, Peter Singer on the treatment of animals1.
Justice In The Brain: Equity And Efficiency Are Encoded Differently -Science Daily
Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share" A study appearing in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity.
The study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and the California Institute of Technology, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of people making a series of tough decisions about how to allocate donations to children in a Ugandan orphanage.
The researchers hoped to shed light on the neurological underpinnings of moral decision-making, said co-principal investigator Ming Hsu, a fellow at the U. of I.'s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
"Morality is a question of broad interest," Hsu said. "What makes us moral, and how do we make tradeoffs in difficult situations?"
Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions By Michael Le Page - New Scientist
If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it
It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking - that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.
Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.
THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY:, Exploring Mythology & the Greek Gods in Classical Literature & Art
The site now contains more than 1,500 pages profiling the Greek gods and other characters from Greek mythology and 1,200 full sized pictures.
The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all.
Was there a time or place in history in which censorship did not exist? Was there ever a group of human beings that was able to survive without censure? These questions precede and introduce The File Room, and locate censorship as a complex concept ingrained in our conscious/subconscious reality. Despite the impossible nature of attempting to define censorship, The File Room is a project that proposes to address it, providing a tool for discussing and coming to terms with cultural censorship.
Welcome to the largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.
The Skeptic's Dictionary provides definitions, arguments, and essays on subjects supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. I use the term "occult" to refer to any and all of these subjects. The reader is forewarned that The Skeptic's Dictionary does not try to present a balanced account of occult subjects. If anything, this book is a Davidian counterbalance to the Goliath of occult literature. I hope that an occasional missile hits its mark. Unlike David, however, I have little faith, and do not believe Goliath can be slain. Skeptics can give him a few bumps and bruises, but our words will never be lethal. Goliath cannot be taken down by evidence and arguments. However, many of the spectators may be swayed by our performance and recognize Goliath for what he often is: a false messiah. It is especially for the younger spectators that this book is written. I hope to expose Goliath's weaknesses so that the reader will question his strength and doubt his promises.
How to Write Faster, Better, and Easier
If you are a writer, you've probably wished that you could write faster, better, and easier. I have too. I've been writing for many years now and I've found some tricks that help. They just may help you too! Everyone has their own system, but sometimes learning about another person's system can flip a switch that enables you to improve your writing.
