5 Posts Found

Forty-two percent of Americans say that humans were created in their present form within the past 10,000 years — a percentage that hasn’t changed much since 1982, when Gallup started polling views on evolution.

Several lines of evidence, from the fossil record, comparative anatomy, and genetics, tell another story. But you don’t have to read all the research to find signs of our evolutionary history — … [ Read more ]

Sources: Vox, YouTube (March 17, 2016) | Subjects: Health & Medicine, Math & Science

Over and over, people would overestimate the degree of control they had over events — smart people, people who excelled at many things, people who should have known better… The more they overestimated their own skill relative to luck, the less they learned from what the environment was trying to tell them, and the worse their decisions became… The illusion of control is what prevented … [ Read more ]

Authors: Maria Konnikova, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (December 8, 2020) | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Math & Science, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

The notion that the ability to remember new information often depends on prior knowledge of the topic is well known. Now, researchers in Edinburgh, Tokyo, and Trondheim, Norway, have conducted a study that helps answer one of the most important questions in neuroscience: Why is it that the more people know, the more they can learn?

Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2007) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Math & Science

There are many cookbook formulas for calculating probability, and they are useful at times. However, it is more fun to use logical thinking when tackling a probability problem, and you will be more confident that you have the correct answer.

One example is a computer game on Windows called “FreeCell.” It has 32,000 unique games in memory that randomly come up when you play a new … [ Read more ]

Author: Don A. Dechman | Source: The Bent (Tau Beta Pi), page 49 (Spring2001) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Math & Science, Miscellaneous

Virtually all civilizations, from the Greek and the ancient Mayan to our own, are united by a determined quest for evidence of harmony in the cosmos.

Author: Anthony Aveni | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Winter2001) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Math & Science, Philosophy