The Greatest Unsolved Problems
In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute published a list of seven unsolved problems in mathematics called the Millennium Prize Problems. There is a prize of US$1,000,000 for solving each problem.One of these problems has already been solved. In 1900, David Hilbertpublished a list of 23 unsolved problems in mathematics. Looking at the status of these problems on Wikipedia, only five of them remain unresolved.
Although there are many unsolved problems in science and mathematics, we have been making steady progress in solving open problems. Fermat’s Last Theorem was conjectured in 1637 and was solved in 1995. The four color theorem was stated in 1852 and proven in 1976. Throughout human history we seem to be systematically progressing and accumulating scientific knowledge.
5 important problems are as follows:
1) Theory of Everything, 2) Intelligence, 3) Dark Energy and Dark Matter, 4) One-way Functions, 5) Abiogenesis.
Full article over at Byron Knoll
Pope asks doctors to deny abortions
Pope Benedict XVI has urged doctors to protect women from the “deceptive” thought that an abortion might be a solution to social or economic difficulties or health problems.
The Pope reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s firm opposition to abortion in a speech to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican’s bioethics advisory board.
He argued that women are often convinced, sometimes by their own doctors, that abortion is a legitimate choice and in some cases even a therapeutic act to prevent their babies from suffering.
Saying “abortion solves nothing”, he called on doctors not to give up their duty to defend the consciences of women from such “deception”.
Catholic Church teaching holds that human life begins at conception.
Full article via Independent (IE)
Jedi-ism, Britain’s fourth-largest religion.
In 2001, when the last Census of the UK was carried out, nearly 400,000 people claimed “Jedi” as their religion. Not only did this confirm Jedi-ism as a religion in the UK – but meant it was the fourth largest, with more followers than Judaism or Buddhism.
With the 2011 Census forms sealed in their envelopes and ready to post to households across Britain, numerous Facebook groups have been created to encourage even more people to put their faith in the ‘Force’ and claim to be Jedis.
The religion question is the only voluntary question on the form but Mr Benton says that the responses directly affect community services. “People are developing their local policy and activities on the basis of this information. I would urge people to give an accurate response,” he said.
The Times sent a video team to one of the largest Star Wars memorabilia shops in the UK to find out just who considers themselves a Jedi.
Via Richard Dawkins – Full article at The Times (paywall)
On this day in history: Derren Brown born.
Derren Victor Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English magician, mentalist, painter and self-professed sceptic regarding paranormal phenomena.
Your comments welcome.
Evolution, Creationism, and the ‘Cautious 60 Percent’
“The recent headlines were disturbing:
13% of H.S. Biology Teachers Advocate Creationism in Class
Troubling: 13% of Biology Teachers Supporting Creationism
13% of US biology teachers advocate creationism: Welcome to 2011
These articles were responding to a commentary in Science by Penn State political scientists Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer (“Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom”; 28 January 2011). Berkman and Plutzer’s research — detailed in several articles and a book–involves large surveys of science teachers. In this most recent study, 926 public high school biology teachers were surveyed, and 13 percent reported “explicitly advocat[ing] creationism or intelligent design.”
The 13 percent number is bad — 1 in 8 public school biology instructors teaches creationism. As the headlines above show, most reporting focused on this 13 percent. But Berkman and Plutzer identified an even greater problem: a “cautious 60 percent” of teachers who, while not preaching creationism, nevertheless fail to be “strong advocates for evolutionary biology.”
Berkman and Plutzer write,
The cautious 60 percent may play a far more important role in hindering scientific literacy in the United States than the smaller number of explicit creationists.
There are more of these cautious teachers, and their reluctance to present evolution forthrightly not only impedes their students in learning biology, but also undermines understanding of the nature of science. They fail to teach evolution in the way recommended by the nation’s leading scientific organizations, such as the National Research Council — as the central, unifying principle of the life sciences.
Why is “neutrality” toward evolution such a disaster for college-bound kids?
Evolution is the foundation of biology. Just as geologists cannot decipher the earth’s features without plate tectonics, and physicists cannot understand the interaction of light and matter without quantum electrodynamics, biologists cannot explain the diversity of life on earth without evolution. Trying to teach biology without evolution is like teaching auto mechanics without discussing engines. Teachers should not be neutral toward evolution because scientists are not neutral about evolution.”
Read more at Huffington Post (Thanks Annette M)
How Joshua trained his brain and became a world-class memory athlete
“Sitting to my left was Ram Kolli, an unshaven 25-year-old business consultant from Richmond, Va., who was also the defending United States memory champion. To my right was the lens of a television camera from a national cable network. Spread out behind me, where I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t disturb me, were about 100 spectators and a pair of TV commentators offering play-by-play analysis. One was a blow-dried mixed martial arts announcer named Kenny Rice, whose gravelly, bedtime voice couldn’t conceal the fact that he seemed bewildered by this jamboree of nerds. The other was the Pelé of U.S. memory sport, a bearded 43-year-old chemical engineer and four-time national champion from Fayetteville, N.C., named Scott Hagwood. In the corner of the room sat the object of my affection: a kitschy, two-tiered trophy of a silver hand with gold nail polish brandishing a royal flush. It was almost as tall as my 2-year-old niece (if lighter than most of her stuffed animals).
The audience was asked not to take any flash photographs and to maintain total silence. Not that Kolli or I could possibly have heard them. Both of us were wearing earplugs. I also had on a pair of industrial-strength earmuffs that looked as if they belonged to an aircraft-carrier deckhand (in the heat of a memory competition, there is no such thing as deaf enough). My eyes were closed. On a table in front of me, lying face down between my hands, were two shuffled decks of playing cards. In a moment, the chief arbiter would click a stopwatch, and I would have five minutes to memorize the order of both decks.”
Read the rest at NY Times (Thanks Christopher C)
Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don’t Know
“The number of traits chalked up as “distinctly human” seem to dwindle each year. And now, we can’t even say that we’re uniquely aware of the limits of our knowledge: It seems that some monkeys understand uncertainty too.
A team of researchers taught macaques how to maneuver a joystick to indicate whether the pixel density on a screen was sparse or dense. Given a pixel scenario, the monkeys would maneuver a joystick to a letter S (for sparse) or D (for dense). They were given a treat when they selected the correct answer, but when they were wrong, the game paused for a couple seconds. A third possible answer, though, allowed the monkeys to select a question mark, and thereby forgo the pause (and potentially get more treats).
And as John David Smith, a researcher at SUNY Buffalo, and Michael Beran, a researcher at Georgia State University, announced at the AAAS meeting this weekend, the macaques selected the question mark just as humans do when they encounter a mind-stumping question. As Smith told the BBC, “Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error…. They seem to know when they don’t know.””
Read more at Discover (Thanks Christopher C)
Derren Brown (the artist) show now at Rebecca Hossack Gallery
Last night was the opening of the new art show for Derren’s latest works. The gallery will be showing them from 24th Feb until 12 March at 28 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2NA. The gallery is free and you can just turn up – but please check the opening times and details on their website by clicking here.
Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity
Irish Times: TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity.
Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.
They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”.
They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”.
They claim the Catholic Church “acquires its members through a compulsory act, namely, through the baptism of infants that do not yet have a will of their own”. This act was “irrevocable” and is buttressed by threats of excommunication and the fires of hell.
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
“Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.
For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century.”
Read more at The Times
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