February 3, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Anne Whiting (Core ’11, CAS 13) observes that the homework in CC202 involves, sometimes, trawling videos on YouTube. Behold: The Three Boys – The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote) by Mozart A clip from Ingmar Bergman’s 1976 film version of Mozart’s opera. NB: This version will be screened next week, on Monday and Tuesday February 7th […]
February 3, 2011 at 11:52 am
The word ‘fact’ is always likely to make biologists tremble in their boots, as there are so many exceptions to every rule; but one such ‘fact’ is virtually certain about oxygenic photosynthesis – it only evolved once. — Nick Lane, in his discussion of the evolution of photosynthesis, page 73, in Life Ascending: The Ten […]
February 2, 2011 at 12:01 pm
The chimeric ancestor of the eukaryotes apparently succumbed to an invasion of jumping genes from its mitochondria. — Nick Lane, in his discussion of the evolution of cellular complexity, page 115, in Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, a book now studied in CC106: Biodiversity
February 2, 2011 at 10:35 am
In this view, any science begins in the nothingness of ignorance, constructing theories as facts accumulate. In such a world, debunking would be primarily negative, for it would only shuck some rotten apples from the barrel of accumulated knowledge. But the barrel of theory is always full; sciences work with elaborated contexts for explaining facts […]
February 2, 2011 at 10:34 am
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published a piece detailing various perspectives on the problem of people from the other– namely, that we are inclined to orient ourselves to favour people like “us” and treat less positively people “like them:” Are we just boringly binary? And why, as both Rodney King and distinguished science writer […]
February 1, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Whoever examines in detail the actions of Severus, will find him to have been a very ferocious lion and an extremely astute fox, and will find him to have been feared and respected by all and not hated by the army; and will not be surprised that he, a new man, should have been able […]
February 1, 2011 at 2:12 pm
In his lecture last week for CC102 on Aristotle’s concept of virtue, Prof. David Bronstein made a fascinating point about Aristotle’s understanding of the relationship between virtue and pleasure. Prof. Bronstein explains: Does it feel good to be virtuous? Hear what Aristotle has to say: We may even go so far as to state that […]
February 1, 2011 at 12:15 pm
The Economist summarizes a new book by James Miller, Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche, wherein he explores the troubled lives of some of the world’s most famous philosophers. He proposes that the pursuit of philosophical questions, wrought with uncertainty and self-questioning, has led to similarly unfortunately troubled lives: If one wanted to compile a […]
January 31, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Core Lectures this week: CC102: Professor Denecke on Confucius 2/1 CC106: Professor Hudon on “How has biodiversity changed over the ages?” 2/1 CC106: Professor Finnerty on “What is a gene and how are genes organized in genomes?” 2/3 CC202: Professor Wates on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 2/1 CC202: Professor Lockwood on African American Inequality – The […]
January 31, 2011 at 3:53 pm
When I am traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose opera The Magic Flute will be examined in Prof. Roye Wates’ lecture tomorrow afternoon for the students […]
