(Part 3) Top products from r/science

Geoffrey Miller and other evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that our intellect has come more from sexual selection than natural selection. A simplified version of their idea is that some of our more abstract abilities, such as the ability to produce music and other forms of art, evolved for the purpose of impressing other possible mates. He wrote a book called "The Mating Mind" that covers this subject in a lot of detail.

His Wikipedia page ) has this explanation:
"Miller believes that our minds evolved not as survival machines, but as courtship machines, and proposes that the human mind's most impressive abilities are courtship tools that evolved to attract and entertain sexual partners. By switching from a survival-centred to a courtship-centred view of evolution, he attempts to show how we can understand the mysteries of mind. The main competing theories of human mental evolution are (1) selection for generalist foraging ability (i.e., hunting and gathering), as embodied in the work of researchers such as Hillard Kaplan and Kim Hill at the University of New Mexico, and (2) selection for social intelligence, as argued by Andrew Whiten, Robin Dunbar, and Simon Baron-Cohen."

Well, "as far as you know" happens to be dead wrong. Gödel never recognized that at all. His final paper in the Einstein tribute book was Gödel's attempt at a proof for physical platonic theory by proving time to be ideal.

Gödel loved him some Plato and Leibniz.

Check out "The Disappearance of Time: Kurt Godel and the Idealistic Tradition in Philosophy."
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2346/is_n409_v103/ai_14916956

But I do love the GEB!

Here's another book pointing out this Gödel-platonic link...
http://www.amazon.com/Incompleteness-Proof-Paradox-Godel-Discoveries/dp/0393051692

Sorry to burst your bubble. But I hope this helps you understand Gödel's view of his theory better!

Many people, myself included, have used them as sort of a stepping stone to quitting. I think the draw is that the liquid comes with various concentrations of nicotine, and you can gradually reduce your intake down to 0mg juice.

My personal experience was that using e-cigs was kind of a pain in the ass, and ultimately, I was still a slave to the addiction, regardless of the nicotine content. It does not help, and if anyone thinks it does, just wait until your battery dies and you'll be scrounging for a real cigarette.

The bottom line here is that the chemical addiction of cigarettes is super super weak, and this is why even your hardcore 2-pack-a-day smokers who can't go 20 minutes without lighting up can sleep through 8 hours of withdrawls without a problem. The addiction is a matter of brainwashing into believing that cigarettes (real or fake) are something you need and want and that quitting means you're having to do without something you need or having to give up something that you want. E-cigs only serve to perpetuate that notion.

What helped me was reading this book. It took me two days, and after the second day, I went home, chucked all my e-cig gear in the trash and never looked back. I smoked for 18 years, and now I can't even take a drag without choking like a first-timer on an after school special.

For those who may be interested in quitting, here is a PDF version of the book. I hope it helps:

http://www.mediafire.com/?9j5bvs6235cyeef

If you don't like the idea of pirating this book, feel free to pay for it or get it from the library. Personally, if buying/renting it is going to keep you from reading it, I'd rather provide you with an easier option in the hopes that it will be the difference between reading and not reading it.

I'd really recommend Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. The entire purpose of the book is to explain relativity and quantum physics to laymen. Has some really good explanations and great "scenarios" that can help describe the physics.

A well reasoned view from an evolutionary psychologist G. Miller in his book The Mating Mind is that our intelligence is nothing more than a sexual showoff like a peacock tail. It has no survival value and therefore didn't have to evolve. At the same time, many birds show off their tails of different designs. and other sexual games are played in many versions so it's reasonable to expect intelligence to evolve more than once too.

http://www.amazon.com/Mating-Mind-Sexual-Choice-Evolution/dp/038549517X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248464914&sr=8-1

There's a great book on the topic "Wonderful Life". Good reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Life-Burgess-Nature-History/dp/039330700X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254329511&sr=1-2

Yes, they do. I just read Einstein's Telescope about using large masses, even black holes and even galaxies (and galaxy clusters) as telescopic mirrors. Great book about some leading edge science.

OK, I just finished your comment. The light does not come back at you, at least not enough. What you get is bending of life from far away and the bend tells you about the thing doing the bending.

If you like Feynman, you might try the Feynman Lectures on Physics, which is a 3-book set covering everything from mechanics to QM to E&M to fluid dynamics. It definitely has that Feynman charm to it. It won't give you the math overview, though, but you're probably better off just picking that up as you go if you've already had calc. If you go much further you'll eventually want linear algebra, though.

I highly recommend Luca Turin's biography, The Emperor of Scent, if you're interested in this stuff. An excellent read.

I thought Genome by Matt Ridley was a pretty good book for the uninitiated.
http://www.amazon.com/Genome-Autobiography-Species-Chapters-P-S/dp/0060894083/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265351344&sr=8-1

But this wiki sounds much more promising. I think there are a variety of open source textbooks out there.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/General_Biology

Going to go ahead and recommend Einstein's Telescope by Evelyn Gates. Great read on dark matter and dark energy for the scientifically literate non-expert.

there is a really good book on the subject called the "emperor of scent"
http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Scent-Perfume-Obsession-Mystery/dp/0375507973
it is the story of one researchers pursuit to answer that very question.
spoiler alert:
it seems that chirality and the IR signature of molecules give them their scent, I don't think that is the whole story, but there are good arguments that these factors play a role. Look into boranes and carvone.

Am currently reading the book "Incompleteness: the Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel":

http://www.amazon.com/Incompleteness-Proof-Paradox-Godel-Discoveries/dp/0393051692

One of the suggestions the author makes is that, according to a Platonist like Godel, mathematics is as empirical as any other science form. This contrasts with the logical positivist perspective of asserting that mathematics and logic are language games and thus mathematical truths are simply bound by the nature of the syntax of mathematical language (and thus do not actually say anything verifiable or otherwise true).

Godel's position is a bit more complex than I've described above, per the book. According to the author, one of Godel's assertions was that reality was a priori. That is, all of reality is bound by the nature of mathematical truth (and therefore, if you accept the Platonist position, then nothing is ever inherently empirical, or everything is inherently empirical).

Not knowing enough about the fundamentals of mathematics, I cannot give a suitable position either way, but just saying that there are some who claim that mathematics is as empirical as any other real science.

If you're looking for a very simple intro, try Isaac Asimov's Understanding Physics.

If you want something more in-depth and you're comfortable learning some math as well, try Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics.

If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend Richard Leakey's The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind.

To those interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335808328&sr=8-1

No, not really. First of all the Big Bang was not an explosion of light and heat that we could "see" (unlike, say, a supernova) but a rapid expansion of space. That's all space, including the bit we're riding along on. Space is expanding everywhere - so everywhere we look, galaxies are rushing away from us. It's really hard to wrap one's mind around; try to think of a bunch of magic marker dots on a balloon you're blowing up. What direction would an ant on one of those dots look to find the origin of the expansion?

As far as the time travel idea, a crude analogy might be to suggest that when you look at the sun - the light from which is eight minutes old - you aren't traveling backwards in time; it just took a few minutes for the sunlight to reach you. Likewise when we see the light from far away stars, it just took a really really fucking long time to get here, so we're seeing light as it was emitted aeons ago.

We can detect cosmic microwave background radiation, which is pretty interesting stuff. It's also relevant here because it's uniformly distributed everywhere we look. Where is its origin if it's uniformly distributed?

[edit] I highly recommend you read Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos for starters.

An interesting al though controversial book is Race Evolution and Behavior by Rushton.

http://www.amazon.com/Race-Evolution-Behavior-History-Perspective/dp/0965683613

The Bell Curve is probably a good one to read too.

For another side you might want to read Gould's Mismeasure of Man.

http://www.amazon.com/Mismeasure-Man-Stephen-Jay-Gould/dp/0393314251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269821208&sr=1-1

No. They "could" be, however based on spectral analysis already done on these worlds they most likely contain toxic atmospheres. Just because a rock is in the habitable zone of a star there are many, MANY more thinks needed. If you are interested in this, there is a great book called the Rare Earth

http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Complex-Uncommon-Universe/dp/0387987010

I studied Planetary GeoScience at the University of Arizona, this book is scientifically sound, and, a pretty light read- there are some parts that get very data heavy and technical but over all its a really gives you something to think about.

The Code Book by Simon Singh.

Amazing history and explanation of cryptography, all the way from ancient ciphers to theorized quantum stuff.

"Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History", where Stephen J. Gould examines and critiques an interpretation of the Cambrian Explosion by its discoverer, Charles Walcot. This critique of Walcot's assumption of evolution towards higher and higher forms. For example the classic monkey to man illustration, with its intermediate hominids.

During this critique, he takes you through all the back ground info, from the anoxic ocean basins that became the various shales, to the classification of fauna to the detail of types of leg joints.

http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Life-Burgess-Nature-History/dp/039330700X

All the other books people are mentioning are light fare: Read this - http://www.amazon.com/The-Feynman-Lectures-Physics-Volume/dp/0201021153

It will take you from zero science knowledge to a lot. The explanations and teaching methods are excellent.

Check this book out if you like. It seems to work.

edit: ocm09876 also recommended this book, just noticed.

In Your Inner Fish -- one of the best general audience science books I've read in a year or more --author Neil Shubin describes how he and his team predicted where a particular "transitional" fossil might be found, travelled there, and indeed found the fossils they were looking for. It's an interesting story, and the book as a whole is excellent at not only explaining evolution from various perspectives but fostering a sense of connection with all life (well, that's how it struck me, anyway).

They are keeping you vaporheads in their revenue stream. Quit the easy way with Allen Carr. Stop giving money to Big Tobacco.

This is one my favorite science books that I've read:

Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe

A good read on a related topic is The Deep Hot Biosphere by Thomas Gold

I highly recommend reading Phantoms in the Brain by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, where he discusses this topic and qualia's physiological basis.

You may be interested in The Mismeasure of Man. I've only just begun the book so I'm not in a position to say whether it's compelling, but it purports to demolish the idea of IQ.

Slowly becoming accepted by many biologists, palaeontologists, archaeologists, etc.

Holocene Extinction event.

Quaternary Extinction Event

News article from 11 years ago.

News article from 10 days ago.

A book on the subject.

An essay from 1995 by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin.

Consider reading The Mismeasure of Man by Steven Jay Gould.

It is a good intro to questions like What is Intelligece? What is IQ? How has IQ testing been abused in the past? [This last has some tragically hilarious examples].

There's a book about exactly this theory called The Deep Hot Biosphere by Gold. I've read it and it's very thought provoking, and well worth reading.

Phantoms in the Brain is a great book by Ramachandran concerning what we can learn about how the brain works by studying brain damage and diseases.

I did not see him try to shut you up. He tried to clarify your question and then suggested where an answer had already been given.

If you are genuinely interested in the thinking behind the theory, rather than just being rude to those you disagree with, I suggest reading "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin, the discoverer of the Tiktaalik fossil. It is a well written accessible account of how the fossil record and our physiology show a clear evolutionary route from earlier body plans such as fish to the body plan of mammals (including humans). He is especially good on this point of how we have inherited this strange wiring plan for our nerves.

Read it if you like. Then try and take apart the actual detailed argument rather than attacking a snapshot from a TV show.

For those wanting to learn more about how this quantum photon based encryption came about, and much more, check out The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Let me know if you find Einstein's Bridge anywhere in there.

Somehow equip us all with these and we can experience something new and profound...possibly. Reminds me of the 'mind reading' aspects described in The Secret Life of Plants.

If this interests you, check out the Book [The Secret Life of Plants] (http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Plants-Peter-Tompkins/dp/0060915870)

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, by Matt Ridley

Read Animal Liberation

Please source your quotations. Are we assuming this is a child of a primitive hunter/gather family or a modern omnivorious family or a modern vegetarian family or a feral child with no upbringing?

edit: Not surprising you didn't source it, the only other place on the internet this quote can be found is a world of warcraft forum and they source it as a quote from the book Animal Liberation

I've not read the book, you wouldn't happen to have the source of the study they cite in the book for this fact would you?