Applied evolution

jkh0 — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:10:26 +0000

The medical establishment needs more and better understanding of evolution, particularly the emerging field of applied evolution, because ‘…progress is being hampered by the many medics who still tend to conceive of the body as a machine designed by an engineer, when in fact it is a “bundle of compromises … designed to maximise reproduction, not health”‘.

Read original article in New Scientist magazine.

Getting started

jkh0 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:17:41 +0000

I am starting a blog. It needs a name. It needs a purpose. It needs a subject matter. It needs ongoing feeding and care; it must jostle for position among myriad activities already competing for my attention. It needs an audience.

Working title: Modest Notions, suggesting both Kesey and Swift, edgy intellectuality.

Its purpose is to capture the more worthwhile thoughts that flutter by, briefly repose, then rapidly depart.

To keep stress low, commitment must be low. But value must be high. So the idea is short, pithy, Nietzschean observations, analyses, commentaries, and provocations.

Initially there will be no particular topical focus. Whatever has occupied my thoughts recently, and to which I can apply some illumination, is eligible. Likely candidates include words, etymology, languages (natural and artificial), epistemology, cosmology, exercise, health, disease, mythology, writing, intelligence (natural and artificial), rhetoric, books, music, jazz, improvisation, poetry, drama, authors, composers, psychology, philosophy, religion, doctrine, certainty, skepticism, truth, paradox, symmetry, beauty, family, power, politics, wit, satire, irony, sarcasm, self-help, math, biology, physics, culture, business, complex systems, and interesting ideas of varying creeds and colors.

I hope that other people will find it stimulating. Please participate. For those who participate in good faith, there are no rules.

Associations:
- ‘Anything Goes’, Cole Porter
- ‘Ignore All Rules’, Wikipedia
- Paradox