| Human-rabbit hybrid stem cell experiments in China |
[Jan. 15th, 2004|06:22 pm] |
Пока в журнале у ![[info]](http://lj.rossia.org/img/userinfo-lj.gif) avva@lj дебатируют кому и за что пересаживать органы, китайцы растят человеко-кроликов :)
Human-rabbit embryos intensify stem cell debate
P.S. Я наконец-то разобрался, как надо читать аввин журнал. Лучше всего это делается по the subject view. Психологически значимые записи собирают > 70 комментариев.
Collaborative filtering in action! |
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| recursive thinking: fractals? |
[Jan. 15th, 2004|06:45 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  excited | ] |
Puzzled monkeys reveal key language step
The key cognitive step that allowed humans to become the only animals using language may have been identified, scientists say.
"Recursive ability is uniquely human and effects more than just our language, but most of our behaviour," says renowned primate language expert David Premack....
Mastery of the underlying rule of recursion is the key to human flexibility, Premack believes, allowing humans to think in the abstract, use metaphors and comprehend concepts such as time. It probably arose as the brain evolved into a more complex organ, but is not located in a single brain region.
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This is really awesome! This may mean that fractal thinking/perception algorithms can be a lot more successful then the linear ones. They also provide a lot better data compression for memories.
Need to find out more about the guy's work.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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[Jan. 15th, 2004|07:19 pm] |
Edward Kennedy finally got it right: President Bush marketed the war on Iraq as a "political product" to influence the 2002 elections and is doing so again this year.
The problem is the Democrats don't have a competing product, only competing candidates. |
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| Koran. Modern studies |
[Jan. 15th, 2004|11:07 pm] |
A series of articles in January 99 Atlantic Monthly on modern studies of the history of Koran.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/koran.htm
The orthodox Muslim view of the Koran as self-evidently the Word of God, perfect and inimitable in message, language, style, and form, is strikingly similar to the fundamentalist Christian notion of the Bible's "inerrancy" and "verbal inspiration" that is still common in many places today.
The Koran takes great care to stress this common monotheistic heritage, but it works equally hard to distinguish Islam from Judaism and Christianity. ... it reminds readers that it is "A Koran in Arabic, / For people who understand." Despite its repeated assertions to the contrary, however, the Koran is often extremely difficult for contemporary readers -- even highly educated speakers of Arabic -- to understand.
GERD-R. Puin speaks with disdain about the traditional willingness, on the part of Muslim and Western scholars, to accept the conventional understanding of the Koran. "The Koran claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or 'clear,'" he says. "But if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims -- and Orientalists -- will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible -- if it can't even be understood in Arabic -- then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Koran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not -- as even speakers of Arabic will tell you -- there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on." |
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