By Neece, on April 5, 2009, at 7:07 am
An Open Mind Is A Happy Mind! Here is a list of 9 things to focus on when raising kids (5:37 min)
Here is an articulate, bubbly 19 year old girl giving brilliant advice about how to raise a healthy, open-minded child. She was raised with dogma and indoctrination like the rest of us, so I get the impression that she’s already come a long way to rid herself of the brainwashing from her childhood. Looks like she’s doing a good job at it.
Now, like Laci here, I don’t have kids. Unlike Laci I’ve decided to refrain from being a baby factory completely. But I did manage to survive an extremely dysfunctional childhood full of brainwashing, dogma and craziness, so I’m thoroughly qualified in how NOT to raise kids. If I did have children, I’d be happy to have these 9 ideas from Laci as a [...]
By Neece, on March 19, 2009, at 3:01 am
The other day, a study was published that I thought was rather interesting. I then found 2 older studies that were sort of related and thought I’d share them with you. This is an area that is quite interesting to me. I’ve always been a bit of a black sheep, never really following the trends of the majority in much of anything. So when I read about how people make decisions, especially as a mob group, I find it to be a bit mysterious and fascinating.
Here are the studies:
Children As Young As Preschoolers Tend To Follow Majority Opinion
In this study, three- and four-year-old children watched as a small group of people (either three or four members) named a novel object. The majority of group members would use the same name for the object; the lone dissenter would pick a different name. The children were [...]
By Neece, on November 19, 2008, at 5:19 pm
We are slowly going through the main logical fallacies, with examples and also with how to refute them. You can use this in all aspects of your life, whether it be science vs. pseudo-science, religion vs. atheism or agnosticism, the daily assault of advertising and consumerism, or simply to put your own belief systems to the test.
This page will have an introduction to each one. Click the title of the fallacy to read the full article.
First, some definitions from the Introduction.
- Logical: Reasoning or capable of reasoning in a clear and consistent manner. Reasonable.
- Fallacy: A deceptive, misleading or false notion or belief. A misleading or unsound argument.
Another thing that is really important as we get started is to keep in mind the difference between Fact versus Opinion, and the difference between Objective versus Subjective.
- Fact: something that actually exists; reality; [...]
Microchipping Students in Rhode Island
Well, Middletown School District in Rhode Island has started a pilot program to monitor students by implanting these little chips in their schoolbags. The district is in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp. and together they are going to tag 80 students. Two school busses will be outfitted readers for the chips and with GPS [...]