Butchering dinner 3.4 million years ago

Source: Nature — Aug 11, 2010 Early hominins were using stone tools to butcher meat as long ago as 3.4 million years, about 800,000 years earlier than previous evidence dates to, scientists report in this week’s issue of Nature. The finding comes from an examination of animal bones found last year in the Lower Awash … Read more

God of the Gaps

In Aztec belief, Tlaloc was the god of rain and water and was feared for his ability to send hail, thunder and lightning. As for wind, we have lots of gods to choose from including Aeolus, the Greek wind God, Fujin, the Japanese wind God, and Vayu the Hindu wind God. Then there is a … Read more

The First Church of Robotics

Source: New York Times — Aug 9, 2010 “By allowing artificial intelligence to reshape our concept of personhood, we are leaving ourselves open to the flipside: we think of people more and more as computers, just as we think of computers as people,” says author and computer scientist Jeron Lanier. “The constant stream of stories … Read more

Whats wrong with Pascals Wager?

Blaise Pascal, philosopher, scientist, mathematician and probability theorist (1623-1662), came up with a now famous reason for being a believer. It goes something like this: If God exists, then the believers are quids in, they go to heaven and the non believers loose out – hence only believers win in this scenario. If God does … Read more