Precepts from a Scientist

Sigma Xi Magazine has an article by Michael Shermer about using Evolutionary Psychology to bootstrap purpose and thus morality into the Evolutionary Psychology framework. It basically works like a greater and greater integration of collected self-interested.

Shermer adavances several princples:

1. The happiness principle: it is a higher moral principle to always seek happiness with someone else's happiness in mind, and never seek happiness when it leads to someone else's unhappiness.
2. The liberty principle: it is a higher moral principle to always seek liberty with someone else's liberty in mind, and never seek liberty when it leads to someone else's loss of liberty.
3. The purpose principle: it is a higher moral principle to pursue purposeful thought or behavior with someone else's purposeful goals in mind, and never pursue a purpose when it leads to someone else's loss of purpose.
   

He also includes a helpful figure (just like the food pyramid!).


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Scientists prediction of the next paradigm shift

The Guardian interviews various scientists on what they guess the next big paradigm shift in how man perceives himself would be. They range from predictions of Machines becoming smarter than us, changing the genetic makeup of Mankind, discovery of Parallel Universes, understanding of the human mind. Actually, a lot of scientists cite understanding emotions, thoughts, the mind....

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Animal Cognition: Birds are smart

Another neat animals-are-smarter-than-we-thought article from the San Francisco Chronicle. A scientific group has recently published its findings on avian cognition using comparative brain structure (with brain imaging, genetic analysis, and neural pathway analysis) and cool behaviorial experiments of birds' problem solving ability. Turns out birds have complex brain structure, can fashion and modify tools (in more sophisticated ways than the chimp), and recognize the difference between impressionist and abstract paintings. Birds are pretty smart animals....

In experiments by Alex Weir and his colleagues at Oxford University, a captive New Caledonian crow named Betty was frustrated when she couldn't use a bit of straight wire -- which she'd never seen before the start of the experiment -- to snag food from a tiny bucket. Pausing for an instant after an unsuccessful try, she took the wire, bent it around the edge of the food tub, and then snagged the bucket handle with the hook she had fashioned herself.

See the movie here.

link to the Chronicle article