The Useless Tree

Science

  • Thinking about Nothing

    In a punchy book review in Sunday's NYT, philosopher David Albert takes down physicist Lawrence Krauss: Lawrence M. Krauss, a well-known cosmologist and prolific popular-science writer, apparently means to announce to the world, in this new book, that the laws… Continue reading

  • The Multiversal Dao

    Seems like theoretical physicists have worked themselves into futility.  Or that, at least, is the sense that emerges from Alan P. Lightman's piece in Harper's Magazine, "The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith."  The search for ultimate theoretical explanation of… Continue reading

  • The Dao of Neutrinos

    Last week we heard a lot about the experiment in Europe in which a neutrino was measured as traveling faster than the speed of light, a theoretical impossibility according to Einstein.  And so now we have a spate of articles… Continue reading

  • Scientific Uncertainty

    Science is not as certain as some of us may think: that is the message of an article in last week's New Yorker, by Jonah Lehrer: "The Truth Wears Off: Is there something wrong with the scientific method?" (sub. required). … Continue reading

  • Science, Religion, Daoism

    An nice little piece in the NYT The Stone philosophy blog by Tim Crane (no relation) about the difference between scientific and religious knowledge and belief.   Upon reading it, my first impression (which holds as my continuing impression) is… Continue reading

  • Animals are not Human

    That was one thought that came to mind as I read this NYT article: "Scientists Square Off on Evolutionary Value of Helping Relatives."   When I saw the headline my Confucian senses started tingling.  Helping relatives is obviously a Confucian… Continue reading

  • Why is this news?

    So there I am yesterday, preparing for my ancient Chinese philosophy tutorial (which begins next week), when I see this headline on CNN: "Stephen Hawking: God didn't create universe."   I then see a similar story on the AP wire,… Continue reading

  • Mind Wandering

    Looks like psychologists have empirically confirmed a part of Zhuangzi: But now that researchers have been analyzing those stray thoughts, they’ve found daydreaming to be remarkably common — and often quite useful. A wandering mind can protect you from immediate… Continue reading

  • Obama Does the Confucian (but not the Daoist) Thing on Stem Cells

    Yesterday President Obama eased certain limits on embryonic stem cell research in the US.  There are still various questions and restrictions remaining, especially on the issue of whether public money should be spent on experimentation on embryonic stems cells, but… Continue reading

  • The Tao of Personal Genomics

    When I saw the cover story in the Sunday Times Magazine by Steven Pinker, "My Genome, My Self,"  I was ready to pounce.  I thought: here comes a biological determinist trying to assert that we can understand personal identity and… Continue reading