I recently posted on Sir David Attenborough, touting ability to educate us regarding nature. You might have thought, "Well, anyone could give a lively talk on the blue whale, the largest creature to ever live on Earth." Maybe so. But how many people have ever produced a spellbinding video on fungi? Attenborough and his team are often at their best when presenting species that seem mundane.
Graham Sale's imagination is active at Salon.com, where he explores the long game of proselytizing.
In a recent article in Discover Magazine called "Machine Dreams," (May, 2010, not yet available online) a panel of robotics experts discussed the relationships among people and the machines we call robots. What is a "robot"? Rodney Brooks of MIT offered this definition:
[A] robot is something that senses the world, doesn't some sort of competition, and decides to take an action outside of its physical extremity. That action might be moving around, or it might be grabbing something and moving it. I say "outside it's extremity" because I don't like to let dishwashers be defined as robots.
The panel offered a lively discussion, focusing on many real-world applications. Robots are doing many things these days, including surveillance and reconnaissance during flood disasters. Robots are already quite good at some things, but Rodney Brooks offers some sobering thoughts for those who think of robots as replacements for human beings. We have quite a ways to go. Where are we headed? Here are the goals for which robotics researchers are currently striving to reach (according to Brooks):First the object recognition capabilities of a two-year-old child. You can show a two-year-old a chair that he's never seen before, and he'll be able to say, "that's a chair." Our computer vision systems are not that good. But if our robots did have that capability, would be able to do a lot more.
Second, the language capabilities of a four-year-old child. When you talk to a four-year-old, you hardly have to dumb down your grammar at all. That is much better than our current speech systems can do.
Third, the manual dexterity of a six-year-old child. A six-year-old can tie his shoelaces. A six-year-old can do every operation that a Chinese worker does in the factory. That level of dexterity, which would require a combination of new sorts of sensors, new sorts of actuators, and new algorithms, will let our robots do a lot more in the world.
Fourth, the social understanding of an eight or nine-year-old child. Eight or nine-year-olds understand the difference between their knowledge of the world and the knowledge of someone they are interacting with. When showing a robot how to do a task, they know to look at where the eyes of the robot were looking. They also know how to take social cues from the robot.
Not everyone has earned the right to burn oodles of carbon-based fuel in order to travel to both the North Pole and the South Pole. Sir David Attenborough has earned that right, based upon his exquisite, inspiring, nature documentaries. Yes, he's visiting the poles as part of an effort to produce yet another documentary, this one called "Frozen Planet." Here's the report from the U.K. times:
In more than half a century of bringing the world into our living rooms, Sir David Attenborough has travelled to pretty much every far-flung spot you can think of. But one inhospitable place, short on wildlife and good excuses for stopping by, remained unexplored by the veteran broadcaster. Now he has finally realised his boyhood ambition to stand on the top of the world.If you don't know Sir David Attenborough by name, you'll like know his face and his upbeat warm-hearted scientifically precise commentary. Here's one of my favorite clips, where he describes the anatomy of the blue whale:
Yesterday, I received an email from the Center For Inquiry indicating that, in 2008, Freedom From Religion Foundation had filed a lawsuit (Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc v. Obama) to prevent the federal government from declaring a “National Day of Prayer.” The U.S. District Court, Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin, struck down 36 U.S.C. §119, which establishes a yearly National Day of Prayer. Here’s the text of the statute:
The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.
As discussed in the Court’s Opinion, the National Day of Prayer was established in part, due to the efforts of Reverend Billy Graham in 1952. One of Graham’s speeches included the following:We have dropped our pilot, the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sailing blindly on without divine chart or compass, hoping somehow to find our desired haven. We have certain leaders who are rank materialists; they do not recognize God nor care for Him; they spend their time in one round of parties after another. The Capital City of our Nation can have a great spiritual awakening, thousands coming to Jesus Christ, but certain leaders have not lifted an eyebrow, nor raised a finger, nor showed the slightest bit of concern. Ladies and gentlemen, I warn you, if this state of affairs continues, the end of the course is national shipwreck and ruin.
Congress then took the reins, lead by [appropriately named] Representative Percy Priest, who introduced a bill to establish a National Day of Prayer. Here is the Court’s description:In addressing the House of Representatives, he noted that the country had been “challenged yesterday by the suggestion made on the east steps of the Capitol by Billy Graham that the Congress call on the President for the proclamation of a day of prayer.” In support of the bill, Representative Brooks stated that “the national interest would be much better served if we turn aside for a full day of prayer for spiritual help and guidance from the Almighty during these troublous times. I hope that all denominations, Catholics, Jewish and Protestants, will join us in this day of prayer.” Representative Peter W. Rodino, Jr., stated that “it is fitting and timely that the people of America, in approaching the Easter season, as God-fearing men and women, devote themselves to a day of prayer in the interest of peace.”
[The Court added a footnote: "This part of the report is not accurate. 1 Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 787(1983) (“[P]rayers were not offered during the Constitutional Convention.”] I downloaded the entire ruling from the federal district court in pdf format and I’m making it available here. The Plaintiff argued that Plaintiff the statute is unconstitutional “because it endorses prayer and encourages citizens to engage in that particular religious exercise.” [More . . . ]