Dangerous Intersection - Page 791 of 2090 - Human Animals at the Crossroads of Science, Religion, Media and Culture

Bill Nye’s frustration with deniers of evolution

Post author:Erich Vieth
Post published:March 11, 2013
Post category:Anti-science Evolution Science
Post comments:0 Comments

Bill Nye says that we need scientifically literate people--let's not ruin our children by shoving evolution down their throats:

Gun day at the photo shoot

Post author:Erich Vieth
Post published:March 10, 2013
Post category:photography
Post comments:3 Comments

I've been making steady progress in my studies of photography over the past 10 years. This year I finally bought an DSLR (a Canon D7), and it has been a joy to really learn how use the controls of a high-performance camera. My 14 year old daughter JuJu and I have been attending photography classes for the past year. Today we attended a model shoot at St. Louis Photo Authority in St. Louis, Missouri, where the owner, Ed Crim provided four models and excellent guidance. It was a lot of fun, as you can see from my work. Today the theme for the models was "guns," which made me a bit apprehensive, but we had a great time shooting models who all had access to guns as props. Here's a sample of the portraits I took. Nothing like having the right equipment and some good teachers. Click for higher res images.

The most astounding fact about the universe

Post author:Erich Vieth
Post published:March 10, 2013
Post category:Meaning of Life Science
Post comments:0 Comments

Neil DeGrasse Tyson recounts the most astounding fact about the universe in this short video. How can anyone who listens to these words with an open mind not feel a sense of awe? And yes, this idea tracks the words of Carl Sagan, who pointed out that we are made of star-stuff: I plucked the Tyson video link off of a light-hearted look at the life of Tyson.

The importance of grooming in human animals and the other primates.

Post author:Erich Vieth
Post published:March 10, 2013
Post category:Communication Community Culture Friendships/relationships Psychology Cognition
Post comments:0 Comments

Here are a few photos I took at the St. Louis Zoo over the past few weeks. All of these involve physical grooming by primates, three of them featuring two orangutans and one of them involving a larger group of chimpanzees. This is one of the ways these animals know who is their friend or foe. We human animals groom for this same purpose, but we generally engage in verbal grooming: gossip. Using words rather than physical grooming we can connect with many more fellow humans at one time than any of those animals limited to physical grooming. I make this claim based on the work of Robin Dunbar.