Category: Notes

In short, chronic diseases have a strong, detrimental effect on our economy mostly because when people get sick with these nasties they are not able to be productive and cost lots of insurance money.

Are Chronic Diseases Killing our Competitiveness? (RSA)

Because molecules are smaller than light waves, we cannot see them (much less film them) to show what they are doing. Berry, with students, combined a knowledge of how molecules work with computer graphics to show, accurately, how the molecular machines work in our bodies.

Drew Berry – Astonishing Molecular Machines (TED)

One may wonder of what use it is to listen to an atheist talk to atheists about being publicly open about their atheism. Quite simply, there are some good points raised. For example, Dawkins questions why religious topics are outside the realm of open discussion between scientists while all scientific topics are freely open to, and frequently abused by, religious authorities. While poking fun at religious cultures, Dawkins does raise some good questions about various dogmas.

Perhaps we, the religious folks, should learn to be a little less narrow minded and at least pretend to try to understand the point of view of others instead of automatically dismissing every concept that differs from our own. Who knows, having to understand what we worship might help us understand why we worship which just might increase our personal faith. Then again, our faith may be so weak that we are afraid we will never understand either the ‘who’ or the ‘why,’ in which case we are likely to lose faith altogether. (Oops, a little bit of a soap box there.)

Richard Dawkins: An atheist’s call to arms (TED)

While I am not a fan of atheism (I think it is healthy to believe in something), Botton brings out some important points about religious rites can satisfy a part of everyone’s’ life, even the atheists. He suggests that the next iteration of atheists, the Atheism 2.0, should augment their lives with such rites to find more enjoyment in life.

Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 (TED)
Religion for Atheists (RSA)

You may recognize Gladwell from my reading list, I love his books. He is also a fun lecturer. In this lecture, Gladwell tells the story of the expansion of the spaghetti sauce business. From this story he launches into a deeper understanding of human psychology and how business misinterprets what people want. Gladwell describes some good data analysis tools as well.

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce (TED)