A Short Review of ED 2012
This tumblr was started on April 25th 2012, as a channel for me to post daily about things that I find noteworthy and to help motivate me to write something myself on a weekly basis. The central theme for this tumblr and, also, consequently the quotes and the weekly posts being: truth, science, and beauty.
The first quote posted was from Marcus Aurelius book Meditations (that book also inspired this tumblr's name, later changed to Empirical Daily):
"Do not stray from your course, but with regard to every impulse deliver what is right, and with regard to every idea that presents itself preserve your power to grasp the truth."
Top Four Weekly Posts of 2012
During 2012, since April 25th, I have tried to write a weekly piece (although there have been a few hiatuses). The pieces are of very varying length and quality. The one that perhaps is the most noteworthy is The Beauty of the Abstract. A link to that piece, and three other pieces that I feel stick out (for the better) below:
1. The Beauty of the [scientific] Abstract
- Reality only adds to the beauty of things, it never subtracts.
2. This is not...
- A good intro piece for this blog; don't be fooled by the tumblr name that can, at first glance, seem like new-age nonsense. Meditations is meant in the strictest sense of [rigorous empirical] reflection, not as anything Buddhistic or equivalent to Buddhism.
3. How We Can Get a Peak at Reality
- Not all opinions are of equal value.
4. The Three People Who have Influenced My Thinking the Most
- A short piece on Russell, Feynman, and Dennett.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson's comment on Neil Armstrong after he passed away: "Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) was not entirely human. He was the spiritual repository of our spacefaring dreams & ambitions. In death, a little bit of us all dies with him. Farewell my friend."
- 220 notes, mainly because it was reblogged by physicsphysics.
Here are three quotes from 2012 that capture the Mars landing, the essence of science, and the problem with economic incentives.
1. "Celebrate Curiosity – and curiosity. Celebrate science, America, humanity, rationality, physics, engineering, mathematics, the evolved brain" - Richard Dawkins
2. "Just an FYI: The Scientific Method is doing whatever it takes not to fool oneself into thinking what’s true is false, or what’s false is true." - Neil DeGrasse Tyson
3. “Economics question: Do perverse incentives create assholes or locate assholes?” - Zach Weiner
