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10 Great Websites for Women
The web is now full of websites that are targeted for women. What is a girl to do, so many websites, so little time? Here are great ten sites that you should be sure to check out: 1) www.4woman.gov - A health website for women. Start to pay...

5X2 Great Reasons to Go For Online Dating
In this life, isn't everything about attitude towards things? And here comes your attitude: simply say "yes" to online dating! Obviously you cannot meet people from nowhere, you have to start from a certain spot. I guess you've already done some...

Fight The Disease!
There's an extremely virulent disease spreading around this world. It's not AIDS or Ebola, in fact, it's not even a virus. It's not Anthrax or Small Pox or any microbe of any kind. No, this disease is behavioral. Because we live in a media...

HELP YOUR CHILD HELP YOUR COMMUNITY
As a parent, you probably want to guide your child to become a healthy and ethical adult. How can you lead your child to a healthy future? What kind of activities can you do together as a family that will steer your child towards becoming a...

Live on Forever (Or Why You Need an Ethical Will)
In the movie “The Bachelor,” starring Rene Zellweger and Chris O’Donnell, a young man’s grandfather had himself videotaped reading his will, in which he directed his grandson would receive his $100 million estate only if he was married by 6:05...

 
Evangelical Skepticism: Pursuing Your Right To Be Wrong

Michael Shermer speaks with the energy and passion of an evangelist, so it's not too surprising to learn that he used to be one. What is surprising is that he has made a 180-degree turn in his approach to belief. As a college student at Pepperdine University, he knocked on doors to spread the word of the gospel to
anyone who would listen. Now he preaches the power of skepticism in the true sense of the word.

Like a war hero who becomes an anti-war activist, this turnaround is both curious and inspiring. His story underscores the complexity of the concept of belief and our need to hold on to some form of validation.

Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic Magazine. He is quick to point out that what many people think of as skepticism is really cynicism. Being skeptical has nothing to do with being a grumpy curmudgeon who discounts any idea that disrupts his world view. It is less a position and more an approach using science and reason.

Skeptics are open to looking into anything and everything, but are reluctant to latch on to theories without sufficient evidence to back them up. Skeptics don't sit around trashing the ideas of others--that would be a waste of thinking time. Instead, they luxuriate in the opportunity to further explore interesting notions.

The motto of the Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine is a statement made by the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza: "I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."

This is a fabulous approach to life, even though it may require more patience than most of us can muster. If we can't count on any absolute truths and we don't want to get bogged down by the muddy thinking of relativism, we've got to do our best to establish what Shermer calls "provisional" truths. He uses the word "provisional" a lot to refer to those pretty good truths and almost universal ideas we tend to think of as fairly consistent. Is infanticide bad? Yes, almost always. There could be, in some cultures and in some specific circumstances, ethical reasons to justify infanticide, but we recognize that those are few and far between. Provisional ethics allows for continued discussion and exploration in a way that a black and white view never will.

Shermer was in town recently to talk about the third book in his trilogy on the power of belief: The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share, Care and Follow the Golden Rule. He offered compelling theories and groundbreaking scientific results regarding the evolution of human ethics. Thanks to magnetic resonance imaging, we can now see what's going on in the brain while we perform certain tasks. It turns out that the pleasure centers of our brain "light up" when we engage in activities that are cooperative- sharing, being generous, helping others. Just as though we were eating our favorite comfort foods, getting a massage, or


making love, our brains register this activity as highly pleasurable. There is (some) reason to believe that cooperation has evolved as a highly prized survival skill, and thus we are "rewarded" by feeling good about it.

Engaging in competitive activities--trying to beat a rival, striving to gain control--shows up in an entirely different area of the brain. Of course, this is also a very important survival skill, but it tends to come with its own tangible rewards--more food, more wealth, the mate of your choice, etc.

I'm still waiting for research on highly competitive individuals. Do their brains light up in the pleasure zone when they win? Is there some sort of shift that happens? What about sociopaths? Do their pleasure centers flare when they lie, cheat, steal, or harm someone?

There's just no end to thinking when you view the world with a healthy dose of skepticism. Socrates observed that the only thing he knew for sure is that he knew nothing. Sticklers are all too happy to point out that this, in fact, suggests that he knows that nothing exists, knows that he knows this, knows that he knows that he knows this, ad nauseum. By the same token, if you are skeptical about everything, you must be skeptical of your own skepticism! Just when you think you've got something figured out, it's time to be skeptical again.

This isn't the mainstream approach to thinking. We tend to like having ideas we can hang on to. We choose a couple of stable concepts, tie up a hammock and swing there contentedly.

That's one way to live.

Another way is to hang that hammock on a couple of sturdy ideas, sway there a bit, and then go off and find another place to swing. It's a lot more work, but you cover a lot more territory in the process. Your intellectual journey may be arduous but infinitely rewarding.

Because there are limitations in scientific investigation and plenty of mysteries remaining, the Skeptics keep in mind the words of Albert Einstein:
"All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike--and yet it is the most precious thing we have."

Einstein believed in the power of the unknown and reveled in the right to figure things out as best we can. He valued imagination over knowledge, but persisted in searching for evidence that what we dream can be described and reported scientifically.

Skeptics are cautious believers. They hope for magnificence, they dream of infinite truths and they doggedly pursue their right to be wrong. They are forever moving their hammocks and testing untried trees.

And they are downright evangelical about it.

Maya Talisman Frost is a mind masseuse. Her work has inspired thinkers in over 80 countries. She serves up a satisfying blend of clarity, comfort and comic relief in her free weekly ezine, the Friday Mind Massage. To subscribe, visit http://www.massageyourmind.com today!


 

Ethics Updates Home Page. Moral theory; relativism; pluralism ...
Designed primarily to be used by ethics instructors and their students to provide updates on current literature, both popular and professional.
ethics.sandiego.edu
 
Ethics Resource Center: Celebrating 85 Years of Ethics Surveying ...
The Ethics Resource Center (ERC) is a non-profit, non-partisan research and survey organization in Washington, DC, dedicated to the study and promotion of ...
www.ethics.org
 
Ethics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One form of applied ethics applies normative ethical theories to specific ... There are several sub-branches of applied ethics examining the ethical ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Ethics
Quarterly international journal of moral, political, and legal philosophy. Edited by John Deigh, and published by the University of Chicago Press.
www.journals.uchicago.edu
 
Ethics, Electronic Edition
(ET ISSUES AVAILABLE ONLY SINCE VOLUME 112 NO 1). Help with Searching the Ethics Electronic Edition. Help with Access to the Ethics Electronic Edition ...
www.journals.uchicago.edu
 
Ethics [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Describes the field and its division in metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. By James Fieser.
www.iep.utm.edu
 
JSTOR: Ethics
JSTOR provides a digital archive of the print version of Ethics . ... Founded in 1890, Ethics is an international journal of moral, political, ...
www.jstor.org
 
Institute for Global Ethics | Home Page
An independent, nonprofit, nonsectarian, and nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting awareness and discussion of global ethics.
www.globalethics.org
 
Business Ethics
Business Ethics Articles from George S. May International Company ... Links to other e-business ethics articles can also be found at this site. ...
www.web-miner.com
 
The Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science
The Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science mission is to provide engineers, scientists, and science and engineering students with resources for ...
onlineethics.org
 
Title Page: Spinoza's Ethics / Elwes Translation
Ethics Demonstrated in Geometric Order AND DIVIDED INTO FIVE PARTS, ... This edition of the Ethics utilizes internal hypertext coding to faciilitate the ...
www.mtsu.edu
 
APA Ethics Office: Ethics Information
American Psychological Association sanctioned resources for ethics in psychology, including guidelines for human and animal studies, rules and procedures, ...
www.apa.org
 
Aristotle's Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Discussion of Aristotle's ethical views; by Richard Kraut.
plato.stanford.edu
 
IEEE Code of Ethics
Code of ethics for members.
www.ieee.org
 
st james ethics centre - imagine a more ethical world ...
Not-for-profit organisation which provides a non-judgemental forum for the promotion and exploration of ethics.
www.ethics.org.au
 
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University ...
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University is one of the preeminent centers for research and dialogue on ethical issues in critical ...
www.scu.edu
 
Poynter Online - Ethics
How Poynter developed ethics guidelines for our own publications. ... In creating online ethics guidelines, Poynter asks for your feedback. By Bob Steele ...
www.poynter.org
 
ACM: Code of Ethics
Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
www.acm.org
 
US Senate Ethics Committee
Investigates allegations of misconduct by members, and recommends disciplinary action to the full Senate.
ethics.senate.gov
 
LegalEthics.com: The Intersection of Ethics and the Law
Legalethics.com offers cases, codes, opinions, articles, links, and other reference material relating to ethics and the law.
www.legalethics.com
 
 

 

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