#5 | Things I Learnt This Week (That I Want To Share) #5

1. SCIENCE

This piece is phenomenally good. It explains the scientific method. If you read only one thing this week, this should be it. 

Why scientific truth may hurt - Adam Rutherford

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/05/scientific-truth-genetics-darwin-adam-rutherford

2. MALAYSIA | SOCIETY | NEP

"My mother and the women of her generation sold off their gold jewellery to raise money for the party. Now materialism and self-interest have crept in. ... The Malays were really down at that time. We were prejudiced against. There were very few Malay doctors, lawyers and bankers. ... Believe me, the NEP was really needed. Tun Razak wanted to bring up the Malays so they wouldn’t feel that they were of a lower class. His emphasis was to educate the Malays. Today, you have Malays in all sectors. Tun Razak did not foresee that the NEP would be abused. He expected those who enjoyed the privileges to share it with the community. Instead, some have used it to benefit themselves and their families."

- Tan Sri Khalid Ahmad Sulaiman 

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2015/04/05/Dont-politicise-hudud/

3. REASON | THINKING | LOGIC

"The gullible rarely believe they are gullible and the closed-minded don’t believe they are closed-minded. ... Gullibility, carelessness and closed-mindedness are examples of what the US philosopher Linda Zagzebski, in her book Virtues of the Mind (1996), has called ‘intellectual vices’. Others include negligence, idleness, rigidity, obtuseness, prejudice, lack of thoroughness, and insensitivity to detail. Intellectual character traits are habits or styles of thinking. ... If we care about the truth then we should care about equipping people with the intellectual means to arrive at the truth and avoid falsehood. Education is the best way of doing that."

Intellectual character of conspiracy theorists – Quassim Cassam 

http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/intellectual-character-of-conspiracy-theorists/

Curated by,

Jason Kay

Melaka

11 April 2015

#4 | Things I Learnt This Week (That I Want To Share) #4

1. HEALTH | HUMAN RIGHTS

93% is a huge number.

"An unpublished study conducted in 2011 by the University of Malaya's department of preventive medicine in Malaysia found that 93 percent of Muslim women in Malaysia have undergone the procedure. ... The cutting that occurs in Malaysia ... falls under type IV of the WHO's classification system - the least invasive type, typically done without removing flesh. Malaysia's highest religious authority issued a fatwa, an Islamic legal edict, in 2009 making the cutting procedure required for all Muslim women, unless "harmful". ... The fatwa poses a dilemma for medical professionals caught between their unwillingness to violate WHO guidelines, and parents who feel pressure to have their daughters cut."

Female genital cutting in Thailand's south

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2015/03/female-genital-cutting-thailand-south-150309083458995.html

2. MALAYSIA | POLITICS | SOCIETY

Zan Azlee interviews Ibrahim Ali - March 31, 2015
http://english.astroawani.com/malaysia-news/5tahun2020-malaysia-too-young-form-bangsa-malaysia-ibrahim-ali-56782

3. SCIENCE | PERSPECTIVE

The visuals are stunning, the music apt... but it's the subtitles that brings it all together to remind us who we are, and how little we are.

The Known Universe by AMNH
http://youtu.be/17jymDn0W6U

Curated by,
Jason Kay
Melaka
05 April 2015

#3 | Things I Learnt This Week (That I Want To Share) #3

1. SCIENCE | TEACHING

Teaching Evolution to Students Who Tell Me They’ll Pray for My Soul

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/03/teaching_human_evolution_at_the_university_of_kentucky_there_are_some_students.html 

2. CITIZENSHIP | MILITARY

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: U.S. Territories (HBO)

https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE

3. FUNNY

What If Superman Was Adopted By The Waynes

http://youtu.be/DveVvg3A-dI

Curated by,

Jason Kay

Melaka

28 March 2015

Things I Learnt This Week (That I Want To Share) #1

Oversharing has become a curse with social media available 24/7. This realisation hit me hard over the CNY 2015 break. Our minds are stretched and moulded by reacting, rather than contemplating; by sound bytes instead of reflecting in context. 

So I embark on this project: One post, at the end of each week, of the things that caught my eye, and engaged my mind, curated, for your consideration because I think they are worth your time. 

It is not altruism. It's me disciplining myself to look for the wheat and let go the chaff. Since I'm already benefitting from it, there is no harm sharing my discoveries with you. And so I do. Do drop by once a week, and hopefully, you won't be disappointed. 

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Things I Learnt This Week (That I Want To Share) #1

#tiltwtiwts

1. SCIENCE

"experiments show that when people’s beliefs are threatened, they often take flight to a land where facts do not matter. In scientific terms, their beliefs become less “falsifiable” because they can no longer be tested scientifically for verification or refutation.

...

With the disease of bias, then, societal immunity is better achieved when we encourage people to accept ambiguity, engage in critical thinking, and reject strict ideology."

Why People "Fly from Facts"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-fly-from-facts/

2. LAW

I've always been fascinated with Qisas (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qisas) and Diyya (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diyya) in the death penalty discussion. I am generally anti death penalty, but I still don't have the answer to this excellent pro death penalty point: "If you oppose the death penalty, you are really just saying that no matter what horrible things a man does to another/other human beings, you guarantee him the most precious thing he has, his life." [If you can identity the source of this point, please let me know so I can credit it accordingly.]

Even the late Karpal Singh, a staunch anti death penalty lawyer, did have a different view in cases of child rape - http://www.thesundaily.my/node/140082

We may not have the stomach for an eye for an eye taken literally - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/05/eye-for-an-eye-iran-blinds-man-who-carried-out-acid-attack

But the slap on the wrist sentence given to Anders Breivik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik offends me greatly. 

3. FUNNY | SOCIETY | LAW

Jim Jefferies - gun control

http://youtu.be/fP3HJVp3n9c

Curated by,

Jason Kay

Melaka

06 March 2015