Sciences Blind Spot

Had evolutionists been in charge, they wouldn't have made the mosquito, planetary orbits would align perfectly, and the human eye would be better designed. But they tend to gloss over their own failed predictions and faulty premises. Naturalists see Darwin's theories as "logical" and that's enough. To think otherwise brands you a heretic to all things wise and rational. Science's Blind Spot takes the reader on an enlightening journey through the ever-evolving theory of evolution. Cornelius G. Hunter goes head-to-head with those who twist textbooks, confuse our children, and reject all challengers before they can even speak. This fascinating, fact-filled resource opens minds to nature in a way that both seeks and sees the intelligent design behind creation's masterpieces.

Why absolute certainty is impossible in science In today's unpredictable and chaotic world, we look to science to provide certainty and answers—and often blame it when things go wrong. The Blind Spot reveals why our faith in scientific certainty is a dangerous illusion, and how only by embracing science's inherent ambiguities and paradoxes can we truly appreciate its beauty and harness its potential. Crackling with insights into our most perplexing contemporary dilemmas, from climate change to the global financial meltdown, this book challenges our most sacredly held beliefs about science, technology, and progress. At the same time, it shows how the secret to better science can be found where we least expect it—in the uncertain, the ambiguous, and the inevitably unpredictable. William Byers explains why the subjective element in scientific inquiry is in fact what makes it so dynamic, and deftly balances the need for certainty and rigor in science with the equally important need for creativity, freedom, and downright wonder. Drawing on an array of fascinating examples—from Wall Street's overreliance on algorithms to provide certainty in uncertain markets, to undecidable problems in mathematics and computer science, to Georg Cantor's paradoxical but true assertion about infinity—Byers demonstrates how we can and must learn from the existence of blind spots in our scientific and mathematical understanding. The Blind Spot offers an entirely new way of thinking about science, one that highlights its strengths and limitations, its unrealized promise, and, above all, its unavoidable ambiguity. It also points to a more sophisticated approach to the most intractable problems of our time.

In the United States, a majority of students graduate below proficiency in all academic subjects. Parents of struggling students feel overwhelmed and confused about how to help their children simply survive school, let alone succeed. Various school reform efforts have been tried and all have failed. But all hope is not lost. A science exists that allows children to learn as individuals even though at school they are educated in groups. One that avoids senseless labels that sentence children to lifetimes of failure and mediocrity. Dr. Kimberly Berens and a team of scientists have spent the last 20 years perfecting a powerful system of instruction based on the learning, behavioral, and cognitive sciences that they call Fit Learning. This method of teaching has been proven to markedly improve how students understand and achieve, even for children who have been told they have learning disabilities or other disorders that interfere with their ability to learn. Blind Spots reveals the history of our broken education system and shows that by using this teaching system in the classroom, we can unlock the vast potential hidden within every child.

A compelling argument for including the human perspective within science, and for how human experience makes science possible. “This is by far the best book I've read this year.” —Michael Pollan, Professor of the Practice of Non-fiction, Harvard University; #1 New York Times bestselling author “(A) stimulating manifesto for changing the way we look at things.” —Wall Street Journal It’s tempting to think that science gives us a God’s-eye view of reality. But we neglect the place of human experience at our peril. In The Blind Spot, astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson call for a revolutionary scientific worldview, where science includes—rather than ignores or tries not to see—humanity’s lived experience as an inescapable part of our search for objective truth. The authors present science not as discovering an absolute reality but rather as a highly refined, constantly evolving form of human experience. They urge practitioners to reframe how science works for the sake of our future in the face of the planetary climate crisis and increasing science denialism. Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, humanity has looked to science to tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going, but we’ve gotten stuck thinking we can know the universe from outside our position in it. When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system. The authors propose an alternative vision: scientific knowledge is a self-correcting narrative made from the world and our experience of it evolving together. To finally “see” the Blind Spot is to awaken from a delusion of absolute knowledge and to see how reality and experience intertwine. The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature’s self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.

When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the business world and beyond, and illustrate how we can become more ethical, bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be. Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" (the person who knows what is correct) from our "want self" (the person who ends up making decisions), the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions. Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives.

The Voynich Manuscript has been considered to be the world's most mysterious book. Filled with strange illustrations and an unknown language, it challenged the world's top code-crackers for nearly a century. But in just four-and-a-half months, Dr. Gordon Rugg, a renowned researcher, found evidence (which had been there all along) that the book could be a giant, glittering hoax. In Blind Spot: Why We Fail to See the Solution Right in Front of Us, Dr. Rugg shares his story and shows how his toolkit of problem-solving techniques—such as his Verifier Method—can save the day, particularly in those times when the experts on your team have all the data in front of them but are still unaccountably at an impasse. In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Ariely, Dr. Rugg, a rising star in computer science, challenges us to re-examine the way we think, and provides new tools to solve problems and crack codes in our own lives.

This study is an inquiry into the foundations of science, evoked especially by contemporary crises. Its methodological approach is determined by the fact that there are indications, that basic and general assumptions underlying current research traditions schould be questioned. An analysis of modern physics, and of elementary particle tracks in particular, gives rise to the suspicion that scientific research has a fundamental blind spot, characterized by a new subject-object relation. We encounter the same subject-object relation, and a corresponding concept of reality, in a research programme deviating from the regular sciences, viz. the theology of Karl Barth. Used as a means of contrast, this programme can draw science's attention to a new concept of knowledge and reality possible in principle. Furthermore, the present inquiry brings to light that there are altogether four different subject-object relations with their concomitant basic structures of reality. The blind spot pointed out by the means of contrast is one of these four structures, the most fundamental one, to be precise. Freedom and liberation prove to be essential features of this new structure. Hence thes features will characterize science, once it develops itself further by focussing on this new structure of reality. The reality then dealt with by science will turn science into liberation science.

In Ryan's view, cooperation, not competition, lies at the heart of human society.".

Blindspot exposes the unseen distinctions that exist among the ways that people seek the Big Answers to the questions posed by life, the universe, and everything. When most people speak about God or Truth or the Divine, Campion asserts, they aren't actually talking about anything divine or godly at all--whether they are believers, unbelievers or undecided. Whatever their posture toward these matters, they betray an almost universal "unseeingness" about what the entire spiritual enterprise is actually about--its rules, codes, even its final aim. They are blind to what the great sages of the world's religious and philosophical traditions have pointed to forever--which also happen to converge with the discoveries of contemporary science as it grapples with the nature of consciousness. The essence of these convergences is often misunderstood by both the public and the scientists themselves. Such confusions constitute a hornet's nest that any wise person would avoid addressing at all costs; but, as this book demonstrates, the author throws that caution to the wind. At its core, this book is about the blind spot that prevents us from knowing who we are. In revealing this obliviousness, the author dives into the perspective that is commonly known as "nonduality," the principle that lies at the core of all world wisdom traditions, including the scientific ones. The reasons for what Campion has dubbed "Blindspot" may be understandable, yet as he shows in brilliant, and often humorous, detail, its costs to the individual, to humanity in general, to the planet as a whole, are high, indeed. In a word, confusion. In another word, suffering. Although there are numerous books available today about nonduality, only Blindspot addresses the critical distinctions that exist between the conventional approaches to spirituality--indeed, to life itself--and the nondual approaches. Plus, how these same distinctions also play out in the sciences. Moss Campion is a qualified commentator, having immersed himself in the mystery of consciousness all his life, both in the context of his personal circumstances and also in his work with patients in the hospital setting. His many teachers have included Lee Lozowick, Douglas Harding, Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, Wayne Liquorman, Devaji, Christopher Wallis, A.H. Almaas, Saniel Bonder, Steven Harrison, Scott Kiloby, Jed McKenna, Eckhart Tolle, Adi Da, TCIM, J. Krishnamurti, and numerous plant medicines.

What was "The Blind Spot?" A room in San Francisco where strange things happened - or a doorway into another cosmos, a different world, or perhaps the key to the past or future? What would happen if two things occupied the same place at the same time - even such a small space as a single room in a modest house? And if those two things happened to be two worlds - this one and...another?