Recently in the philosophy and religion section:

Now they've gone and done it: they've messed with linguistics. When they came for the biologists, I fought... so nevermind that train of thought.

Really, the Language Log entry does a good job of describing what's going on with a new wave of the Edenics phenomenon, which I thought was a rather unique or sporadic theological attack on science because of my Southern Baptist upbringing. But there are books, websites, and pages on Creationist Websites. From the book's author's website:

Here you will discover that ALL human words contain forms of the Edenic roots within them. These proto-Semitic or early Biblical Hebrew words were programmed into our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, before the language dispersion, or babble at the Tower of Babel -- which kickstarted multi-national human history. I congratulate you for investigating for yourself if language is an engineered miracle or merely the evolved gesturing of chimps.

Note that this author thinks that Hebrew is the source of English. Hypotheses like Edenics, i.e. the religious versions of the proto-world language theories, are based on two other hypotheses: Young Earth Creationism and the Tower of Babel As Origin of Language Diversity, a.k.a. Wrathful Dispersion. These religious theories of language origin and theories of language based on them are absolute shite for a variety of reasons, one of which is that living, breathing, speaking people have been around for longer than 6,000 years, much longer, and it's poppycock to think that everybody from the origin and spread of H. sapiens to the time of Babylon spoke the same language, especially when you look at extremely old populations like native Australians, who arrived, conservatively, 40,000 years ago, and who were geographically isolated when water covered the land bridge over which they could have traveled about 8,000 years ago. Also, the original, Edenic language would most definitely not be early Biblical Hebrew, which any cursory glance at a good history book's chapters on Mesopotamia and the preceding time would make damn clear (Sumerian, for example, doesn't fit into any language family, really, like Basque).

Just knowing how long Native Australians have lilved there is enough to dismiss Edenics out of hand, so while I want to read the Edenics book, I don't know if I'd have the patience. I should get it so I can address the phonology-type arguments he has, but, like I said, I don't know if I have the patience, and phonetics isn't a subject I get much joy from.

Reuters has released their slideshow of the 2007 "Pictures of the Year." It's always amazing to see how much can happen in one year.

WARNING: The link resizes your window. I really, really hate it when websites resize my window. It's incredibly bad interface design. Leave my window how I want it, damn it. You're not the only tab open in my window, so hands off!

The Theory of Moral Neuroscience, from Reason Online, found through a science blog somewhere that I've lost track of.

Just like monkeys, it turns out that when we see someone perform an action—picking up a glass of water or kicking a ball—our mirror neurons simulate that action in our brains.

When discussing how this plays out for people with autism

In 2005, researchers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) compared brain wave activity associated with mirror neurons in high functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and in typical individuals. In normal individuals, mu brain wave activity is suppressed whenever they move their hand, imagine moving their hand, or see someone else move their hand. "The ASD group showed significant mu suppression to self-performed hand movements but not to observed hand movements. These results support the hypothesis of a dysfunctional mirror neuron system in high-functioning individuals with ASD," concluded the study.

Subsequent experiments by Jaime Pineda and his colleagues at UCSD found that individuals with ASD develop compensatory brain mechanisms that allow them to identify correctly the emotions of others and determine their intentions. Mirror neurons are not absent from the brains of ASD people, but they are misfiring. Pineda suggests that neurofeedback retraining might reduce some of the social symptoms of autism.

Of course, the mirror neurons can't be our only source of moral sense, otherwise you can imagine what trouble people with autism would be. The argument is that empathy or some kind of social metacognition, to borrow an ed psych term, is only one contributor to a person's morality

Empathy, the ability to feel someone else's joy, pain, and gratitude, helps guide our pre-reflective moral values.

I'm personally more interested in how much of an effect mirror neurons have on linguistic development, but I don't know how much of an effect something like a mirror neuron would have on development. I have much more research to do. Expect to hear more about this in the future.

The Daedelus Project, a site dedicated to researching the psychology of MMOs, posts some thoughts on superstitious behaviour in MMOs:

From beta all the way through months into launch players were CONVINCED that if you used the diplomacy skill on a chest it would improve the loot you got. This was SO widespread that you literally could not get in a pick up group without them querying about the diplomacy skills of the party and someone forcing everyone to wait while the highest diplomacy skill player cringed before the chest sufficiently. No matter how many times we posted on the forums that this was a myth and it doesn't do anything, they kept doing it. It got so bad our community relations manager even put it in his sig. Finally we made chests an invalid target for the diplomacy skill, then players whined that all the points they put into diplomacy were worthless because we "nerfed" the skill!

This is related to one of B.F. Skinner's behavioural conditioning studies in which he made pigeons behave in a superstitious manner:

B.F. Skinner is well-known for his theory of behavioral conditioning, but one of his quirkiest studies involved inducing superstition in pigeons (1948). 8 pigeons were placed in a reinforcement contraption (i.e., Skinner Box) and were given a food pellet every 15 seconds no matter what they did. After several days, each pigeon had fixated on a particular superstitious behavior. One pigeon danced counter-clockwise, another two developed a left-to-right head-swinging motion, another attacked an invisible object in the top right corner of the cage, and so forth. This phenomenon has also been replicated among high-school students (Bruner & Revuski, 1961). And given that MMOs are a kind of Skinner Box that offer some random rewards (e.g., rare drops), it's not surprising that superstitious behaviors emerge in MMOs as well.

I myself have experienced these first hand through many games, most recently in WoW and LOTRO. Some even become inside jokes among the sceptics like me (e.g. when someone brings up the belief that the loot table in an instance is determined by who makes and leads the group, we exclaim "Oh, and I hear Onyxia deep breaths more often too!" - a reference to the widely disproved theories that every patch caused the Onyxia encounter to change behaviours for the worse.)

This doesn't mean I'm immune to my own superstitions. For example, I deeply hold the belief that if we're doing well on a new boss encounter, and it looks like we're going to win, it is extremely important NOT to say "We've got this" or any variation thereof. Saying anything even remotely close to that will surely lead to a failed attempt. Granted, there are also psychological reasons for this (someone claiming victory before it is 100% assured can lead part of the group to relax, therefore paying less attention and dropping overall group performance), but in the end, it's just another superstition we all seem to fall victim to. Via kotaku.

A delightfully geeky article on the calculus involved in determining the right time to say "I Love You:"

The Engineer, delightful and rational fellow that he is, made it clear that he would not be saying “I love you” until he was sure. Otherwise, he might waste this very important statement by saying it too early in the relationship, when his love was still growing rapidly, thereby taking away the significance in later weeks/months when his love was much, much greater.

Judy, obviously disappointed by this response, pressed and asked WHEN exactly that would be. His response: when dLove/dt = zero.

The article goes on to analyse his statement in humour akin to the brilliant XKCD. Thanks for the link, Clarke.

An animated map showing religious conflict over the last 5000 years.

I found the natural and more artificial means of growth of the different religions interesting.