Saturday, January 13, 2007

Formula For Procrastination Found. kandela writes "Science Daily reports that a University of Calgary academic has published a paper titled The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure in the Psychological Bulletin. The research reveals that most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure, most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation. The research is apparently the culmination of 10 years work. However, no indication was given of how much time was spent putting it off before it was begun." From the article: "Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task... Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more."[Slashdot] 12:25:05 PM      Google It!.

Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board. BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"[Slashdot] it used to be just evolution but anti science is at least vocal -- sort of if you say it often enough then it must be true style of validity --BL 10:50:06 AM      Google It!.

Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux. George P. Dvorsky has created a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that re-define the human condition and should be known by any expert generalist. They include Accelerating Change, Anthropic Principle, Artificial General Intelligence,... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 10:26:55 AM      Google It!.