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All people - Jews, Germans, and even some Zulus - have essentially the same morality, a professor of philosophy from Muhlenberg University (Pennsylvania) argues in his article. He proves very convincingly, using impeccable logic, using algebra to verify the harmony of human relations. Under the onslaught of evidence from Professor Schick Jr., the theories of subjectivists, cultural relativists and anthropologists are crumbling like houses of cards before our eyes.
Quote: Imagine that you are a Negro, a Jew by religion, and on top of everything else, you happened to live in Bavaria during the Hitler regime. What culture do you belong to then? To the black one? To the Jewish? To the Bavarian? Or maybe to the Nazi? Each of us absorbs many different cultures bit by bit, and it is often very difficult to determine which of these cultures is the main one. If we cannot accurately indicate our belonging to any one culture, cultural relativism cannot serve as a means of solving our moral problems.
Order a full translation of an article?Broken Promises William Rukeyser Thrust for Educational Leadership
The computer cannot serve as a panacea for all ills, the coordinator of the Californian foundation called “Learning in the Real World” is convinced. At least, no results have yet been seen from the introduction of computerization in the field of education. Since our children still have to live in the real and not the virtual world, it is better that they learn from real, rather than virtual teachers, the author of the article believes, relying on the opinion of many computer authorities (including even the legendary founding father Apple company Steve Jobs).
Quote: We strive to computerize school classrooms as much as possible, and so far the driving forces of this desire are faith, fear, deception and hope. The belief that computerization will guarantee economic prosperity (never mind that our economic competitors are much more modest than we are in terms of introducing computers into schools and that software is increasingly created abroad by cheap foreign programmers and then sent to Silicon Valley via email). Fear of not catching the modern train. Fraud, a distinctive feature of the official speeches of any government official from education, who certainly tries to connect successes in his field with getting money for the purchase of new equipment. And, finally, the hope that computerization will really help us patch up all the holes in the education system.
Order a full translation of an article?The Times of Our Lives (Whose century is longer) Henry Gee (Henry Gee) Nature
What is the secret of eternal youth, or even immortality? The answer to this exciting question is given by the author of the article, who popularly expounds the theories of modern evolutionists and biochemists. It turns out, for example, that elephants live longer than mice because their metabolism is slower; that the longevity of parents is influenced by the number of children and the time of their birth (the fewer there are and the later they are born, the longer the parents live on average); that there are special molecules formed during oxidation reactions that can damage tissues and cells, even DNA, and thus play a key role in the matter of life and death. The next word belongs to geneticists who are seriously thinking about improving the human breed.
Quote: There are several evolutionary explanations for mortality. They are based on the difference between the cells that form the reproductive system (sperm and eggs) and other cells in our body. For organisms that do not have such cellular differences, the question of life expectancy itself does not make sense. An example is the amoeba, which reproduces by simple division, that is, by copying itself. Such organisms are essentially immortal.
Order a full translation of an article?E-Book Gold Rush Andrew Albanese LinguaFranca
Do you think your dissertation is of interest to the academic council only as an excuse for a banquet? You are wrong. A large company has appeared in America, ready to purchase the rights to publish scientific monographs online from university publishers. The boom in electronic publishing has gained such momentum that the academic world, initially delighted by the opportunity to earn at least some extra money, now seems to have begun to worry about not making a mistake.
Quote: Is this possible? Can university presses make real money from electronic publishing? Dennis Dillon, chief information officer at the University of Texas at Austin, said the effort will be welcomed by even the most skeptical university officials. Perhaps because electronic publishing of monographs makes rare materials easily accessible, and also provides the reader with the ability to search by keywords. Such prospects have led to the fact that today there are investors who have invested more than $500 million in the digitalization of academic studies.
Order a full translation of an article?Good-Bye Pythagoras? (Goodbye Pythagoras?) Elizabeth Greene The Chronicle of Higher Education
Is two and two seven or eight? In the fat field of political correctness, another field of science has grown - “ethnomathematics”, the brainchild of the Brazilian Ubiratan d'Ambrosio. So that people do not think that mathematics was invented by white men, systems of measures and weights, coordinate axes and geometric systems that were in use among the Indians, African and ancient Asian tribes were extracted from the darkness of centuries. Picked up, of course, primarily by the Americans, the movement took shape into a group (its website is www.rensselaer.edu/~eglash/isgem.htm ). Alternative mathematics is taught in colleges and universities in an effort to make serious science more accessible to women and other ethnic minorities. Overcoming European ethnocentrism, students study geometric design based on Navajo Indian carpets and computer modeling of hairstyles based on African fractals. Proponents of the Cartesian-Euclidean worldview worry that immersion in ethnomathematics may disorient students in the face of pressing problems of "big science."
Quotes: “ I’m not at all advocating for hiding the contributions of the Chinese, Indians, Africans or anyone else to mathematics. I myself periodically teach similar material in my classes,” says David Klein, a professor of mathematics at the University of California. “But as for mathematics itself, how subject, then how do you structure teaching when teachers are so politically correct that they are ready to abandon Arabic numerals, European theorems and fundamental mathematical ideas because they were created in the last few centuries in Europe. This can make idiots out of students."
The Mayans calculated that Venus takes 584 days to complete its orbit; modern astronomers estimate this figure as 583.92 days... Robert Proctor, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, tells students in a history of science course that until the reform of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the Mayans had the most accurate calendar in the world, deviating just 17.3 seconds from the modern calendar we use.
Order a full translation of an article?J'accuse Sartre (I Accuse Sartre) Maurie Samuels (Maury Samuels) LinguaFranca
The Nazi occupation of France came at a very opportune time for Sartre. Thanks to the persecution of Jews, the famous anti-fascist was able to take a dusty position as a teacher at the prestigious Parisian Lycée Condorcet, involuntarily vacated by Henri Dreyfus-Le-Foyer (who, moreover, turned out to be not just Dreyfus, but the nephew of Alfred, the hero of the famous “Dreyfus affair”). According to the German researcher Ingrid Galster, it was this place, which did not require much time and effort, that helped Sartre write philosophical works that later brought him worldwide fame. An article by American Maurie Samuels is devoted to the Franco-German controversy surrounding the military past of the father of existentialism.
Quote: Unlike the French army during the drole de guerre, the Parisian Sartre scholars are resisting the new German aggression. This summer, in the journal "Les Temps Modernes", founded by Sartre himself and Simone de Beauvoir, an article by Professor Lecarme appeared, which indicates that the immediate successor of Dreyfus-Le-Foyer was not Sartre, but a certain Ferdinand Alquie... In addition, he points out Lecarme, Sartre had to teach nine hours a week (philosophy and mathematics), and not six hours, as claimed by a German researcher, who believes that the light teaching load allowed Sartre to pursue a scientific career.
Order a full translation of an article?Advertisements for Themselves Brian Murray The Weekly Standard
Advertising is an art intended solely for sale. She always gives exactly what we want. She is like a mirror showing us who we are. The author of the article tells the history of American advertising of the second half of the 20th century - from the logocentric times of radio to the wordless visual series of television commercials, from the comic slogans of the 60s to the pathetic seriousness of the 70s, from the recognized classics Julian Watkins and David Ogilvy to the present day.
Quote: Film director Ridley Scott, famous for his film "Alien", ... also directed one of the most famous commercials in America called "Big Brother". This was an advertisement for the Apple Macintosh computer that first aired during the Super Bowl broadcast in January 1984. The video began with an image of an ominously futuristic interior: in front of a crowd of sad, bald-shaven subjects in a gray uniform, a gloomy-looking Big Brother was broadcasting from a huge television screen. Suddenly, a young woman in red sports shorts appears in the frame and, pushing through the crowd, smashes the screen with the menacing face of Big Brother with a huge sledgehammer. Voiceover: "Apple Computers is introducing the Macintosh computer on January 24. You'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."
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