Progress

"The reason there wasn't thermonuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis was because a single deputy commander of a Soviet submarine refused to take orders. One human being. If he hadn't done that, how many people would have perished? If that had happened, Steven Pinker's numbers [on the worldwide decline of violence] would be rather different, wouldn't they? A hundred million people down the tubes pretty quickly, and then the breakdown of production and distribution, illness, horrible death. Multiply Hiroshima or Nagasaki by a hundred or two hundred and that's what you'd get. That was one human being. So where is the great inexorable progression toward peace coming from?"—John Gray (45:00)

"Eugenicist ideas and racist forms of biology were strong right up until the start of the second World War, and not only in Nazi Germany in the interwar period, but in Britain and the whole of Europe in the latter part of the 19th century. Some of these ideas, such as craniometry, even entered into law. These ideas about improving the stock of humanity by eliminating inferior elements were not defeated within the context of science, they were only defeated by the military defeat of Nazism. They didn't go away completely, of course, but they were set back. Were they set back by meritocracy in science? No. They were set back by a military defeat. If the defeat didn't happen, I bet you they would still be around."—John Gray (50:00)

"Growth of knowledge is very powerful, but what it produces is new forms of civilization and new forms of barbarism. […] Although science is an embodiment of rationality, the long-run impact of science on society is not to make human beings more reasonable, it simply enables them do what they want to do with greater effectiveness. It gives human beings more power."—John Gray (16:15)

Loneliness

"Victor Crist, a republican [Hillsborough County Commissioner] said "The [gay pride] festivals, the activities and things need to have a little different tone to them. Parading around in lingerie, pasties, g-strings and outfits that promote your sexual organs is not necessarily an appropriate thing to do in Hillsborough County." A member of the audience replied "that's Gasparilla," bringing laughter."—Bill Varian (link)

"All vectors have a right to exist."—Dr. Paul J. Schmidt, professor of pathology, University of South Florida, in response to a question about medical defenses for as-yet unknown pathogens, asked by myself during a lecture about the accidental transfusion of AIDS/HIV to healthy patients before suitable blood tests were developed. 12 October 2012.

"My wife is my only friend."—Tampa bus driver, from an overheard conversation with a fellow passenger. 7 June 2013, 4:30 A.M.

Blinding

"The eyeball cannot register an image at the point at which the optic nerve attaches, and hence that point is known as the blind spot. No one can see an object that appears in the blind spot because there are no visual receptors there. Your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren't blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information. That's right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up! It doesn't consult you about this, doesn't seek your approval. It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene."—Daniel Gilbert (page 90)

"In the early 1950s researchers used technology to counteract eye movements by mounting a tiny slide projector onto a contact lens affixed to the observer’s eye with a suction device. This retinal stabilization technique forces the image to remain still with respect to the eye, even when the eye continues to move. The images, in these experiments, fade away perceptually, because of the lack of neural stimulation."—Susana Martinez-Conde (link)

"My reaction to reading the article was a mixture of incredulity and amazement at the complexity of our biological clocks — and the continuing ability of sleep research to overturn our presumptions. Instead of exposing their subjects' eyes to light, sleep researchers at the Cornell Circadian Rhythm and Sleep Laboratory delivered the light to the skin on the back of the knees. Incredibly, they measured significant changes in the subjects' circadian rhythms as a result of this seemingly innocuous light exposure."—William C. Dement (page 95)

Rollin'

"Songs can have multiple meanings, but to think the author [of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary] didn't intentionally reference drugs is like being in a room with an elephant and deciding to close yours eyes and say there's no elephant. It is there. Also, it doesn't matter what the band said or didn't say. There could be a million reasons why he would rather give one answer in an interview rather than another. And Rob (Novi, MI) did you write this straight from DEA headquarters? On your lunch break maybe?"—Karl, Seattle, WA (link)

"With the benefit of hindsight we can now safely say that this opening [for the 1989 Academy Awards show] was the worst fucking idea in the history of the universe. A myopic Carr imagined that a theatrical conceit that barely made sense within the context of a raunchy San Francisco revue would work just as well as the opening of cinema’s most important and self-serious night."—Nathan Rabin (link)

"Steve wanted it to be five or six minutes long at the most, but Allan got nervous and threw in everything but the kitchen sink."—Jo Schuman Silver
"When you see something that doesn't work, by four minutes it's terrible, by five minutes it's outrageous, by eight minutes it's the kiss of death, and by 12 minutes it's the worst thing you've ever seen in your life."—Gilbert Cates (link)

Post-hoc

"The neuroscience supports the claim that self is constructed. For example, Michael Gazzaniga demonstrated that split-brain patients presented with inconsistent visual information would readily confabulate an explanation to reconcile information unconsciously processed with information that was conscious. They would make up a story. Likewise, Oliver Sacks famously reported various patients who could confabulate accounts to make sense of their impairments. Ramachandran describes patients who are paralyzed but deny they have a problem. These are all extreme clinical cases but the same is true of normal people. We can easily spot the inconsistencies in other people’s accounts of their self but we are less able to spot our own, and when those inconsistencies are made apparent by the consequences of our actions, we make the excuse, “I wasn’t myself last night” or “It was the wine talking!” Well, wine doesn’t talk and if you were not your self, then who were you and who was being you?"—Bruce Hood (link)

"The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts. Metarules (such as the rule that we have a tendency to not learn rules) we don't seem to be good at getting. We scorn the abstract; we scorn it with passion."—Nassim Nicholas Taleb (page xxi)

"This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is risky, that it is a bad thing— and that eliminating randomness is done by eliminating randomness."—Nassim Nicholas Taleb (page 84)

Breezy

"The sea breeze accounts for 70 percent of annual rainfall in the state of Florida. Central Florida is located in a prime spot to receive a sea breeze from both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. In light wind regimes, two sea breezes typically form. However, prevailing winds can blow these toward one another, forming one intense thunderstorm line down the middle of the state. Thanks to a higher tropical tropopause, Florida's thunderstorms easily grow to heights greater than 10 miles. When coupled with abundant moisture and slow movement, it is not uncommon for Florida thunderstorms to drop four or more inches of rain in less than one hour."—H. Michael Mogil (link)

"Florida is the lightning capital of the United States. Tampa has about 50 cloud-to-ground flashes per square mile per year, the highest of any U.S. location. When coupled with an active, outdoor lifestyle, lightning can be a major killer. Ron Holle, a renowned lightning expert, noted that 74 deaths occurred in Florida during the period from 1998- 2007. Florida ranks fifth in lightning deaths when data is adjusted for population but first in actual fatality numbers."—H. Michael Mogil (link)

"The sea breeze circulation reverses at night and becomes the land breeze. The land becomes cooler than the water and thus the placement of the low and high pressure areas reverse. Locally, when the land breeze encounters the warm Gulf Stream, a line of nocturnal thunderstorms is often observed offshore of the coast."—NOAA (link)

Gay

"All men, to varying degrees, have the ability and desire to form affectionate ties with other men. Women have a corresponding ability and desire to form affectionate ties with other women. Attraction to members of the same sex and expression of that attraction is in no way contrary to or an alternative for attraction to members of the other sex. Homosexuality is an emergent quality of individual selection for same-sex affiliation and has been a part of the human experience, perhaps all primate experience, since its inception."—R.C. Kirkpatrick (link)

"Although homosexuality is a widespread phenomenon, in some societies homosexuals confront repression or ridicule. In parts of the United States, for example, public displays of same-sex affection between men in particular are often looked upon as distasteful or even disgusting. One nationwide exception is the football field, where an extreme measure of rough-and-tumble masculine behavior makes it possible for players to pat each other on the behind, exchange celebratory hugs, and even leap into each other's arms without bringing their sexual orientation into question."—William A. Haviland (link)

"Among the most thoroughly homosexual societies known are the Etoro of New Guinea. As reported by anthropologist Raymond Kelly, the Etoro believe that semen is a precious life-giving fluid which each man possesses in limited supply. Without semen, a man withers and dies. They believe that semen can be acquired only as a gift that one male bestows on another. To ensure that semen is properly distributed and used for worthy social purposes, older Etoro men are expected to transfer their semen to young boys. This is done by penis-to-mouth intercourse (fellatio) between seniors and juniors respectively, who sleep together in a village men’s quarters—a separate large house—from which all females are barred."—Marvin Harris (link)