What’s next…Phrenology?
I know this isn't a religious post but I've been working on something good for the last few days. See if you find this as pretty funny as I do.
OK check the article below from foxnews.com. These researchers spend all this time studying people and the length of their ring fingers to say it may predict financial success. This leads me into thinking they will soon start to give merit to Phrenology.If you don't know what Phrenology is, it's the study of bumps on a persons head. Get your head start, I put a guide over to the left haha!
Length of Ring Fingers May Predict Financial Success
Monday, January 12, 2009
WASHINGTON — The length of a man's ring finger may predict his success as a financial trader. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England report that men with longer ring fingers, compared to their index fingers, tended to be more successful in the frantic high-frequency trading in the London financial district.
Indeed, the impact of biology on success was about equal to years of experience at the job, the team led by physiologist John M. Coates reports in Monday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The same ring-to-index finger ratio has previously been associated with success in competitive sports such as soccer and basketball, the researchers noted.
The length ratio between those two fingers is determined during the development of the fetus and the relatively longer ring finger indicates greater exposure to the male hormone androgen, the researchers noted.
Previous studies have found that such exposure can lead to increased confidence, risk preferences, search persistence, heightened vigilance and quickened reaction times.
In a separate study last year, Coates and colleagues reported that the hormone that drives male aggression and sexual interest also seemed able to boost short term success at finance.
They studied male financial traders in London, taking saliva samples in the morning and evening. They found that those with higher levels of testosterone in the morning were more likely to make an unusually big profit that day. Testosterone, best known as the male sex hormone, affects aggression, confidence and risk-taking.
In the new study, the researchers measured the right hands of 44 male stock traders who were engaged in a type of trade that involved rapid decision-making and quick physical reactions.
Over 20 months those with longer ring fingers compared to their index fingers made 11 times more money than those with the shortest ring fingers. Over the same time the most experienced traders made about 9 times more than the least experienced ones.
Looking only at experienced traders, the long-ring-finger folks earned 5 times more than those with short ring fingers.
While the finger ratio, showing fetal exposure to male hormones, appears to signal likely success in high-actively trading that calls for risk-taking and quick reactions, it may not indicate people who would do well at other sorts of financial activities, the researchers said.
Some traders require additional skills on dealing with clients and sales workers.
And the advantage may even reverse for some, Coates team said, such as traders taking a more analytical and long-term approach to the markets.
One study, which looked at average finger ratios in university departments found that faculty from math, science and engineering exhibited longer index finger ratio, rather than ring finger, they noted.
The Suffering Christian
There are a lot of people that don't understand the suffering Christian. Many of those are Christians and they find it hard to understand why troubled times come to them. They think that if they follow God to the T, everyday should be cotton candy and lemon drops. They quickly find it discouraging trying to live a Christian life.
My good friend Robert gave me a book based on A.W. Tozer's writings, and he said:
We are all idealist. We picture ourselves a life on earth completely free from every hindrance, a kind of spiritual Utopia where we can always control events, where we can move about as favorites of heaven, adjusting circumstances to suit ourselves. This we feel would be quite compatible with the life of faith and in keeping with the provoleged place we hold as children of God
In thinking this we simply misplace ourselves; we mistake earth for heaven and explect conditions here below which can never be realized till we reach the better world above. While we live we may expect troubles, and plenty of them. We are never probmised a life without problems, as long as we remain among fallen men....
What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. If we cannot remove them, then we must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure the unwillingly.
I'm going through some financial hard times. I pray about it daily hoping bills fall on the right days so my paycheck will come at the right time. It wasn't until I was given this book did I really understand and appreciate my suffering. If there are things bothering me I recognize the problem and pray for guidance and grace to get me through. I no longer worry about the issue because I ask God for help. Now I don't throw the problem under the rug but knowing these things the problem sits differently with me. As I grow stronger every day my troubles will be less trying on my soul and my prayers grace will turn to praise and my praise will turn to work for his glory. Then when the next trial on my faith comes along I know we can face it again together.
God motivates and strengthens us in many ways. We stand strong with God and push through the tough times. Then, when we come out the other side things will be so much sweeter.
God’s reponses to prayer
This is a response I had to a member posting over on Ray Comfort's Blog
The Topic is "Mistakes About Medical Mistakes"
Blogger Don said...Ray said ... "God is not like us. He is infallible. You can trust Him implicitly. He will never disappoint you. Ever."
Where's your evidence Ray? I'm not going to dispute your figures about how many die due to medical mistakes.
But please explain to me why this infallible God that one can trust implicitly to never disappoint allows so many to die from medical mistakes?
I'm sure quite a few of those who died from medical mistakes prayed and prayed to your God to make their surgeries a success. And probably had many people praying for them.
So why does your God continually allow "mistakes" to kill these people?
Is it because the people getting the operations aren't true Christians in your sense of the word and don't deserve God's help?
Is it because one or more of the praying friends where not the acceptable type of Christian and therefore their prayers nullify any "real Christian" prayers?
Is it because the doctors or someone on the staff might be Jewish or of another religion and God doesn't want to help them?
Or are the doctors not the right type of Christian?
And what about all the other deaths. Is it your God's will that people need to die these horrible deaths? Is it because of your celebrated original sin? I thought your buddy Jesus was supposed to take care of all that?
Since you seem to be in direct communication with your God, why is he such a lame duck when it comes to taking care of his people?
If someone has cancer and they put their trust in God and pray and pray and pray for a successful operation, why would your God ignore this?
January 4, 2009 9:31 AM
Blogger Dory said...
Don, The problem with most people that see God as "failing to answer prayer" is that they just don't understand the nature of prayer. It's like in the movies, you know, "God if you save me now I'll be in church on Sunday". That's trying to strong arm God and it's not going to happen. Or the prayer is self centered (greedy) or simply against God's will (just my time to die). Some people pray to God out of fear of death but don't want to live the required life. Also if I called you a cowardly stupid fool and said bad things about your mother would you give me the time of day much less save my life? So how can I expect God to answer my prayers if I treat him like this?
We have pushed God out of our society, out of our schools, out of our courts, out of our government, and out of our lives. Then you want to blame God (or rather not believe in him) for not protecting us. We as a nation told God to go away and we don't need him. So God, as requested, removed his hand of protection from our nation and the number of people dying and the number of disaster has increased over the decades.
Listen to me here, I testified to this to my pastor last night... Sunday before last I wasn't going to go to Sunday night service at the local nursing home. It was new to me and I wasn't sure I really wanted to. Really old people aren't the liveliest bunch. Also I wasn't paying attention to the clock and I was going to be like 10 minutes late anyways. So I argued it over in my head but I know God was telling me to go. So I went. After the service I headed home and seen a guy on the side of the road trying to change a tire in the dark. Car after car passed by and I would of also but God pushed me and I turned around. Come to find out him and his pregnant wife with a young dog was shivering in the cold trying to change this tire with a broken jack. My tools weren't in my truck so I gave them some extra light and made friendly conversation while we waited for their parents to arrive. I know I was part of God's answer to a prayer that night.
What you pass off as good will or circumstance isn't as it always seems. I'm telling you if you give Glory and Praise God when good things happen your life will be so much better. But you need to understand even the most true hearted Christians suffer. God brings us closer to him and makes us grow in many ways. What if we didn't have the Martyrs? If Christians were not willing to suffer and die for Jesus this religion would of vanished long ago.
I will tell you this, why does a atheist suffer? I don't know.
Why does a true believer suffer? For the Glory of God in a way we can only hope to understand.
--
Noble, God isn't responsible for mans free will.
Virtual Reality Reality
I find it odd that in this day and age we spend more time out of reality than in it. When was the last time you considered the lilies of the field? Honestly now think about it.
As a member of the USAF I have a couple hundred co-workers. They are constantly hanging out in my office and shooting the bull. A majority of the time they talk about computer games mainly World of Warcraft. Now I use to be one of those guys that spent every waking moment playing games. I was a avid Everquest and Ultima Online player for several years. I loved playing the Quake and Unreal series games. But as I look back I can see for several years I was also neglecting my wife and son.
The thing is these games are taking a large toll on our lives. Just look at the recent news related to game deaths. Yes people die playing these games.
Here 2 kids in this article have died for over exertion. Here a Korean couple's 4 month old daughter dies while they game away. These deaths are always popping up in the news.
How big is this gaming addiction problem? World of Warcraft claims to have 11.5 million subscribers as of December 2008. So if you took the total number of people in both New York City and Los Angeles combined you'd have that many people currently playing World of Warcraft.
That's JUST World of Warcraft. There are at least a dozen other Massive Mutliplayer Online Role playing games out there. Then if you toss in all the other games that aren't MMORPG you have a staggering number of wasted hours. As a matter of fact the other day in Church we was talking about how busy we've gotten over the decades. How when our parents were young we had more family time. More sit down and relax time. More time for Church and Friends.
Today we bombard our very existence with pointless waste of time. We sit in front of the computer surfing till our wrist hurt. We sit in front of the TV till we need glasses to see. My son in fact gets rather upset when he don't have the computer or XBOX to play on. All he keeps saying is "I'm Bored" and I have to get authoritative with him and force him to go outside or read a book or play his trombone. When I was his age you couldn't keep me inside I loved going out in the wood riding my bike or taking my BB gun outside. I've got to make a change in my kids lives because this is already getting out of control.
I know this isn't something my kids are going to enjoy but what choice do I have. This time they spend burning brain cells instead of studying God's Word or learning something that is useful isn't showing me being a good parent. I know God don't approve of this way of life. It's times like these I can really admire the Amish.
How BIG is the universe?
Over on Ray Comforts blog he posted a good question on 1 Jan 2009. I quote: "I would like to hear your quantitative answers as to how big the universe is, what light is, and what life is."
First off since we have no way to calculate the size of the universe. Neither using Red Shift or Gravitational Lens calculations, X-Ray, Radio, or Infrared telescopes; nothing in the arsenal of NASA, Russia, ESA, or China can detect any hint of an end to the know universe.
To even begin to calculate size we have to assume there is a limited number of galaxies in the universe. Think of it as filling a invisible jar with balls to get a ideal of the volume of space the jar envelopes. With all the technology in at our disposal scientist estimated 125,000,000,000 (that's 125 BILLION) galaxies in -1999-. Later on shuttle missions added a better cameras to the Hubble Space telescope and astronomers were able to see a estimated 3000 galaxies in the visible range of the new camera. That 3000 is more than likely a well rounded up number that is probably well under 2501. Anyways, if they can see 3000 galaxies that's only a mere fraction of 1% of their own estimate.
Now we have to figure the size of the average galaxy. If your still with me we have to put a average size on all these balls filling our invisible jar. NASA scientist estimate that is around 100,000 light years across. According the the Ask an Astrophysicist website. This math is already beyond my simple mind since I really suck at all things math.
So what we have estimated so far is that the universe may contain 125 billion galaxies that are on average 100,000 light years across and 3000 light years thick. But then we still have all this space between the galaxies that's called intergalactic space. Andromeda is the closest galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy and it's 1,600,000 light years away. Again more math than I could even begin to understand since you have to figure that number is only a straight line where what we need is volume. I'll have to search more for the average distance and cube that to give us a very rough guess. But that in itself could take a considerable amount of time to even come remotely close.
By now you're probably wondering what exactly is this light year I've mentioned a few times is. Well a light year is the distance a beam of light can travel in the vacuum of space in one earth year. Some very smart folks figured this out and come up to it being about 5.88 trillion miles. If you like zeros it's closers to 5,878,786,100,000 miles with a hefty amount of rounding up.
Time for another recap:
Light year = 5.88 trillion miles
Galaxy = 100,000 light years across and 3000 thick on average.
125 billion galaxies estimated with space between them.
intergalactic space = XXX light years cubed
I don't think there is a super computer built yet that can even begin to calculate this out.
One thing is certain a lot of people have made a lot of assumptions.
- Main Entry:
- as·sump·tion
- Pronunciation:
- \ə-ˈsəm(p)-shən\
- Function:
- noun
- Etymology:
- Middle English, from Late Latin assumption-, assumptio taking up, from Latin assumere
- Date:
- 13th century
1 a: the taking up of a person into heaven bcapitalized : August 15 observed in commemoration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary
2: a taking to or upon oneself
4: arrogance , pretension
5 a: an assuming that something is true b: a fact or statement (as a proposition, axiom, postulate, or notion) taken for granted
6: the taking over of another's debt
If you take away definitions 4 and 5 pulling out the guessing and and arrogance of these estimates you see these uncommon uses:
1. The taking up of a person into heaven - Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts Chapter 1
2: a taking to or upon oneself - Jesus took our sins upon himself
3: the act of laying claim to or taking possession of something - he took possession of our sins, cured our diseases and healed our wounds.
6: the taking over of another's debt - Jesus paid our debt for our sins.