Bleeding from the Bunghole

[Gumby]

HAHAHA!!!!

Nice!

Ever since I saw your image I wanted to add that animation in.

You may have found your specialty: animated GIFS!

Someone else for me to be jealous of :bjarte:

[heddle]

Even programs that demonstrate chaos are, in fact, deterministic.

Could you clarify that bit?

Sure.

In extreme sensitivity to initial conditions found in a chaotic system, even changing the least significant bit of the driving parameter can produce an uncorrelated change in the output. Thus I might see something like:

input 1.00000000000 produces output -5.2
input 1.00000000001 produces output eleventy billion and 7.

However, if you change the input back to 1.00000000000 the program will faithfully reproduce an output of -5.2. It is deterministic.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

I did see your question but did not want to get into another free will discussion. But since you asked again...

You have to start, of course, with a definition. I'll give you my definition. Everyone will of course say it is the wrong definition--but at least you'll know where I'm coming from.

I define free will this way: the actual non-illusory ability to make a decision with these features:
1) It alters the future in the sense that if I choose A the universe goes down one path and if I choose B it goes down another
2) The choice is real
3) The choice is not random--it is not, say, driven by quantum indeterminacy. As such it is sensible to ascribe to my choices moral culpability
4) I am not coerced by anything exterior

I can't help but discuss free will. I think your definition needs work. Take, for example, a chess computer. It has the actual ability to choose between several alternative paths which alter the future. Of course the choice is real and not random. The chess computer is not coerced by anything exterior. So, by your definition, the chess computer has free will.

So the chess program is not deterministic (there are different possible future paths) and not random? That's surprising. I would consider that a miracle of computer programming. Even programs that demonstrate chaos are, in fact, deterministic. No doubt my definition of free will sucks. But your example of why my definition is lacking doesn't really work. A chess computer is either deterministic or (possibly) random, and so has no moral culpability--so it does not fall under my definition of free will.

If you are a Calvinist Baptist,how does this definition of free will work with Calvinist determinism? How can one be morally culpable if everything is predetermined as god's plan?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

...models (like string theory) require such fine-tuning to work...

Sez who?

[heddle]

If you are a Calvinist Baptist,how does this definition of free will work with Calvinist determinism? How can one be morally culpable if everything is predetermined as god's plan?

Sorry, that's a fair question but I am not going to answer that. I have no interest in theological discussions on this thread. If there is another thread set aside for theology, I'm happy to go there and answer. I'm actually trying (with reasonable success) to stick to science on this thread.

[Dick Strawkins]

The problem there, I think, is that, as Jacques Monod put it, “Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.”

And, not to throw too many stones at Dr. Coyne and despite his book "Why Evolution is True", I would say he also falls into that group. Seems to me that there is a credible case to be made that self-organization also plays a very significant role in the process over and above that provided by random variation and selection.

Is the irony intentional? If so, well done, if not: :cdc:

Apart from the fact that Monod himself used the categorical “everybody”, I would think that before you "go off half-cocked" – so to speak – you may wish to actually address the points I raised in response to Strawkins, to wit:

A great many other people have apparently already done so, but Stuart Kauffman seems to be leading the hit parade, although as much for his pulling together a great many threads as for his own contributions. But a brief synopsis or overview from his Wikipedia article:

In 1971, Kauffman proposed the self-organized emergence of collectively autocatalytic sets of polymers, specifically peptides, for the origin of molecular reproduction. Reproducing peptide, DNA, and RNA collectively autocatalytic sets have now been made experimentally. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits.

I’ve just finished reading his At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity – sort of a popularization, but still quite detailed; his Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution is apparently quite a bit more so, although I haven’t had a chance yet to read it.

But one of the fundamental underpinnings of the perspective, which he discusses in some detail in the first and presumably in the second, is the work of Ilya Prigogine and others on “non-equilibrium systems”, those like biological ones where entropy and order decrease spontaneously:

Non-equilibrium ordered systems like the Great Red Spot are sustained by the persistent dissipation of matter and energy, and so were named dissipative structures by the Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine some decades ago. These systems have received enormous attention. In part, the interest lies in their contrast to equilibrium systems, where equilibrium is associated with collapse to the most probable, least ordered states. ….

But Kauffman also develops in some detail the analogy of Boolean networks which very clearly show that tendency for systems to self-organize – as he argues, if not belabors somewhat, “order for free”. You may wish to take a look at this Mathematica demonstration which illustrates the concept in some detail.

In any case, both his efforts and those of the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Institute]Santa Fe Institute with which he has been associated suggest that “evolution” is rather more than what many conceive it to be, that, to coin a phrase, where there’s smoke there’s fire.

How on earth does what you've just written constitute a 'credible case' for your wild claim that 'self-organization also plays a very significant role in the process over and above that provided by random variation and selection'?

You are claiming that variation and selection are less important in evolution than some kind of self-organizational process.
If you can produce a credible case then I have no doubt a Nobel prize awaits you because it would turn the entire field of biology on it's head.

What you've done, however, is not so much present a case that self organization is more important in evolution, but merely that there are some aspects of biochemical self organization that may be involved in certain aspects of life - for example the RNA question. But even that is more of a hypothesis than a proven fact and even IF proven that RNA self organized into replicating polymers that only gives us one point in the evolutionary tree. What about all the other points. The behavior of lipid bilayers in cell membranes may be another but the rest of the cell? It seems to require a lot of energy to put it together and keep it going - its hardly the model of a self organizing system.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that a credible case can be made that self organizing systems are involved in the biochemistry of life - but these are minor aspects of evolution compared to proven factors such as genetic drift, variation and naural selection?

[justinvacula]

Syndicated political cartoonist Ted Rall to appear on January 4 episode of Brave Hero Radio!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bravehero/ ... 5/ted-rall

Fuck liberal puritans :) :bjarte:

[Tigzy]

Theology = Marvel No-Prizes for god.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Even programs that demonstrate chaos are, in fact, deterministic.

Could you clarify that bit?

Sure.

In extreme sensitivity to initial conditions found in a chaotic system, even changing the least significant bit of the driving parameter can produce an uncorrelated change in the output. Thus I might see something like:

input 1.00000000000 produces output -5.2
input 1.00000000001 produces output eleventy billion and 7.

However, if you change the input back to 1.00000000000 the program will faithfully reproduce an output of -5.2. It is deterministic.

Thanks for the, hum, clarification (remember, I'm at the Crayola-munching stage). So, what about Langton's Ant? You can find many online apps that allow you to drastically change the initial state of the simulation (by blacking out random squares on the grid), and yet you will always end up with the "highway" configuration. is Langton's Ant deterministic? (I'm really trying to wrap my head around the concept without going to external sources. That's always a last solution for me).

[John Greg]

Heddle said (http://www.slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... 15#p151615):

... that's a fair question but I am not going to answer that. I have no interest in theological discussions on this thread. If there is another thread set aside for theology, I'm happy to go there and answer. I'm actually trying (with reasonable success) to stick to science on this thread.

I like that answer.

I would hatehatehate to see this thread degenerate into the gaseous swamp that alwaysalwaysalways forms in a theological debate between theists and atheists.

Yucko.

If Heddle, or anyone else for that matter, wishes to create a theological debate, pleasepleaseplease, create another sub-forum / topic thread thingy.

Thank you.

:naughty:

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Seems that string theory could be unfalsifiable too given that there are supposedly some 10^500 different possibilities. Doesn't mean that it isn't true and that it might have significant effects on our lives.

10^500 -- where'd you get that number?

String/M theory makes certain assertions about the existence of extra dimensions, 'branes, and (duh) 1-D strings. That we have yet to observe them does not mean they will remain forever unobservable. Treating the Higgs boson as for-real proved very useful, even though it had never been detected until just recently. String theory is eminently falsifiable, not just with hard evidence, but theoretically.

A scientific theory that elegantly describes and accurately predicts should not be equated with "because: God" cop-outs to challenging questions.

Also, don't confuse questions for which there are no answers, with ones that we don't have answers for.

[Dick Strawkins]

Here is an article in Discover from 2011 that discusses how Gardasil isn't nearly as effective as Merck claims it to be.

I am not qualified to critique the article, but on its face, it seems to raise some very good points and is claimed to have not been written by an anti-vaxer.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/ ... marketing/

The vaccine for boys is important, say advocates, because reducing HPV in boys will reduce transmission to girls and women—only 32 percent of whom have been getting the shots to date. Giving the shots to boys, they say, promotes gender equity. As a bonus, the vaccine may protect against oral and anal cancers in men who have sex with men.

Since a key part of the rationale for vaccinating boys is to protect girls, it’s worth a moment to examine the claims about reducing cervical cancer deaths. Merck won approval for Gardasil from the Food and Drug Administration in June 2006. On May 10, 2007, Merck published the results of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that claimed an astounding 98 percent efficacy in preventing changes in the cervix used as a marker for cervical cancer.

But that statistic begs closer examination.

To achieve the 98 percent efficacy claim, Merck excluded from analysis anyone who “violated” the study protocol. In other words, all real-world problems that arose were excluded from analysis. Problems like girls who refused to take a second or third shot after they became sick and (correctly or incorrectly) blamed the vaccine. Or doctors who incorrectly gave the vaccine to someone who shouldn’t have received it. While it’s worth knowing how effective the vaccine is when it’s used exactly as it should be, for a public-health decision, it’s not as relevant as its real-world effectiveness.

To Merck’s credit, they reported that when all women in the study were analyzed, the vaccine’s efficacy dropped to 44 percent. Still, 44 percent might be considered a smashing success when you’re talking about saving lives. Except for one thing: the numbers get worse. The 44 percent benefit included only those women with the two specific cancer-causing HPV strains found in the vaccine. But when the researchers looked at negative cervical changes from any causes, they found that changes occurred in unvaccinated women at a rate of 1.5 events per 100 person-years, while vaccinated women had 1.3 events—dropping the benefit to 17 percent.

Moreover, most of the cervical changes tracked by the researchers weren’t even indicative of cervical cancer in the first place. Most were innocent cellular abnormalities that either disappear entirely on their own, or never progress to cancer. In fact, when they looked more closely at advanced cervical changes most likely to progress to cancer versus more innocent changes that go away spontaneously, it was the innocent changes that accounted for the decline.

Whether Gardasil will reduce cervical cancer deaths in real-world conditions has simply never been answered. It might—but that would take a long-term study, and one that should be done before it’s widely promoted.

It goes on to discuss how the claim it is effective in boys is even weaker and concludes

Fortunately, some researchers don’t believe the hype. Dr. Diane Harper, one of the lead researchers in the development of the HPV vaccine, recently told the Kansas City Star, the vaccine for boys is “pie in the sky…We’re short of health care dollars. Why should we spend it on that?”

Indeed. There are better ways to spend the billions of dollars currently being spent on HPV vaccines. First, we already have a pretty terrific way to prevent most cervical cancer deaths, and it’s called the Pap smear. Since poor women are less likely to get Pap smears and more likely to die from cervical cancer, we could start by extending medical services to them. Second, many oral cancers are caused by smoking, and men and women who smoke are more likely to die of oral and cervical cancer, so we could invest in smoking cessation efforts.

As Angela Raffle, a specialist in cervical cancer screening, told the New York Times‘ Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Oh, dear. If we give it to boys, then all pretense of scientific worth and cost analysis goes out the window.”

I know Orac has huge issues with Diane Harper (who the wiki describes as the principal investigator of the clinical trials of Gardasil and Cervarix) here he explains why he thinks she is a crank, http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/ ... the-judge/ Admittedly, I find it difficult to label the PI of the clinical trials as a crank or uninformed.

I am curious if anyone here can critique the article or describe what has happened in the past two years between its publication and now.

(My interest is that I have kids and I had Guillain-Barre and the CDC tells doctors not to vaccinate me. I've undergone surgery in hospitals where I knew an flu outbreak was present and I asked for the flu shot that targeted that and still could not get one. But Guillain Barre and being paralyzed in an ICU for weeks really sucks. So I am not an anti-vaxer per se, but I'm also not a believer that vaccines should be given willy nilly and even examining them is verboten.)

Abbie Smith is probably the best person to critique the studies but I'll give you my initial impression.
Gardasil has not been around for very long. It is designed to provide immunity from a couple of HPV strains known to induce cervical cancer in a proportion of infected women. Because it takes a long time for the cancerous changes to become apparent it seems strange that the study looked at 'cervical changes' rather than the obvious - immunity to the virus strains in question.

I've spoken to people monitoring infectivity rates in the general population and amongst specific subgroups such as teenage girls and the results they have found is that a very high rate of young women (and presumably also young men) become infected with the virus as soon as they become sexually active. A proportion of these will go on to develop cervical cancer. Giving the vaccine at a young age, however, is a very good way of preventing infection - but it has to be done early.
I'd have no hesitation in recommending it for children, either boys or girls.

[heddle]

Thanks for the, hum, clarification (remember, I'm at the Crayola-munching stage). So, what about Langton's Ant? You can find many online apps that allow you to drastically change the initial state of the simulation (by blacking out random squares on the grid), and yet you will always end up with the "highway" configuration. is Langton's Ant deterministic? (I'm really trying to wrap my head around the concept without going to external sources. That's always a last solution for me).

I am not familiar with it so I don't know. If the same input--> same output then it is. If it doesn't, then there is some randomness in the program. But even then it is deterministic in the sense that the random number generator, if it is entirely software based, is in fact deterministic. To have a program that is not deterministic you need something like a random number generator that is based on radioactive decay. So I'm guessing it is deterministic--but that's just a guess.

[Lsuoma]

Yay! Gumbycat back!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

If you are a Calvinist Baptist,how does this definition of free will work with Calvinist determinism? How can one be morally culpable if everything is predetermined as god's plan?

Sorry, that's a fair question but I am not going to answer that. I have no interest in theological discussions on this thread. If there is another thread set aside for theology, I'm happy to go there and answer. I'm actually trying (with reasonable success) to stick to science on this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=377

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

I never claimed fine-tuning had anything to do with improbability, because it doesn't. I have no clue (nor does anyone else) what the a priori probability of the constants is. The fine-tuning argument is not about low probability, it is about sensitivity. It has a very simple definition: Cosmological Fine-tuning: the fact that the ability of the universe to produce heavy elements appears to be very sensitive to the values of the physical constants. Notice there is no mention of probability. Fine-tuning is fine-tuning wether or not our universe is a random draw of 10^1000 from the cosmic string landscape or whether our universe has probability unity. It's sensitivity not probability.

And yes it is a real problem in physics because, quite simply, we (physicists--well most of us) say so. Non-physicists do not get to tell physicists that what they think is a problem is not really a problem. If you are so sure that it is not problem you should publish. I'd recommend Phys. Rev. Letters, one of our most prestigious journals. Many people, like Suskind and Krauss, will be very happy that they can stop considering it a problem.

Okay, so it's a problem. What exactly is the problem? Is it that they don't know how it came about. Or is the problem for them that without an explanation, god must have done it?


I may be well out of my depth on this subject, but I watched a Krauss lecture just the other day, and he didn't act like the fine tuning argument was a problem for atheism. It certainly isn't a problem for me.

It is not a problem for atheism or for theism or for you. It is a problem for physics. To take one example, the cosmological constant, the problem is roughy this:

1) Calculations say that the value should be around 1. But that would produce a universe with no stars.
2) A value of exactly 0 would produce another type of sterile universe.
3) The actual value appears to be 0.000000 [about a hundred or so zeroes] 001
4) There is no other example of a calculation being so off. And life appears to depend on it (because life needs heavy elements).
5) The value that it has is of course what is needed for a universe with stars.
6) The fine tuning comes in this way. The calculation of this value would involve calculating a serious of higher order corrections, of numbers approximately equal to one, crudely speaking like 1 + 0.5 - .8 + 2.1 etc.
7) The small value requires that that series, in which each number is more or less independent, cancels out to an astonishing degree.

That is what Krauss calls the worst fine-tuning problem in physics. (He is correct.) How can those numbers "know" to cancel out.

The solution might be that in most universes they don't--but of course in ours they do, otherwise we'd not be here to ponder our good fortune. (Or to dismiss it trivially as uninteresting and not a problem, as the case may be.)

I hope that helps.

There's your problem. The fact that life needs heavy elements is irrelevant to the question of why the constants are the way they are, unless of course one is trying to establish agency behind the whole shebang. Why put that in there? Maybe that sort of thing is why people are making assumptions about you, unfair or otherwise.

[welch]

"Actress Jennifer Lawrence has said she thinks "it should be illegal to call someone fat on TV", after red carpet criticism of her own figure. "

BBC story

:roll:

[Matt Cavanaugh]

A great many other people have apparently already done so, but Stuart Kauffman seems to be leading the hit parade, although as much for his pulling together a great many threads as for his own contributions. But a brief synopsis or overview from his Wikipedia article:

With Kauffman, it's more like the bong hit parade. Next time, try citing someone who's not a slinger of semi-mystical tripe.

[welch]

And this is my fave rice cooker:

http://cdn3.vtourist.com/4/564350-A_fam ... London.jpg

Makes me wanna get myself a big bowl of beef chow mein!

And check out a purveyor of fine threads.

Did you not espy the inestimable L. Chaney strolling with the Queen?

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Thanks for the, hum, clarification (remember, I'm at the Crayola-munching stage). So, what about Langton's Ant? You can find many online apps that allow you to drastically change the initial state of the simulation (by blacking out random squares on the grid), and yet you will always end up with the "highway" configuration. is Langton's Ant deterministic? (I'm really trying to wrap my head around the concept without going to external sources. That's always a last solution for me).

I am not familiar with it so I don't know. If the same input--> same output then it is. If it doesn't, then there is some randomness in the program. But even then it is deterministic in the sense that the random number generator, if it is entirely software based, is in fact deterministic. To have a program that is not deterministic you need something like a random number generator that is based on radioactive decay. So I'm guessing it is deterministic--but that's just a guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton's_ant

The thing is, Langton's Ant never predicted the outcome in the first place. Every time you start the simulation, based on very simple rules, you will get different intermediate states. but the outcome (the "highway" configuration) always pops up, with variations only in the number of steps needed.

Here's the basics:

Squares on a plane are colored variously either black or white. We arbitrarily identify one square as the "ant". The ant can travel in any of the four cardinal directions at each step it takes. The ant moves according to the rules below:
At a white square, turn 90° right, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
At a black square, turn 90° left, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
Langton's ant can also be described as a cellular automaton, where the grid is colored black or white, the "ant" square has one of eight different colors assigned to encode the combination of black/white state and the current direction of motion of the ant.

And here are the modes of behavior:

These simple rules lead to complex behavior.
Everybody, mathematician or not, spots three modes of behavior, starting on a completely white grid.
Simplicity[edit]
During the first few hundred moves it creates very simple patterns which are often symmetric.
Chaos[edit]
After a few hundred moves, a big, irregular pattern of black and white squares appears. The ant traces a pseudo-random path until around 10,000 steps.
Emergent order[edit]
Finally the ant starts building a recurrent "highway" pattern of 104 steps that repeat indefinitely. All finite initial configurations tested eventually converge to the same repetitive pattern, suggesting that the "highway" is an attractor of Langton's ant, but no one has been able to prove that this is true for all such initial configurations. It is only known that the ant's trajectory is always unbounded regardless of the initial configuration – this is known as the Cohen-Kung theorem

Now, I'm reading the wiki page on determinism, but I must admit it does not bode well, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure I can even parse that introduction quote:

Determinism is a philosophical position stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen.

really scratching my head there.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Java Langton's Ant, for fun (because it is quite fun):

http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/www/ant/ant.html

[katamari Damassi]

https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 6740_n.jpg

Ah, Lee Ho Fook's.

Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.

[katamari Damassi]

Syndicated political cartoonist Ted Rall to appear on January 4 episode of Brave Hero Radio!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bravehero/ ... 5/ted-rall

Fuck liberal puritans :) :bjarte:

Congrats! That's a coup Justin. Rall is actually known by people outside of The Schism.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Okay, so it's a problem. What exactly is the problem? Is it that they don't know how it came about. Or is the problem for them that without an explanation, god must have done it? .... It certainly isn't a problem for me.

I'm with Vicky - define "fine-tuning." Define "problem."

And yes it is a real problem in physics because, quite simply, we (physicists--well most of us) say so. Non-physicists do not get to tell physicists that what they think is a problem is not really a problem. If you are so sure that it is not problem you should publish. I'd recommend Phys. Rev. Letters, one of our most prestigious journals. Many people, like Suskind and Krauss, will be very happy that they can stop considering it a problem.

1) Again, what about it is problematic?
2) Those physicists who don't consider it a problem -- what do they have to say?
3) Don't condescend. This is an intelligent, well-read gang here. So if you aren't being understood, the fault lies in your failure to explain yourself clearly.

[Aneris]

And this is my fave rice cooker:

http://cdn3.vtourist.com/4/564350-A_fam ... London.jpg

Makes me wanna get myself a big bowl of beef chow mein!

And check out a purveyor of fine threads.

[youtube]JiXHBjnFiIs[/youtube]

Since my father has a good taste of music, I grew up on Zevon (and other good stuff). Didn't know at the time that it was his one-hit in anglo-saxonlands. He is fairly unknown in Germany, virtually every other “bigger” singer songwriter is more known by orders of magnitude, Neil Young or Springsteen. I like many other songs better, which all share the similar harmonics: “Piano Fighter”, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, “For the Next Trick…”, “Something Bad Happened to a Clown”, “Boom Boom Mancini”, “Hit Somebody” … and so on :)

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 6740_n.jpg

Ah, Lee Ho Fook's.

Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.

Ya touch my cats, ya dead!

(And now I'm craving for a Bánh bao)

[Mykeru]

Lsuoma,

Is there a way to change the board presences so one doesn't even see that annoying little "This post was made by". If I'm going to tolerate the very existence of assholes, at least let me not see they've posted.

I agree. This needs to be a safe space for Mykepoo.

Aw, aren't you clever?

http://www.nextnature.net/wp-content/up ... t-kiwi.jpg

[heddle]

There's your problem. The fact that life needs heavy elements is irrelevant to the question of why the constants are the way they are, unless of course one is trying to establish agency behind the whole shebang. Why put that in there? Maybe that sort of thing is why people are making assumptions about you, unfair or otherwise.

I don't understand your criticism. The whole point of fine tuning is that the universe appears to be fine tuned (a metaphor) for producing heavy elements. Life requires heavy elements. So it is, as far as I can tell, equivalent to say that the universe appears to be fine tuned to produce the necessary ingredients of life, i.e. to be habitable. And again, atheist physicists also use language like "appears to be fine tuned for our existence" without aspersions cast on their motivations. So I missing the point of your critique.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

[youtube]JiXHBjnFiIs[/youtube]

Since my father has a good taste of music, I grew up on Zevon (and other good stuff). Didn't know at the time that it was his one-hit in anglo-saxonlands. He is fairly unknown in Germany, virtually every other “bigger” singer songwriter is more known by orders of magnitude, Neil Young or Springsteen. I like many other songs better, which all share the similar harmonics: “Piano Fighter”, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, “For the Next Trick…”, “Something Bad Happened to a Clown”, “Boom Boom Mancini”, “Hit Somebody” … and so on :)

Zevon got a fair amount of airplay when I was a teenager, but I was unusual in being a huge fan. His cynical humor was a bit too acerbic for most tastes -- to wit, my favorite, Excitable Boy. Still, he could hit other emotional notes as well, as with Accidently, Like A Martyr. The range and subtlety of his opus does not deserve one-hit wonder status.

Zevon battled depression and alcoholism (Rehab Mountain is autobiographical) and died far too young of cancer. It's a shame all anyone hears nowadays is Werewolves, and then usually only around Halloween.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Maybe when we understand the true nature of gravity and reconciliate it with the other forces, we'll get the answer?

[heddle]

Okay, so it's a problem. What exactly is the problem? Is it that they don't know how it came about. Or is the problem for them that without an explanation, god must have done it? .... It certainly isn't a problem for me.

I'm with Vicky - define "fine-tuning." Define "problem."

And yes it is a real problem in physics because, quite simply, we (physicists--well most of us) say so. Non-physicists do not get to tell physicists that what they think is a problem is not really a problem. If you are so sure that it is not problem you should publish. I'd recommend Phys. Rev. Letters, one of our most prestigious journals. Many people, like Suskind and Krauss, will be very happy that they can stop considering it a problem.

1) Again, what about it is problematic?
2) Those physicists who don't consider it a problem -- what do they have to say?
3) Don't condescend. This is an intelligent, well-read gang here. So if you aren't being understood, the fault lies in your failure to explain yourself clearly.

1) What is problematic is that we do not understand how the constants happen to be in what appears to be a narrow range that permits life. At first blush it appears to be "luck" and as scientists we absolutely abhor"luck" as an explanation.
2) I'm not sure I ever met a physicist who, after thinking about it, doesn't agree it is a problem. Those who are cosmologists, astro, or particle physicists pretty much already know it is a problem A, say, solid state physicist--who might not spend time thinking about cosmology might not immediately agree--but in all cases I have experienced will agree after a discussion. So I literally do not personally know any physicist who says that it is not a problem.
3) You are mistaking condescension with insults. If anyone asks me a question in good faith, no matter how dumb, I will try to give a polite answer. That's the teacher in me. But if someone acts like a jackass then I can dish it back out. I have a lot of experience. I'm treated on here no different than I was treated on Pharyngula and I managed to survive there. Did I miss your similar moral outrage at the names I was called?

And I disagree that it is manifestly true that "So if you aren't being understood, the fault lies in your failure to explain yourself clearly" No, sometimes people just don't get it, willfully or otherwise.

[Aneris]

There's your problem. The fact that life needs heavy elements is irrelevant to the question of why the constants are the way they are, unless of course one is trying to establish agency behind the whole shebang. Why put that in there? Maybe that sort of thing is why people are making assumptions about you, unfair or otherwise.

I don't understand your criticism. The whole point of fine tuning is that the universe appears to be fine tuned (a metaphor) for producing heavy elements. Life requires heavy elements. So it is, as far as I can tell, equivalent to say that the universe appears to be fine tuned to produce the necessary ingredients of life, i.e. to be habitable. And again, atheist physicists also use language like "appears to be fine tuned for our existence" without aspersions cast on their motivations. So I missing the point of your critique.

Isn't it so that we have much more imagination than reality is like, and thus we can come up with virtually infinite ways that would not lead to a universe with life. I don't believe that “appears to be fine tuned” is a good claim. It's in a similar ballpark as question about the “purpose” of things, which they also “appear to have”. That's language used by the faithful to blur the lines a little. The scales we use, and ways to measure are made from our perspective so I wonder what “fine” is supposed to mean.

[Mykeru]

Life requires heavy elements. So it is, as far as I can tell, equivalent to say that the universe appears to be fine tuned to produce the necessary ingredients of life, i.e. to be habitable.

And how is that different from, say, a "Dr. Pangloss for physics" re-purposing of Leibniz' "best of all possible worlds" argument, especially since you previously brought up free will?

Oh, wait, I forgot. This has nothing to do with theodicy. theism, apologetics, God of the Gaps and I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about.

Excuse me, I'm off to watch cartoons.

[Liesmith]

I don't understand the statement "life requires heavy elements". How do we know that? We know of exactly one planet with exactly one lineage of life on it.

[debaser71]

There's your problem. The fact that life needs heavy elements is irrelevant to the question of why the constants are the way they are, unless of course one is trying to establish agency behind the whole shebang. Why put that in there? Maybe that sort of thing is why people are making assumptions about you, unfair or otherwise.

http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning

"Fine-Tuning and Pointers to God

Fine-tuning refers to the surprising precision of nature’s physical constants and the beginning state of the universe. Both of these features converge as potential pointers to a Creator. To explain the present state of the universe, scientific theories require that the physical constants of nature — like the strength of gravity — and the beginning state of the Universe — like its density — have extremely precise values. The slightest variation from their actual values results in an early universe that never becomes capable of hosting life. For this reason, the universe seems finely-tuned for life. This observation is referred to as the anthropic principle, a term whose definition has taken many variations over the years.
"

[screwtape]

Here is an article in Discover from 2011 that discusses how Gardasil isn't nearly as effective as Merck claims it to be.

Long snip....

I'm a strong advocate for giving it to boys too. Four reasons:
1. You break the chain of HPV transmission in two places, and cut the incidence of Ca cervix faster. I have seen two women under thirty die of Ca cervix in the small rural community I serve during my time here.
2. Even though boys eventually benefit from girls-only vaccination (they can't catch the virus from girls who are immune) there is a group of men who will not benefit. Gay men. Ano-rectal Ca is related to HPV and rather nasty indeed.
3. Both sexes get head and neck cancers and it seems that these are more commonly caused by HPV than by smoking in younger people. Also a very nasty way to die.
4. No one mentions penile cancer. I have had three men with penile amputations for Sq cell Ca of the penis in my practice. Another HPV effect.

With respect to other cavills about the vaccine - it probably doesn't matter that it won't give immunity for ever; HPV seems only to cause pre-cancerous changes in the cervix of younger teenagers, and then especially if they smoke. It's most important to protect the cervix in the early teen years and later infection, if indeed it occurs (we haven't had the vaccine long enough to know) isn't as dangerous. If it does turn out to be limited to a short-term protection we can always give a booster dose. Pap smears are horribly inaccurate at times, and a normal smear doesn't guarantee that there is no dysplasia, so we can't rely on them alone.

GB syndrome isn't any fun, and is a rare complication of some vaccines, especially those using the adjuvant required for HPV vaccines. The risk is around once in tens of thousands of doses however. I know of no solid evidence that a tendency to GBS is inheritable, so that wouldn't preclude giving a vaccine to your kids, except for the extreme risk-avoidant nature of modern medicine. I'm happy to tell people that no vaccine is perfect, and that the only thing they need to know is whether it is safer to have it than to not have it. For most vaccines, even allowing for rare but serious adverse reactions, it is safer to have the shot. I'm afraid the 'debate' about Gardasil is much affected in the US by the religious right's desire to have their daughters get cancer and die rather than risk promiscuity. And that is very much a non-debate in Europe and Canada. The only parents I have seen reject the vaccine belong to a local primitive sect where the women don't cut their hair, don't wear trousers, don't work, and the kids are all home schooled. Me, I just keep a Darwin fish on the bumper of my truck and smile.

[Steersman]

A great many other people have apparently already done so, but Stuart Kauffman seems to be leading the hit parade, although as much for his pulling together a great many threads as for his own contributions. But a brief synopsis or overview from his Wikipedia article:

With Kauffman, it's more like the bong hit parade. Next time, try citing someone who's not a slinger of semi-mystical tripe.

When you can prove that your own C.V. is as impressive as his then I’ll consider that your dismissal might hold a bit of water.

[justinvacula]

A group of vandals recently attempted to maliciously burn a holiday billboard placed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) reading “Keep Saturn in Saturnalia,” placed in response to religious advertising, using gasoline.

http://justinvacula.com/2013/12/18/vand ... billboard/

--

I plan on working with the FFRF to again display a banner on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre. Last year, the holiday banner was vandalized and replaced with an American flag (likely in violation of the flag code). Hopefully all is well and gasoline-free this year.

[youtube]nxCkvNRg_QU[/youtube]

[Steersman]

Seems that string theory could be unfalsifiable too given that there are supposedly some 10^500 different possibilities. Doesn't mean that it isn't true and that it might have significant effects on our lives.

10^500 -- where'd you get that number?

Lee Smolin in his The Trouble with Physics :

Before answering this question, I have to emphasize that we don’t know if any of the theories made by wrapping fluxes around the hidden dimensions give good consistent quantum string theories. …. The tests require that string theories, if they exist, have strings that interact weakly. ….

A question we can answer is how many string theories pass these tests, which involve wrapping fluxes around the six hidden dimensions. The answer depends on what value of the cosmological constant we want to come out. …. If we want the theory to give a positive value for the cosmological constant, so as to agree with observation, there are a finite number; at present there is evidence for 10^500 or so such theories. [pgs 157-158]

And later:

If an attempt to construct a unique theory of nature leads to 10^500 theories, that approach has been reduced to absurdity. [pg 159]

As all of that was written some 6 years ago, maybe you know of some papers that have refuted that contention, and that you would be happy to share with everyone else?

Also, don't confuse questions for which there are no answers, with ones that we don't have answers for.

You have a magic decoder ring that allows you to decide which are which?

[JacquesCuze]

Here is an article in Discover from 2011 that discusses how Gardasil isn't nearly as effective as Merck claims it to be.

Long snip....

I'm a strong advocate for giving it to boys too. Four reasons:
1. You break the chain of HPV transmission in two places, and cut the incidence of Ca cervix faster. I have seen two women under thirty die of Ca cervix in the small rural community I serve during my time here.
2. Even though boys eventually benefit from girls-only vaccination (they can't catch the virus from girls who are immune) there is a group of men who will not benefit. Gay men. Ano-rectal Ca is related to HPV and rather nasty indeed.
3. Both sexes get head and neck cancers and it seems that these are more commonly caused by HPV than by smoking in younger people. Also a very nasty way to die.
4. No one mentions penile cancer. I have had three men with penile amputations for Sq cell Ca of the penis in my practice. Another HPV effect.

With respect to other cavills about the vaccine - it probably doesn't matter that it won't give immunity for ever; HPV seems only to cause pre-cancerous changes in the cervix of younger teenagers, and then especially if they smoke. It's most important to protect the cervix in the early teen years and later infection, if indeed it occurs (we haven't had the vaccine long enough to know) isn't as dangerous. If it does turn out to be limited to a short-term protection we can always give a booster dose. Pap smears are horribly inaccurate at times, and a normal smear doesn't guarantee that there is no dysplasia, so we can't rely on them alone.

GB syndrome isn't any fun, and is a rare complication of some vaccines, especially those using the adjuvant required for HPV vaccines. The risk is around once in tens of thousands of doses however. I know of no solid evidence that a tendency to GBS is inheritable, so that wouldn't preclude giving a vaccine to your kids, except for the extreme risk-avoidant nature of modern medicine. I'm happy to tell people that no vaccine is perfect, and that the only thing they need to know is whether it is safer to have it than to not have it. For most vaccines, even allowing for rare but serious adverse reactions, it is safer to have the shot. I'm afraid the 'debate' about Gardasil is much affected in the US by the religious right's desire to have their daughters get cancer and die rather than risk promiscuity. And that is very much a non-debate in Europe and Canada. The only parents I have seen reject the vaccine belong to a local primitive sect where the women don't cut their hair, don't wear trousers, don't work, and the kids are all home schooled. Me, I just keep a Darwin fish on the bumper of my truck and smile.

What I found interesting 5 years ago when I was more interested in this was:

1) The argument that the total cost of the vaccine (then $400 per series of 3 and the most expensive vaccine todate) would be more effective in terms of reducing cancer if spent on making annual pap smears more widely available. And taking the vaccine didn't mean that pap smears were unimportant since pap smears catch all sorts of issues and forms the basis for diagnosis and treatment.

2) The notion then that there had been no long term testing of Gardasil, which 5 years later is a weaker argument, but I note that Orac says regarding the claim that Gardasil may wear off, that it hasn't been out long enough to know how long it will last. Which makes me wonder if it's been out long enough to know that it's safe. And regarding by Guillain Barre, GBS seems to be, at least in my case, a long term side effect of an earlier vaccine.

3) Regarding 2), I know in my personal history I was diagnosed with an issue in the late 70s, and my very astute physician said, you could get it treated now, or you can wait as long as you can and let medicine catch up. Because I was able to wait 30 years, a required operation went from 30% or more fatality rate down to 5% or so. I take your advice that it's better to protect a teenager's cervix now as insightful, so thank you, I had been thinking and still do to some extent that given the long incubation of 20 - 40 years for cervical cancer that it might be better to wait for new cervical cancer vaccines or treatments to appear. When my kids are most likely going to be affected by cervical cancer 20 - 40 years from now, cancer treatments presumably will look very different.

The only vaccines my kids didn't get was Chicken Pox which was brand new and that was with consultation and agreement with their MD and having been through GBS on my end.

Five years ago, I wasn't sure about Gardasil for the reasons I have given, and I did place a letter in their medical file stating my opposition to it, and why, and asking any doctor to call me if they felt strongly otherwise.

I actually placed that letter in their file with the agreement and cooperation of my ex-wife with whom I share legal custody, seriously, she had cared for me through the GBS stuff so she was aware, but then I discovered a few years later that doctor's office had illegally removed that letter on her request (illegal because I do share legal custody and they should have contacted me.) So I'm pretty sure they've been vaccinated.

[Steersman]

Lsuoma,

Is there a way to change the board presences so one doesn't even see that annoying little "This post was made by". If I'm going to tolerate the very existence of assholes, at least let me not see they've posted.

I agree. This needs to be a safe space for Mykepoo.

:lol: :clap:

[Really?]

A group of vandals recently attempted to maliciously burn a holiday billboard placed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) reading “Keep Saturn in Saturnalia,” placed in response to religious advertising, using gasoline.

http://justinvacula.com/2013/12/18/vand ... billboard/

--

I plan on working with the FFRF to again display a banner on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre. Last year, the holiday banner was vandalized and replaced with an American flag (likely in violation of the flag code). Hopefully all is well and gasoline-free this year.

[youtube]nxCkvNRg_QU[/youtube]

Goddammit, Vacula! Why do you waste your time doing these kinds of things!?!?!?

If you want to be a GOOD member of the atheist/skeptic/secular movement, you should write a 100-word blog post about how Justin Bieber is appropriating black culture. Or how it's sexist that the "male" pictogram in bathroom signs looks like a penis in an attempt to trigger rape survivors, whose lives are worthless.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Let's imagine a void, nothingness, or nothing beyond quantic fluctuations. No time, no space. But something is happening in this quantum noniverse, and the waves are finding each others, colliding, bumping, resonating, until, like 40 metronomes in synchronization, they find their balance. Then the noniverse explodes into the Universe. Confused at first, the fondamental forces get in tune to attain zero energy. Why? Because, why not.

And then motherfucker Eru Illuvatar comes in and ruins everything with the Hobbit Trilogy, assisted by his minion Peter Jackson.

Yeah, I still I've got it now...

[JacquesCuze]

Here is an article in Discover from 2011 that discusses how Gardasil isn't nearly as effective as Merck claims it to be.

Long snip....

I'm a strong advocate for giving it to boys too. Four reasons:
1. You break the chain of HPV transmission in two places, and cut the incidence of Ca cervix faster. I have seen two women under thirty die of Ca cervix in the small rural community I serve during my time here.
2. Even though boys eventually benefit from girls-only vaccination (they can't catch the virus from girls who are immune) there is a group of men who will not benefit. Gay men. Ano-rectal Ca is related to HPV and rather nasty indeed.
3. Both sexes get head and neck cancers and it seems that these are more commonly caused by HPV than by smoking in younger people. Also a very nasty way to die.
4. No one mentions penile cancer. I have had three men with penile amputations for Sq cell Ca of the penis in my practice. Another HPV effect.

With respect to other cavills about the vaccine - it probably doesn't matter that it won't give immunity for ever; HPV seems only to cause pre-cancerous changes in the cervix of younger teenagers, and then especially if they smoke. It's most important to protect the cervix in the early teen years and later infection, if indeed it occurs (we haven't had the vaccine long enough to know) isn't as dangerous. If it does turn out to be limited to a short-term protection we can always give a booster dose. Pap smears are horribly inaccurate at times, and a normal smear doesn't guarantee that there is no dysplasia, so we can't rely on them alone.

GB syndrome isn't any fun, and is a rare complication of some vaccines, especially those using the adjuvant required for HPV vaccines. The risk is around once in tens of thousands of doses however. I know of no solid evidence that a tendency to GBS is inheritable, so that wouldn't preclude giving a vaccine to your kids, except for the extreme risk-avoidant nature of modern medicine. I'm happy to tell people that no vaccine is perfect, and that the only thing they need to know is whether it is safer to have it than to not have it. For most vaccines, even allowing for rare but serious adverse reactions, it is safer to have the shot. I'm afraid the 'debate' about Gardasil is much affected in the US by the religious right's desire to have their daughters get cancer and die rather than risk promiscuity. And that is very much a non-debate in Europe and Canada. The only parents I have seen reject the vaccine belong to a local primitive sect where the women don't cut their hair, don't wear trousers, don't work, and the kids are all home schooled. Me, I just keep a Darwin fish on the bumper of my truck and smile.

I apologize I didn't want to ignore your points about stopping cancer in boys. To a certain extent that was the point of the article from 2011, which was the evidence that it will protect boys seems weak at best.

The article raises issues about what seem to be the non-existent standards by how Big Pharma reports on success rates.

I have no idea how to evaluate the article or claims, on the one hand it is in Discover and so has some credibility, on the other hand I am not an MD or biologist or statistician and it seems to go against consensus.

[Seymour]

while you have

1) Repeatedly claimed that it is not a problem (that's helpful!)
2) Dangled some bait about the "tuner" which I swam up to, sniffed, and found uninteresting
3) Made a crazy comparison to the "god of the gaps"

But I'm the one dancing? No, sorry, the crystal disco ball is awarded to you, in a landslide.

1) It is helpful. Sometimes you have to pull weeds. That is, in large part, the the role of modern Philosophy since Wittgenstein and the Logical Positivist/Ordinary Language traditions. Your "fine tuning" is simply a weed. However, I said (in alluding to ontology and cosmogony) it might be a philosophical problem, but not a physics problem. I assume you intentionally mischaracterized what I said as "not a problem" as some sort of intentional tactic. Smooth. I almost didn't notice.

2) Your finding something uninteresting isn't the devastating critique you seem to think it is. I also suspect it's the sort of argument that is so precious that only you get to use it. Amirite? Remember: Your response should be interesting, or it can be summarily dismissed.

3) Your bizarre normative appraisal of my sanity is duly noted. However, as the fine-tuning argument is used in service of Intelligent Design, it is most definitely a GotG argument. Your failure to acknowledge that, and even worse, describe something that obvious as "crazy" is either intellectual dishonesty or blithering idiocy on your part. Then again, why not both?

Also, whoever convinced you that you are intelligent enough to be condescending mislead you terribly.

So who do we listen to on a Physics question?
A physicist or a governemnt apparatchick.

I'll plump for the physicist but what do I know, I'm just a simple engineer.

Myreku, learn to read what people write and don't interject your knee jerk reaction of objecting to what a theist says just because they are a theist.
Try being rational

[Steersman]

Let's imagine a void, nothingness, or nothing beyond quantic fluctuations. No time, no space. But something is happening in this quantum noniverse, and the waves are finding each others, colliding, bumping, resonating, until, like 40 metronomes in synchronization, they find their balance. Then the noniverse explodes into the Universe. Confused at first, the fondamental forces get in tune to attain zero energy. Why? Because, why not.

And then motherfucker Eru Illuvatar comes in and ruins everything with the Hobbit Trilogy, assisted by his minion Peter Jackson.

Yeah, I still I've got it now...

:lol:

[heddle]

I don't understand the statement "life requires heavy elements". How do we know that? We know of exactly one planet with exactly one lineage of life on it.

Because everyone agrees that life requires molecules that can store information. That requires heavy elements.

Maybe the term "heavy elements" is problematic. We use that for any elements beyond, well helium. The elements (such as carbon) produced in stars. Without those there is no life because you can't make anything from hydrogen and helium. So it is an entirely noncontroversial assertion to claim that life requires heavy elements.

[ianfc]

Silly Matt, Don't you understand it's not the argument that counts but how impressive one's C.V. is.

[KiwiInOz]

[youtube]JiXHBjnFiIs[/youtube]

Since my father has a good taste of music, I grew up on Zevon (and other good stuff). Didn't know at the time that it was his one-hit in anglo-saxonlands. He is fairly unknown in Germany, virtually every other “bigger” singer songwriter is more known by orders of magnitude, Neil Young or Springsteen. I like many other songs better, which all share the similar harmonics: “Piano Fighter”, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, “For the Next Trick…”, “Something Bad Happened to a Clown”, “Boom Boom Mancini”, “Hit Somebody” … and so on :)

Zevon got a fair amount of airplay when I was a teenager, but I was unusual in being a huge fan. His cynical humor was a bit too acerbic for most tastes -- to wit, my favorite, Excitable Boy. Still, he could hit other emotional notes as well, as with Accidently, Like A Martyr. The range and subtlety of his opus does not deserve one-hit wonder status.

Zevon battled depression and alcoholism (Rehab Mountain is autobiographical) and died far too young of cancer. It's a shame all anyone hears nowadays is Werewolves, and then usually only around Halloween.

Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner is my fave boppy song of his; Lawyers, Guns and Money works well; and Play It All Night long is hillbilly greatness.

Videos and lyrics here.

[Lsuoma]

Silly Matt, Don't you understand it's not the argument that counts but how impressive one's C.V. is.

http://esask.uregina.ca/management/app/ ... 71592B.jpg

[Liesmith]

I don't understand the statement "life requires heavy elements". How do we know that? We know of exactly one planet with exactly one lineage of life on it.

Because everyone agrees that life requires molecules that can store information. That requires heavy elements.

Maybe the term "heavy elements" is problematic. We use that for any elements beyond, well helium. The elements (such as carbon) produced in stars. Without those there is no life because you can't make anything from hydrogen and helium. So it is an entirely noncontroversial assertion to claim that life requires heavy elements.

I'm not trying to be pedantic, but this really doesn't allay my confusion. Just because everyone agrees on it, doesn't mean they have accurate cause to do so. Why are atoms required to store information? If one area contains energy, and another area does not, couldn't that be said to be "stored information" in the form of a binary digit?

[Really?]

I don't understand the statement "life requires heavy elements". How do we know that? We know of exactly one planet with exactly one lineage of life on it.

Because everyone agrees that life requires molecules that can store information. That requires heavy elements.

Maybe the term "heavy elements" is problematic. We use that for any elements beyond, well helium. The elements (such as carbon) produced in stars. Without those there is no life because you can't make anything from hydrogen and helium. So it is an entirely noncontroversial assertion to claim that life requires heavy elements.

I'm not trying to be pedantic, but this really doesn't allay my confusion. Just because everyone agrees on it, doesn't mean they have accurate cause to do so. Why are atoms required to store information? If one area contains energy, and another area does not, couldn't that be said to be "stored information" in the form of a binary digit?

http://heldrificus.files.wordpress.com/ ... cbrown.jpg

[heddle]

I don't understand the statement "life requires heavy elements". How do we know that? We know of exactly one planet with exactly one lineage of life on it.

Because everyone agrees that life requires molecules that can store information. That requires heavy elements.

Maybe the term "heavy elements" is problematic. We use that for any elements beyond, well helium. The elements (such as carbon) produced in stars. Without those there is no life because you can't make anything from hydrogen and helium. So it is an entirely noncontroversial assertion to claim that life requires heavy elements.

I'm not trying to be pedantic, but this really doesn't allay my confusion. Just because everyone agrees on it, doesn't mean they have accurate cause to do so. Why are atoms required to store information? If one area contains energy, and another area does not, couldn't that be said to be "stored information" in the form of a binary digit?

I can only say two things. One is that you won't find any scientists of any stripe who thinks there can be life with the synthesizing of heavier elements. And two, there are vast regions of our universe where you could test your hypothesis. There are giant clouds of hydrogen. If you look in there everyone suspects you'll see--hydrogen. Because you can't make anything out of it.

[heddle]

Thanks for the, hum, clarification (remember, I'm at the Crayola-munching stage). So, what about Langton's Ant? You can find many online apps that allow you to drastically change the initial state of the simulation (by blacking out random squares on the grid), and yet you will always end up with the "highway" configuration. is Langton's Ant deterministic? (I'm really trying to wrap my head around the concept without going to external sources. That's always a last solution for me).

I am not familiar with it so I don't know. If the same input--> same output then it is. If it doesn't, then there is some randomness in the program. But even then it is deterministic in the sense that the random number generator, if it is entirely software based, is in fact deterministic. To have a program that is not deterministic you need something like a random number generator that is based on radioactive decay. So I'm guessing it is deterministic--but that's just a guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton's_ant

The thing is, Langton's Ant never predicted the outcome in the first place. Every time you start the simulation, based on very simple rules, you will get different intermediate states. but the outcome (the "highway" configuration) always pops up, with variations only in the number of steps needed.

Here's the basics:

Squares on a plane are colored variously either black or white. We arbitrarily identify one square as the "ant". The ant can travel in any of the four cardinal directions at each step it takes. The ant moves according to the rules below:
At a white square, turn 90° right, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
At a black square, turn 90° left, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
Langton's ant can also be described as a cellular automaton, where the grid is colored black or white, the "ant" square has one of eight different colors assigned to encode the combination of black/white state and the current direction of motion of the ant.

And here are the modes of behavior:

These simple rules lead to complex behavior.
Everybody, mathematician or not, spots three modes of behavior, starting on a completely white grid.
Simplicity[edit]
During the first few hundred moves it creates very simple patterns which are often symmetric.
Chaos[edit]
After a few hundred moves, a big, irregular pattern of black and white squares appears. The ant traces a pseudo-random path until around 10,000 steps.
Emergent order[edit]
Finally the ant starts building a recurrent "highway" pattern of 104 steps that repeat indefinitely. All finite initial configurations tested eventually converge to the same repetitive pattern, suggesting that the "highway" is an attractor of Langton's ant, but no one has been able to prove that this is true for all such initial configurations. It is only known that the ant's trajectory is always unbounded regardless of the initial configuration – this is known as the Cohen-Kung theorem

Now, I'm reading the wiki page on determinism, but I must admit it does not bode well, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure I can even parse that introduction quote:

Determinism is a philosophical position stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen.

really scratching my head there.

For a program determinism simply means the same input will always produce the same output (which may not be unique to that input). The ant program is deterministic.

[Brive1987]

While you argue on, my son emails me home truths -

..............

The Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, "enlightened") is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious.

Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776 to oppose superstition, prejudice, religious influence over public life, abuses of state power, and to support women's education and gender equality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati

The obvious conclusion to draw is that the Skeptic movement as a whole doesn't work against the Illuminati's existence... It IS the Illuminati.

..............

[Brive1987]

I love the naivety of youth that still equates the skeptic movement with gender politics.

[Steersman]

Silly Matt, Don't you understand it's not the argument that counts but how impressive one's C.V. is.

I sure wouldn’t want to put any money into any company that you would be in charge of as you seem not to have noticed that there is a frequent correlation between education and the ability to deliver the goods. “Hold the phone everyone! Ianfc has determined we no longer need the educational system! Just read the back of the cornflakes box and watch Saturday morning cartoons and you too can be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist!” Christ.

But I sure didn’t notice much in the way of an argument – much less a cogent one – in his comment, only some snark and bile.

[DeepInsideYourMind]

Now I'm about to start blocking people stupid enough to be trolled by Heddle ... what a total waste of screen space ... even he knows he is babbling nonsense half the time, and the rest he is just randomly reorganising words from renowned scientists. It's like watching a bastard child of Chopra, Craig and 4Chan

[screwtape]

The article raises issues about what seem to be the non-existent standards by how Big Pharma reports on success rates.

I have no idea how to evaluate the article or claims, on the one hand it is in Discover and so has some credibility, on the other hand I am not an MD or biologist or statistician and it seems to go against consensus.

Sadly, there's no question that Big Pharma can't be trusted to be as honest as we would like, and this has become a much bigger problem in recent years when the bottom line has become the be all and end all of the drug industry. Ben Goldacre's book Bad Pharma is an eye-opener for civilians, but I wouldn't want anyone to espouse woo instead of proper medicine as a result of reading it.

The vaccine that annoys me the most is Zostavax. It has been studied for a four year period, and there's no question that any immunity from it will wane with time, as happens after chickenpox/shingles. But it doesn't work that well even during those four years. Roughly 3.3% of placebo patients got shingles over the four years, while only 1.6% of vaccine recipients got shingles. So it cut the risk in half. When you work it out, the number needed to treat to prevent one single case of shingles over a four year period is 59. That's 59 shots at $182CAN each to prevent one case. Worse still, the effectiveness is less the older you get, whilst shingles is both more common and more severe in the elderly. By the time you are in your eighties, the vaccines gives immunity to about 15% of recipients rather than 50% of 65 year olds. Ironically, Zostavax is a development of the chickenpox vaccine used in kids. It used to be the case that occasional exposure to the virus would refresh your immunity (it was reckoned that medical staff had a lower incidence of shingles as a result of treating kids with the pox) but now that chickenpox is being prevented by childhood vaccination we are seeing shingles becoming much more common (there is a bit more to it than that; shingles rates were beginning to rise before chickenpox vaccine was introduced, but the lack of wild chickenpox to refresh immunity is the biggest part of it). So by using the chickenpox vaccine we are creating a greater need for the shingles version, which doesn't work too well. I'm not saying we shouldn't use chickenpox vaccine, I'm saying we need a much better shingles vaccine. Describing the reasonably simple statistical concepts involved to concerned elderly folk isn't always easy and few can afford to fork out $182 for so little return.

[justinvacula]

Yes, and atom was supposed to mean the smallest, indivisible particle - but we've moved on. Taken it to the next level, as it were.

You just wait until Justin's Bard/Wizard/Warlord reaches level 30, so he can learn the Travel To Another Plane ritual. Then science will march on on the multiverse theory, I have no doubt.

Pfft. I can already Plane Shift :p