Space

Debate

Ken Murphy critiques recent pieces by both Bob Zubrin and Gregg Easterbrook. I may take a shot at the Easterbrook thing myself a little later, if I get time.

I still await the opportunity for an on-line debate on space with Gregg, but he doesn’t seem interested in doing that with anyone who knows what they’re talking about.

[Update at 1 PM EST]

Clark Lindsey has further thoughts:

Seems like he could call a scientist like Paul Spudis or Larry Taylor and listen to their reasons for advocating a return to the Moon. But I guess contrary facts would mess up the flow of his essay.

Space

Much Ado About Not Much

This is silly. There’s nothing either new, or illegal, about NASA administrators endorsing political candidates (though some, thinking NASA some kind of “special” agency, above the fray, may find it distasteful). The Hatch Act was meant to prevent civil servants from being pressured to engage in political activity by political appointees, not to prevent political appointees from committing acts of politics.

[Update a few minutes later]

The problem here is not that the administrator is doing anything wrong in such an endorsement, but that, as Keith Cowing points out, he can’t keep his story straight as to whether he is or isn’t, or whether he can or can’t.

And this email to Dr. Griffin from a “tax payer” is also silly:

When you say that “every effort should be made to re-elect him to office” that sounds to me like a civil servant making an endorsement of a political candidate and a violation of the Hatch Act. I am a huge fan and supporter of the space program. It is hard for me to imagine why it is helpful to tie a corrupt politician to NASA, which needs more federal support, not less, especially when you just had to cut your science budget to shreds.

I am a tax payer and pay your salary and you do not speak for me when you publicly encourage people to re-elect someone who has become less effective since he has been indicted on felony charges. If another NASA employee had made this same speech, would he or she have been fired?

a) As already noted, this is not a violation of the Hatch Act.

b) Whether or not Tom Delay is a “corrupt politician” is a matter of opinion, not fact (and in fact will remain so even if he were to be convicted, though the case for it would obviously be stronger).

c) Whether or not such an endorsement increases, decreases, or has no effect whatsoever on public support for NASA is purely speculative (my opinion is the latter).

d) The notion that just because someone is a taxpayer, all public officials are “speaking for them” is ludicrous and illogical. Even ignoring the fact that he puts forth no reason why anyone would conclude that a taxpayer’s views are somehow being represented by public officials’ statements, consider the inherent contradiction, since many public officials say many things, often at odds with each other. How could anyone think that they all speak for our confused emailer without their head exploding?

e) Finally, yes, some other NASA employees could potentially get in trouble for making such a speech, because they would be covered by the Hatch Act. Not all NASA employees are equal, despite the egalitarian ideals of some NASA idealists.

Science And Society

They Have To Be Carefully Untaught

Here’s a study that says that children are natural scientists:

Apparently it takes a concerted effort on the part of many so-called science teachers in the public schools to slowly beat it out of them, over the course of several years.

But I wonder if anyone pondered the implications of this?

Schulz said she believes this is the first study that looks at how probabilistic evidence affects children’s reasoning about unobserved causes. The researchers found that children are conservative about unobserved causes (they don’t always think mysterious things are happening) but would rather accept unobserved causes than accept that things happen at random.

This probably explains the appeal of ID (partly because evolution isn’t properly explained). If one believes that evolution is “random” (which is how it’s too often explained), then there will be a natural tendency to look for the man behind the curtain.

But of course, it’s not. What’s random is the mutations themselves, not how they’re selected. One sees many fallacies related to this in critiques of evolution, in which people figure out the probability of a monkey typing a sonnet, by assuming that each monkey starts anew with each try, and showing that it’s astronomically improbable. With that assumption, of course, the creation of the sonnet is quite unlikely.

But if a monkey gets the first word right, and that’s the starting point for the next monkey, then the result will out, and in a surprisingly short time, because the process isn’t random. It’s directed by an evolutionary force (in this particular case, the desire to have something that looks like a sonnet).

In the natural case, of course, it’s driven by the fact that things that don’t look like sonnets (that is, that have traits that cause their phenotypes to die before reproducing) don’t go on to the next generation.

Economics

Let’s Hear it for Trolls!

Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ventures, former CTO of Microsoft, is calling for the Supreme Court to hang firm on patent property rights in “Inventors Have Rights, Too!” in the Wall Street Journal.

Goliath is crying “Unfair! Take David’s sling away!” Without full rights there is no way for a small inventor to get a big infringer to the table to settle. Instead, they’ll stall and drown the little guy with legal fees. The courts would be put in the middle and have to decide all future licensing revenue. Is that the way we want to run an innovative economy?

If we prevented people who owned houses and cars from removing people who were infringing their rights there, it would be pretty clear that the rights would be worth a lot less.

But how should we grant these patents? Is it sufficient to stick a virtual flag in meme space like a 16th century explorer? Should there be a time window when many can make a filing after the initial filing and the patent right auctioned to the highest bidder with all of the filers getting a portion of the royalties?

—–Update 2006-03-30 09:21—–

The Economist weighs in too. They say save injunctions for “irreparable harm” which strikes me as a rotten standard. Either money is good enough and royalties can be decided in the courts or it isn’t and patent holders need a stick.

Economics

Let’s Hear it for Trolls!

Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ventures, former CTO of Microsoft, is calling for the Supreme Court to hang firm on patent property rights in “Inventors Have Rights, Too!” in the Wall Street Journal.

Goliath is crying “Unfair! Take David’s sling away!” Without full rights there is no way for a small inventor to get a big infringer to the table to settle. Instead, they’ll stall and drown the little guy with legal fees. The courts would be put in the middle and have to decide all future licensing revenue. Is that the way we want to run an innovative economy?

If we prevented people who owned houses and cars from removing people who were infringing their rights there, it would be pretty clear that the rights would be worth a lot less.

But how should we grant these patents? Is it sufficient to stick a virtual flag in meme space like a 16th century explorer? Should there be a time window when many can make a filing after the initial filing and the patent right auctioned to the highest bidder with all of the filers getting a portion of the royalties?

—–Update 2006-03-30 09:21—–

The Economist weighs in too. They say save injunctions for “irreparable harm” which strikes me as a rotten standard. Either money is good enough and royalties can be decided in the courts or it isn’t and patent holders need a stick.

Economics

Let’s Hear it for Trolls!

Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ventures, former CTO of Microsoft, is calling for the Supreme Court to hang firm on patent property rights in “Inventors Have Rights, Too!” in the Wall Street Journal.

Goliath is crying “Unfair! Take David’s sling away!” Without full rights there is no way for a small inventor to get a big infringer to the table to settle. Instead, they’ll stall and drown the little guy with legal fees. The courts would be put in the middle and have to decide all future licensing revenue. Is that the way we want to run an innovative economy?

If we prevented people who owned houses and cars from removing people who were infringing their rights there, it would be pretty clear that the rights would be worth a lot less.

But how should we grant these patents? Is it sufficient to stick a virtual flag in meme space like a 16th century explorer? Should there be a time window when many can make a filing after the initial filing and the patent right auctioned to the highest bidder with all of the filers getting a portion of the royalties?

—–Update 2006-03-30 09:21—–

The Economist weighs in too. They say save injunctions for “irreparable harm” which strikes me as a rotten standard. Either money is good enough and royalties can be decided in the courts or it isn’t and patent holders need a stick.

Technology and Society

Ummmmm…Soylent

OK, my question is, will vegetarians be willing to eat this?

“I don’t find it hard to believe that in vitro meat can be produced that tastes like hamburger or chicken nuggets,” said Jason Matheny, one of the founders of Vive Research, a U.S. form working on growing meat for the global market. Most of the flavour in burgers and nuggets now sold in grocery stores or restaurants comes from seasoning or filler, he said.

Researchers have succeeded in growing bits of meat, the type that could be used in burgers or spaghetti sauce.

I mean vegetarians who are for ethical reasons, not because they don’t like the taste of meat.

And speaking of ethics, here’s a conundrum:

One group, which he would not name, did offer him money, but they wanted him to grow meat from human cells, so they could grow pieces of themselves to eat.

“I don’t want to participate in high-tech human cannibalism,” he said he told them.

Theoretically, he said, it would be possible. Researchers have harvested human myoblasts, cells that can grow into muscle fibre.

OK, so what would be wrong with that (ignoring the “yuck” factor)?

It kind of depends on why you think that cannibalism is wrong. In fact, it’s akin to the dilemma of child p0rn that is produced without harming (or even utilizing) children. Is it wrong because someone else is hurt in the production of it, or is there something intrinsically wrong with it? In the case of the latter, the Supreme Court has ruled (at least it’s my understanding) that the purpose of child-p0rn laws is to protect children from being molested in the production of the product, not (just) because the existence of child p0rn is perceived to be opposed to the best interests of society.

This seems similar to me. People will argue (as they do with synthetic p0rn) that having ready access to long pork may cause some people to want to experience the more gourmet version–the real thing, perhaps with a side of fava beans and a nice chianti, and should thus be made illegal, even though no persons are harmed in the manufacture of it.

I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s an interesting debate.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!