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.

Political Commentary

Supersized Idiot

I heard an interview with Morgan Spurlock on NPR when his crdocumentary on McDonald’s came out, and thought him a fool as a result. The basis of the movie (as I understand it, based on the interview–I haven’t actually seen it) was that fast food was bad for you. He apparently, and admittedly demonstrated this by ordering the worst possible things from the McDonalds menu for weeks on end, and foregoing exercise. I leave the illogic of his thesis, and means of proving it, to the reader.

Now we find out that he’s been giving insulting and obscene speeches to high-school students, including making fun of the special ed students. His “apology” is pathetic, as many of his commenters note.

[Via Joanne Jacobs, whose important new book on education you should purchase this week, to help make her birthday on Friday a happier one]

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!