Random Thoughts

In the end, we should all like [mathematical] models that wear their faults on their sleeves. - Paul Wilmott, quoted in "Revenge of the Nerd", Newsweek June 8, 2009 Read the feed:

Sing A Song Of Science : Blaze Away Blaze away can mean 'fire at will'.  In that sense, let's keep 'blazing away' at pseudoscience.Blaze away can also mean 'burn away', 'be consumed in flame'. Two recent news items regarding pseudoscience gives cause for celebration as we watch a couple of our troubles blaze away. #1 - The man who single-handedly triggered the autism / jabs scare, Andrew Wakefield, has been struck off by the GMC #2 - A protest was organised for Saturday 30th Jan 2010 against hoeopathic 'medicines' being sold by the UK's #1 retail outlet, Boots.  10:23 Homeopathy -…

Whois James Delingpole? Never heard of him?  I'm not surprised, really.  James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. Who said that?  James Delingpole. He's a blogger.  A journoblogger if you like.  Not an investigative journalist.  Not a scientist.  A blogger. Here's an extract from a recent blog. AGW theory is toast. So’s Dr Rajendra Pachauri. So’s the Stern Review. So’s the credibility of the IPCC. But if you think I’m cheered by this you’re very much mistaken. I’m trying to write a Climategate book but the way…

Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic goodThe Dublin Statement on Water and Economic Development In a warming world, will people fight over dwindling water supplies?  Will there be water wars?  What has economics to teach us about this?  As glaciers recede, as lakes and rivers dry up, what then of the laws of supply and demand?  What then of property rights and the free ride principle*? ..........................................................The War Of The Wells Once upon a time there was a well outside of a village…

Curiouser and curiouser .... it appears that smoking is not longer bad enough.  Now, by the act of smoking, we are also generating that evil, pernicious secondary smoke.  Just went you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse than being a smoker, you find that you are also a victim of secondary smoke.  New research indicates that smokers are "at additional risk from breathing environmental tobacco smoke, contrary to the prevailing assumption that such risks would be negligible in comparison to those incurred by actually smoking." Who would've thought?  I'm not sure on…

Airports Could Get Mind-Reading Scanners - A mind-reading scanner that can tell if a given traveler is a potential threat. [LiveScience] When I first saw this article, I thought it couldn't be as silly as it sounded. I was wrong. The premise is based on the same faulty assumptions that lie detectors are based on without the benefit of controls. All in all, I was hoping that this would be capable of detecting how stupid most of these ideas were. Oh well, if it doesn't work in airports, perhaps it can replace the "dowsing rods" currently used to detect explosives.

A recent AP News story told of 16-year-old Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks, California, who is sailing around the world solo, intending to become the youngest to succeed. Her globe circumnavigating adventure might be thought of as an experiential course in physics and an initiatory rite of passage, in one.  A true initiatory challenge must include real danger and at least an outside chance of facing an actual life-or-death situation. Sutherland's sailing endeavor, with many physical and physics exercises, more than meets those fundamental conditions. According to the World History to…

A new study in the Journal Of Law And Economics suggests that the number of hours physicians work each week is influenced by their fear of malpractice lawsuits. The study found that doctors cut back their workload by almost two hours each week when the expected liability risk increases by 10 percent. The study notes that the decline in hours adds up to the equivalent of one of every 35 physicians retiring without a replacement. The analysis combined data gathered by insurers about medical liability risks in each state and medical specialty with physicians' responses to surveys about their…

The government financial support that has bolstered America's commercial news industry since its colonial days is now in sharp decline and is likely to fall further, according to a report released today by the University of Southern California's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. Because these cutbacks are occurring at the height of the digital revolution, they will have an especially powerful impact on an already weakened news industry. "It is a common myth that the commercial press in the United States is independent of governmental funding support," says Geoffrey Cowan who co-…

Super-Science, NOT Fantasy! Science Fact: Scientists say building a time machine may be extremely difficult. But time travel is not against the laws of physics!  For thousands of years, scientists and philosophers have talked of time as a river that flows steadily onward year after year. But what if there were a way to swim against the flow, or to run down the bank ahead of the river? Might we be able to journey back and forth in time just as we travel through space? The idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds, and the implications for the future are intriguing. Ever since Einstein,…