Santa's Million Buck

Here is the product of an artist with too much time on his hands. Or perhaps its an ex-counterfeiter who has turned over a new leaf and put his skills to good capitalist use. I got a new wallet for Christmas, and as has been my practice, I gave my old one to my 2-year-old. Then, I ran a few of these off on my printer, cut them up, and gave them to him to place in his "new" wallet. Does that make me a counterfeiter too? I hope the secret service doesn't come knocking. Well, it's a thrill everytime. The art on this bill is pretty good, along the line of the US style; but, the US has some fairly boring looking currency compared to other world paper currency.

REFERENCES

[image] Million Dollar Bills (Accessed 12/31/07)

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"God's action" odds can't be determined

{ Podcast this essay } Suppose a pious person were trying to assess whether God would do something -- i.e. that they wanted to calculate the odds that God would act in one way as compared to some other way. Stipulate that there is a God, and that God's attributes are close to what the Abrahamic religions claim (monotheistic, inter-personal, righteous, etc.)

Assessing the probability that God would act in certain ways would be impossible on standard methods of assessing odds. Why? Because there is no control variable that can be levied on God's acts. For example, we don't have another universe with like conditions where God does something else instead of what God (allegedly or even observably) did. Nor do we have this type of thing, God, where another token of that type of thing does something else. (Note the type/token distinction.)

Take a more inane experiment. Imagine we run ants through a maze, noting the odds of them completing the maze in some time limit. In some cases, we carefully paint over their tiny eyes. But in other cases we leave some of the ants' eyes functioning. Here we have a type of thing, Ant, where two collections of tokens of that type of thing (i.e. ants in set #1, ants in set #2) are tested under the same conditions.

Contrast the ant case with the God case. On a monotheistic view, we don't have multiple tokens of God to assess, and neither do we have at our disposal observations of whole separate universes in order to test the one token of God that there is.

One might be able to talk about what one expects God to do, but this would be about our psychological dispositions, not about justification for expecting some event to occur (or not) in the world. This goes under the title, subjectivist probability, and is summarized as follows:

Theories which analyze probability in terms of beliefs or attitudes rather than anything in the world itself. For one theory, associated mainly with Bruno De Finetti (1906-1985), the degree of probability of something is the degree of the speaker's belief, measured by his betting behavior, but subject to the constraint that his bets must be 'coherent'; that is, he must not bet in such a way as to lose whatever happens (sometimes called 'having a Dutch book made against one'). This constraint still leaves probabilities dependent on the vagaries of individual attitudes, unless we substitute those of 'the rational man' - but that takes us away from subjectivism. Others, notably Stephen Edelston Toulmin (1922-), offer a speech act theory whereby to call something probable is to assert it, though only tentatively. This may well apply to some uses of 'probably', but hardly to all [....][1]

This is the best a person of faith can expect, but this type of calculation would not be convincing to otherwise uncommitted third parties regarding whether or not God acted.


REFERENCES

[1] "Subjectivist Theories of Probability" The Philosophy Professor (Accesed 12/24/2007)

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Gas Prices: These High School kids and their crusin' today!

In 1981, I used to get $5 bucks a week to "fill" my car up and go High School cruisin'. But would that be like getting $10 bucks a week now. Clearly, kids today have a much better economic situation to go cruisin' on the weekends than did I. In fact, they have it about twice as much better:

To be as expensive as gas in 1981, measured as the cost per 1,000 gallons as a share of per-capita net worth, gasoline today would have to sell for about $6.50 per gallon. Bottom Line: Gas today, even at $3, is relatively affordable and is actually cheaper than the decades of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960, 1970s and 1980s, when the price of gas is measured relative to our increasing household wealth. Goldilocks can handle $3 gas.[1]

Furthermore, the average car gets better gas mileage than those of 1981. So, quit all your complaining you slack-jawed whipper-snappers!! These are the good-ol'-days! (Although, about ten years ago, it was even "gooder" days for cruisin'.)

REFERENCES

[1] Mark J. Perry "Why The Goldilocks Economy Can Handle $3 Gas II" CARPE DIEM: Blog for Economics and Finance December 7, 2007 (Accessed 12/16/07)


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Economists: Tall guy = rich guy

Economists take pleasure in coming up with models which defy our moral sense of what should be politically logical. One claim is that tall people should be taxed more on their incomes than short people. Almost everyone has met someone with (mythical) "short-man syndrome", but in capitalist societies, there might be some basis for height-challenged anger:

"A person's height is strongly correlated with his or her income. Judge and Cable (2004) report that "an individual who is 72 in. tall could be expected to earn $5,525 [in 2002 dollars]more per year than someone who is 65 in. tall, even after controlling for gender, weight, and age." Persico, Postlewaite, and Silverman (2004) find similar results and report that "among adult white men in the United States, every additional inch of height as an adult is associated with a 1.8 percent increase in wages." Case and Paxson (2006) write that "For both men and women...an additional inch of height [is] associated with a one to two percent increase in earnings."[1]

Fortunately, I'm just under 6'2", so I'm feeling good about my economic future right now. This table[1] below shows only about 9% of the US can snub their altitudenous noses at me. Odd thing, however, among academics, I've noticed I'm not all that tall. But at the mall or at a football game, I have the better view in a crowd.



REFERENCES

[image] bedrock.deadsquid.com (Accessed 12/16/2007)

[1] N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl "The Optimal Taxation of Height:A Case Study of Utilitarian Income Redistribution"

[2] Julie Wheldon "Forget Napoleon, taller men have the shorter fuse" Daily Mail March 28, 2007 (Accessed 12/16/2007)

America's biggest moral stumble: torture

Scott Horton is a New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict. He lectures at Columbia Law School, and is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice. This guy is no hack about American policy and American legal precedent. He has also written the clearest article on the Bush presidency (and cabinet) and its political influence on the justice department in regards to torture. His section which recounts an interview with CIA agent, John Kiriakou, is also most telling. Let me say I'm not completely against the use of torture, just against every use of it I've heard about so far.

REFERENCES

"The President’s Coming-Out Party" Harper's Magazine (Accessed 12/16/2007)

[image] "What is Waterboarding?" Above The Law (Accessed 12/16/2007)


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A faceshot a day as he ages away

{ Podcast this essay } Here is a most interesting video of a man who took a picture of his face everyday for eight years. I think the most interesting parts are when his hair grows in, and also when when his beard and mustache grow in. Given his age, there is not much change, if any, in the basic structure of his face, which leads me to believe he was over 25 when he started the project. This would be a far more interesting project if he snapped the pictures between ages 35 and 45, when some distinct facial features begin to be noticeable due to aging. Also, many people tend to see a large increase of gray hair within a certain decade of their life, and so later sets of pictures would capture these more noticeable changes.

I'm not sure if women would rank him high as a potential mating partner or not, since he seems to have conflicting attributes.[1] Of course a lot would depend on what phase the moon is in: "Women have been found to prefer the scent of symmetrical men and relatively masculine male faces more during the fertile (late follicular and ovulatory) phases of their menstrual cycles than during their infertile (e.g., luteal) phases."[2] Such evaluations of male facial structure are not just germane to women either:

Men with highly masculine faces were judged more likely to get into physical fights, challenge their bosses, sleep with many women, cheat on their partners and knowingly hit on someone else's girlfriend. Those with more feminine faces were judged to be more likely to be good husbands, be great with children, work hard at their jobs even though they didn't like them, and be emotionally supportive in long-term relationships.[3]

I also liked the analysis in this article concerning who gets trusted to be the moral-acting bodyguard: "Men picked the less masculine-looking men to accompany their girlfriends on a weekend trip to another city," researcher Daniel Kruger said, "and both men and women would prefer the less masculine versions as dating partners for their daughters."[3]

REFERENCES

"Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project" vimeo (Accessed 12/15/2007)

[1] "Does he like kids? It's written all over his face. Women can tell whether he's a family man, study finds" MSNBC (Accessed 12/15/2007)

[2] "Facial masculinity and fluctuating asymmetry" Evolution and Human Behavior (Accessed 12/15/2007)

[3] "Does He Love You So? Maybe It Really Is In His Face" Science Daily Jan. 30, 2007(Accessed 12/15/2007)

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The Problem of Evil God Butchery

{ Podcast this essay } This kind of puts a new spin on the classic problem of evil. Occasionally, the Bible advocates some good old fashion God butchery:

According to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), when God called forth his people out of slavery in Egypt and back to the land of their forefathers, he directed them to kill all the Canaanite clans who were living in the land (Deut. 7.1-2; Deut. 20.16-18). The destruction was to be complete: every man, woman, and child was to be killed. The book of Joshua tells the story of Israel’s carrying out God’s command in city after city throughout Canaan.[1]

Tough call by God, unless you happened to hate the people you're killing, even if not also the individuals in particular. This kind of tribe vs. tribe mentality seems to be the default mode of operating in ancient history, though the fragmentation of postmodern culture into self-selected sects of interest might simply re-define the tribe for contemporary humans. Bad things could happen once again. (Maybe geeks will decide to kill off athletes, or Windows owners vs. Apple owners, etc.) It's been argued that genocide has a biological basis, but this is a very controversial claim:

Geneticists now have produced not only fat mice, who lack a protein that tells them when to stop eating, but also hyperaggressive mice who kill and rape without inhibition. These mice lack a neurotransmitter that normally turns off attack behavior in response to signals of surrender. What are these deranged mice, other than a demonstration of raw gene power? We cannot ignore human aggression -- or what animal research can tell us about it. Despite all efforts to control it, aggression is unlikely to go away. In recent years, we have seen that atrocities can still arise in almost any corner of the world, from the Khmer Rouge in Southeast Asia, to the Hutus and the Tutsis in Africa, to the "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia. Could it be that genocide -- rather than being a German aberration, as Lorenz's opponents were wont to imply -- is a universal human potential? The realization that this may be the case is eroding confidence in purely cultural perspectives on violence and warfare.[2]

Oddly, it would appear that advance genetic therapy might have cured those wandering Hebrews of their inclination to kill. Suppose a mad (?) scientist dropped a gene-altering virus into strategic freshwater supplies the world over. Furthermore, suppose that a gene modification is made which takes away the genocide disposition. Maybe there would still be murder -- i.e., hating and then killing of someone whom you thinks deserves it. But maybe there would no longer be racial bias -- i.e., prejudice, and hatred along skin-color/morphology lines. Perhaps as a result of the mad scientist's actions we would look at people of other "races" with as much notice as we give to people with varying hair-color within our own "race."


REFERENCES

[image] no title. Swimming Downstream blog (Accessed 12/09/2007)

[1] "Subject: Slaughter of the Canaanites" www.reasonablefaith.org (Accessed 12/09/2007)

[2] Frans B.M. de Waal "The Biological Basis of Behavior" The Chronicle of Higher Education June 14, 1996. (Accessed 12/09/07)



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Strawberry Morphology

Just when you think the simplest, natural things cannot be compromised by analytical classification, something like this comes along. Who knew that somebody had named all the strawberry morphologies? Well, I bet Prof. Kirk Larson did, since it appears there's nothing about strawberries he doesn't know. He did academic work in Pomology. Until I, the philosopher, had taken a moment to contemplate the strawberry, I'd never heard of that discipline. (It's the science that deals with fruits and fruit growing.) Still -- the strawberry seems to have been carefully studied; indeed, everything I could ever imagine about strawberries seems to be available at Michigan State's Strawberry Information Center . I recently contemplated the ant, but the strawberry has surprised me a bit more than I expected. So now I'm thinking there must be morphologies for all fruit. And for leaves too.


REFERENCES

[image] "Berry Fool" Sweet Treats Blog (Accessed 12/09/2007)

NOVA program on Evolution and the Dover, PA Decision

I just recently watched a PBS NOVA program on the big Evolution vs. (so-called) Intelligent Design Case in Dover, PA. As a part of the transcript from the program states:

In 2004, the Dover school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution called intelligent design—the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The teachers refused to comply. Later, parents opposed to intelligent design filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

You can watch the whole program on-line, and it is one of the best NOVAs I've seen. I recently spent a few hours in a seminar with a couple of the luminaries who were testifying for the Plaintiff's (pro-evolution party in the legal suit). The personality of Ken Miller is well represented in how he appears in this program. The NOVA site for the program also has several podcasts of interest. I especially liked the one which interviewed the judge in the case.

REFERENCES

[1] "Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" NOVA PBS.org (Accessed 12/02/07).


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Contemplate the ant

Ants work toward a common goal. This might be understated. Consider when I say my liver or pancreas works toward a common goal. Or my cells. A human body has lots of types of cells. Perhaps these ants are just one dispersed big organism, albeit a slow moving one, due to the slow movement of the parts. some slime molds are occasionally considered a single organism under certain conditions. Why could not ants qualify to be a single organism?

Suppose someone comes along and says there is no creature called a human, just a bunch of cells doing a certain patterned behavior. (We say such such things about ants -- "the colony isn't a creature, the ant is.") So the human isn't a creature, but the individual cells are. What is the error? I think this might be the biological equivalent of the classic problem of the one and the many as noted in Philosophy.

REFERENCES

[image] "Visualizing nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant" Makezine (Accessed 11/22/2007)

[1] "Cuando ruge la marabunta" Flickr Uploaded on November 6, 2007 by elpaquito



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