Do you know what the Monty Hall effect is? Let me explain.
OK, I’m Monty Hall and you are a hapless game show guest. I show you three doors and tell you that behind one door is a nice brand new car, and behind each of the other two doors is a goat.You get to pick one of the door. Say you pick Door Number 1.Now, I have my lovely assistant Gwenda (assume her name is Gwenda) open Door Number 3 to show you that there is a goat behind Door # 3. I give you the option: Are you going to stick with Door Number 1, or are you going to switch to the only remaining unopened door?Statistically, scientifically, what is the correct answer to this question? Obviously, the probability that the car was behind the door you chose has not changed, so you should not change your mind without any other information, right? Continue reading Let’s Make a Deal!
Monthly Archives: April 2008
Carnivals
Iandthebird #72 is at Ecobirder Wow, this is a good one, and coming to us from Minnesota no less…Festival of The Trees #22 is at Arvores vivas em Nossas Vidas.Learning in the Great Outdoors Blog Carnival: Environmental Education Week Edition is at The Heard of Harmony Zooillogix has the latest Carnival of the Blue, in this case, number ElevenCarnival of the Cities is at A DC Birding Blog
Avast ye pirates! Blasted by Public Access be yer land lubbin arses!
Whence public access policy, and why?Flashback. The year is some time in the 1980s. The place, southern Indiana. The setting: A meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists.We are being given a presentation, in the business meeting, by a publisher. The publisher points out that the maintenance of a journal (as we had been doing) is expensive and difficult, and the most efficient way to carry out this onerous task was to have the professional publishers do it. The society was promised that members would have inexpensive subscription rates to the journal, perhaps even free for the first couple of years, and the publishing company would take on the task of managing the production of the journal. The journal would, of course, become one of the titles held by the publishing company, with all the rights and privileges and unnecessary boring fine print etc. etc. nevermindthedetails… Continue reading Avast ye pirates! Blasted by Public Access be yer land lubbin arses!
Florida Screws Up
In a move that now sends the deceptively named “academic freedom” bill to the Florida Senate floor, the Senate judiciary committee voted 6-3 to approve it. It looks like some Democrats can see the potential (almost guaranteed) lawsuit pitfalls to come, but the bill marches on nonetheless. I’ll have more later …
What’s wrong with you people? Do we not ridicule you enough? Do you not feel stoopid enough? Are your jaws not slack enough and your chromosomes not homogeneous enough?Get out there and De-Elect these Senators!Florida Citizens for Science may have more soon. Here.
Carnivals
I’ve not been good about posting current carnivals over the last week or so … thus, some catching up:Scientiae Carnival: Fools and Foolishness at Women in ScienceThe Second Carnival Of Mathematics: The Math Geeks are Coming to Town! at Good Math Bad MathTangled Bank #102 at Further ThoughtsCarnival of the Green at Conserve Plastic BagsCircus of the Spineless at from Archaea to ZeaxontholEncephalon Goes to Paris (Hilton) at Of Two MindsMedBlogs Grand Rounds 4:28 at GruntDoc
Minnesota Governor Pawlenty Smashes Hopes for Better Bell
Tim Pawlenty has demonstrated, in many ways and on many occasions, that he is the worst governor the State of Minnesota has ever had. The most recent proof was his line item veto of funding for the Bell Museum of Natural History, and his line item veto of the funding necessary to further develop public transit in the Twin Cities. Neither surprises me. This is the governor who gave us a creationist education director, and this is the governor who let the bridge fall down. Education and transportation are not his bailiwicks. But one has to ask, if he can’t understand these two important issues (which habitually top various lists of what is important to the citizenry), when what is he good at? (See below for one possible suggestion.)
Continue reading Minnesota Governor Pawlenty Smashes Hopes for Better Bell
Florida Citizens for Sanity: Take Note!
Florida Senate Bill S2692 is up for discussion and a decision to pass to the floor by the Senate Judiciary Committee.BELOW YOU WILL FIND LINKS TO EMAIL EACH MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE (except one, for whom I provide a phone number).I’d say you don’t need to be a Florida resident to let them know what you think. In fact, let them know that the whole world is watching!I’ve got to say that this is one of the scariest bills I’ve seen in a while. Have a look: Continue reading Florida Citizens for Sanity: Take Note!
Planets In the Making
Planets are formed when a disk of dust orbiting a newly minted star condenses into blobs. The beginning and end of this process has been observed, but the intermediate steps have only been modeled. However, a team of astronomers now reports observations of this process in the intermediate stages. The conditions under which this observation is made are unusual, which is apparently the reason that the observation was possible.
Continue reading Planets In the Making
Did sexist white males cause the extinction of the woolly mammoth, or was it climate change?
Ever since 3,599 years ago humans have been asking the question “Why did our furry elephant go extinct?”What caused the woolly mammoth’s (not to be confused with the also-woolly mastodon) extinction? Climate warming in the Holocene might have driven the extinction of this cold-adapted species, yet the species had survived previous warming periods, suggesting that the more-plausible cause was human expansion.The woolly mammoth went extinct less than four thousand years ago. The bones of miniaturized woolly mammoths have been found in Siberia dating to about 3,600 years ago. Indeed, woolly mammoths, the furry elephant of the north, was around recently enough that it overlaps with the invention of writing by humans, and is depicted in a drawing on the wall of at least one example of a dynastic Egyptian building, along with a number of other unusual (for Egypt) but perfectly real animals. Continue reading Did sexist white males cause the extinction of the woolly mammoth, or was it climate change?
Creationist Pop Up Book
Oh, no, wait, I read that wrong……. “Creationist Book Pops Up …. In Scotland…”
Remember Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation, the lavishly illustrated Islamic creationist book that first turned up in Turkey, then France and other European countries and prompted a disapproving resolution by the Council of Europe? It’s now being mailed to universities in ScotlandThe mysterious Istanbul writer Harun Yahya (actually Adnan Oktar) is clearly spending large amounts of money sending this unwelcome book around Europe. Where does he get it from?[source]
The Smithsonian Institution Is Not Smarter Than a Fifth Grader
Fifth grader Kenton Stufflebeam is smarter than the Smithsonian Institution. Since 1981, the Tower of Time exhibit has indicated that the Precambrian is an “era” … when in fact it is not an actual era.The student informed the museum, and now the Smithsonian is working on plans to paint over the word “era.”[source]
Solar System Doppleganger Located
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own.They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun.Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought.
Stephen Hawking: Asking big questions about the universe
In keeping with the theme of TED2008, professor Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe — How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? — and discusses how we might go about answering them.Stephen Hawking’s scientific investigations have shed light on the origins of the cosmos, the nature of time and the ultimate fate of universe. His bestselling books for a general audience have given an appreciation of physics to millions.
Continue reading Stephen Hawking: Asking big questions about the universe
Are You in a Book Club?
Our Overlord, Virginia Hughes, has just posted a new reader poll concerning book clubs.
More information on the book club concept here.
The Meaning of Life
I have a theory that cinema and other forms of fiction often arise not from pure creativity, but from prescience. It is not the case, when this happens, that “life imitates art” but rather, that art predicts life. It is only a matter of figuring out which so-called ‘creative’ manifestations are predictive of reality in order to understand the deep secrets of nature.After much analysis, the details of which I shall provide later, I have been able to determine that The Force … yes, I’m talking about The Force as in Star Wars, is real, and is the determining element for evolution and for life itself. Details below the fold. Continue reading The Meaning of Life