Category: Science
Sentences to ponder
Picky eaters tend to gravitate to certain foods, including blander products that are often white or pale colored, like plain pasta or cheese pizza. For reasons that aren't clear, almost all adult picky eaters like French fries and often chicken fingers, health experts say.
This article gets at some deep questions as to the differences (or possible lack thereof) between disorders, differing capabilities, and differing tastes. The stories are interesting, but it doesn't get far on developing a good conceptual framework…
Robin Hanson responds on cryonics
Does Tyler think the world would be equally better off if foodies were to act contrary to type, express less via buying less fancy food, and give the difference to charity? If so, why has he never mentioned it in his hundreds of food posts?
Could it be Tyler knows that tech nerds are low status in our society and fair game for criticism? Is this really any different than rich folks complaining about inner city kids who buy $100 sneakers instead of saving their money or giving it to charity, even while they buy $1000 suits and dresses instead of saving their money or giving it to charity?
There is much more here. This is not essential to the points under discussion, but I should add that I consider tech nerds to be a relatively high status group in American society, at least above the age of thirty.
Why pick on cryonics?
A few of my lunch compadres have asked why I compare cryonics (unfavorably) to acts of charity, rather than comparing other acts of personal consumption (I enjoy the gelato here in Berlin) to charity. My view is this: the decision to have one's head frozen is not primarily instrumental but rather expressive. Look at the skewed demographics of the people who do it, namely highly intelligent male readers of science fiction, often with tech jobs. Is it that they love their lives especially much? Unlikely. Instead it's a chance to stand for something and in a way which sets them apart from many others. It's a chance to stand for instrumental rationality, for Science, for attitudes which go beyond traditional religion, for the conquering of limits, for probabilistic reasoning, and for the notion that the subject sees hidden possibilities and resources which more traditional observers do not.
It's like voting for a very unusual political candidate.
In my view the people interested in cryonics are often highly meritorious, as is Robin. So I'm very sympathetic with a) letting them do what they want, and b) praising them and their affiliations, simply because they are productive and smart and also not harming others. Those factors militate in favor of cryonics and indeed I am happy to endorse laissez-faire for the practice but still I don't find myself settling into really liking the idea.
Let's say I use another Hansonian construct and put everyone behind a contractarian veil of ignorance. I then ask: given that we don't know who will be born into which position, which expressive symbols do we want these highly intelligent individuals to send, and also to identify with, given that reputation is limited and publicity is scarce? Keep also in mind that society is insufficiently appreciative of intelligence and we would prefer that more people had greater respect for analytic thinking. There are also many worthy causes out there.
I don't see the positive deal here. I believe the world would be better off, and the relative status of the virtuous nerds higher, if instead the cryonics customers sent more signals which were perceived as running contrary to type. Ignoring cryonics, and promoting charity, would do more to raise the status of intelligence and analytical thinking than does cryonics.
On the practical side, while I am a non-believer, I also think that charity has a greater chance of bringing a longer life to one's self – or immortality — than does signing a cryonics contract. That's an even stronger triumph for probabilistic thinking than what the cryonics customers have on tap.
Addendum: If you haven't already, do go back and read both Quentin and #44 on these issues. Bracing stuff.
How do higher-IQ people choose?
Our main finding is that risk aversion and impatience both vary systematically with cognitive ability. Individuals with higher cognitive ability are significantly more willing to take risks in the lottery experiments and are significantly more patient over the year-long time horizon studied in the intertemporal choice experiment.
The link is here, gated for most of you (non-gated is here), and the authors are Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, David Huffman, and Uwe Sunde. The subjects, by the way, were Germans. The results held somewhat less strongly for females and younger individuals.
Whole Earth Discipline
Here's my final quote (earlier quotes here and here) from Stuart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, a quote which sums up the thesis of the book:
Accustomed to saving natural systems from civilization, Greens now have the unfamiliar task of saving civilization from a natural system…
Brand is talking about climate change and in particular the possibility of rapid, difficult to reverse, tipping points in climate. Brand has a challenging message for environmentalists: If we take the threat of climate change seriously we must recognize that Cities are Green, Nukes are Green and Genetic Engineering is Green.
Brand's long history with the environmental movement should give his message credibility with that group. Brand's rationalism, reasonableness, and pro-technology, pro-civilization outlook gave his environmental message credibility with me.
Waterless Urinals
I found this sign over the waterless urinal at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (where I am hanging out this summer) difficult to parse (or follow).
Ordinarily I wouldn't devote a blog post to this kind of thing but believe it or not, this month's Wired has an excellent article on the science, economics and considerable politics of waterless urinals. Here's one bit:
Plumbing codes never contemplated a urinal without water. As a result, Falcon’s fixtures couldn’t be installed legally in most parts of the country. Krug assumed it would be a routine matter to amend the model codes on which most state and city codes are based, but Massey and other plumbers began to argue vehemently against it. The reason the urinal hadn’t changed in decades was because it worked, they argued. Urine could be dangerous, Massey said, and the urinal was not something to trifle with. As a result, in 2003 the organizations that administer the two dominant model codes in the US rejected Falcon’s request to permit installation of waterless urinals. “The plumbers blindsided us,” Krug says. “We didn’t understand what we were up against.”
One thing that does annoy me is the claim that these urinals "save" 40,000 thousand gallons of water a year. Water is not an endangered species. With local exceptions, water is a renewable resource and in plentiful supply. At the average U.S. price, you can buy 40,000 gallons of water for about $80.
A new anti-AIDS strategy?
Leading scientists fighting the world's worst Aids epidemic have called on African leaders to head a month-long sexual abstinence campaign, saying it would substantially reduce new infections.
Epidemiologists Alan Whiteside and Justin Parkhurst cite evidence that a newly infected person is most likely to transmit HIV in the month after being exposed to it. An abstinence campaign could cut new infections by up to 45%, they say – a huge step in countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland.
Unlike most abstinence campaigns, this one requires only a month of adherence [TC: does it break the chain or just postpone it? It depends why transmission is so likely in the first month]. A month with condoms could have similar effects. Will it happen? The full article is here.
Laissez-Faire Genetic Engineering
Every few minutes, every one of the microbes in your body (and the ocean, and the soil, and the air) is defying precaution and the sacred, playing God, performing an act illegal in Europe — swapping genes around in the endless search for competition or collaborative advantage.
Another good sentence from Steward Brand's Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
Why do IQs vary across nations?
People who live in countries where disease is rife may have lower IQs because they have to divert energy away from brain development to fight infections, scientists in the US claim.
The controversial idea might help explain why national IQ scores differ around the world, and are lower in some warmer countries where debilitating parasites such as malaria are widespread, they say.
Researchers behind the theory claim the impact of disease on IQ scores has been under-appreciated, and believe it ranks alongside education and wealth as a major factor that influences cognitive ability.
The full story is here. The original research paper is here. I'm not sure the authors have a very good test against alternative hypotheses, but still a correlation remains after making some appropriate adjustments.
Sentence of the Day
… 10 percent of the electricity Americans use comes from Russian missiles and bombs.
From Stewart Brand's excellent and highly quotable Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
How Germans use bees
Airports in Germany have come up with an unusual approach to monitoring air quality. The Düsseldorf International Airport and seven other airports are using bees as “biodetectives,” their honey regularly tested for toxins.
…Beekeepers from the local neighborhood club keep the bees. The honey, “Düsseldorf Natural,” is bottled and given away as gifts.
The article is here and I thank David Wessel for the pointer.
What is vacation good for?
Drake Bennett writes:
They found that in all three cases, the respondents were least happy about the vacation while they were taking it. Beforehand, they looked forward to it with eager anticipation, and within a few days of returning, they remembered it fondly. But while on it, they found themselves bogged down by the disappointments and logistical headaches of actually going somewhere and doing something, and the pressure they felt to be enjoying themselves.
A recent Dutch study had a more striking finding. Looking not at vacation memories, but measuring general happiness level through a simple three-question questionnaire, the researchers found that going on vacation gave a notable boost to pre-vacation mood but had hardly any effect on post-vacation feelings. Anticipation, it seems, can be a more powerful force than memory.
Here is much more. I liked this sentence:
The most effective way to inoculate a vacationer against the deadening power of adaptation, however, may be the most counterintuitive – to break it up, to interrupt it with real life.
In other words, bring work. I call it "taking a work vacation."
For the pointer I thank David Archer.
David Hume on signaling
Longterm Guy, a long-standing MR reader, sends me this:
A Treatise Of Human Nature, by David Hume, Volume Two
BOOK II OF THE PASSIONS
PART I OF PRIDE AND HUMILITY
SECT. XII OF THE PRIDE AND HUMILITY OF ANIMALSIt is plain, that almost in every species of creatures, but especially of the nobler kind, there are many evident marks of pride and humility. The very port and gait of a swan, or turkey, or peacock show the high idea he has entertained of himself, and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discovered in the male only. The vanity and emulation of nightingales in singing have been commonly remarked; as likewise that of horses in swiftness, of hounds in sagacity and smell, of the bull and cock in strength, and of every other animal in his particular excellency. Add to this, that every species of creatures, which approach so often to man, as to familiarize themselves with him, show an evident pride in his approbation, and are pleased with his praises and caresses, independent of every other consideration. Nor are they the caresses of every one without distinction, which give them this vanity, but those principally of the persons they know and love; in the same manner as that passion is excited in mankind. All these are evident proofs, that pride and humility are not merely human passions, but extend themselves over the whole animal creation.
Two MP3s, Circa 1956
Two MP3s, Circa 1956 (An IBM 350 drive capable of about 5 MB of storage.)
800,000 MP3s Circa 2010 2014? – see the comments.
Hat tip Boing Boing and Alex in the comments.
Scientific hypotheses from 1956
This article was from the Guardian:
Intelligence tests recently carried out among more than a thousand children in Wolverhampton schools appear to show a striking and quite unexpected increase in the mental capacity of children born since 1945. A psychiatrist concerned in the tests has suggested that the most probable hypothesis to account for this change is the effect on the brain of the increase in "background radio-activity".
For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.