PhDP

I would like to have a good book to understand markov chains and stochastic differential equations, I'm really not interested in proofs, I would prefer an emphasis on application. There's many books on the subject, I don't really know which one I should take, somebody has a suggestion ?

yea… but politicians are elected, if nobody would have voted for Bush in 2000 the U.S. wouldn’t be stuck in Iraq. Politicians have to take some responsibility for their actions, but the people voting for them should also be held responsible for the people they’ve elected. I mostly read interviews and articles about him. He wants to repel the 16th amendment. Why ? Because it allows income taxes to be levied (which, BTW, is not even true), and that’s his argument; income taxes should be levied because it’s unconstitutional. Not only his claim is blatantly false, but it's just stunning to see a "serious" politician justify a draconian change with little rational arguments. We call that progress. Just face it, the constitution HAS to change, it’s why it has been amended so many times, either because of social changes (to allow women to vote) or simply because the context has changed. It’s why I hope the American people would try to improve (in your language; “not respecting”) this document, otherwise at some point it’ll have to be replaced. The constitution has no supernatural qualities, and the U.S. will continue to change, like it or not, the constitution will adapt, or it’ll break. Many things just don’t make sense in the U.S., like the fact that president are not elected by the popular vote, or that you have to be BORN in the U.S. to become president (not that I’m interested in the job, but I don’t like the idea that, even if I go live in the U.S. to teach, then get my U.S. citizenship, for some reason people would not even have the right to elect me president, like I would be some sort of second class citizen). I find it funny that, for many conservatives, what “respecting” means is “shut up and don’t criticize”. I respect the U.S. and I have a great deal of admiration for the constitution. But for me, respect doesn't imply worship.

Really ? Can you prove it (with something else than a circular argument) ?

QM doesn’t allow that, at least not more than classical mechanics. You’re probably referring to an erroneous interpretation of the uncertainly principle. In reality, observation, both in classical physics and in QM, has some effect on the observed object (it could be argue that it’s always the case in science), but that has nothing to do with QM. Again, you’re only accepting QM because you want to believe in free will, it doesn’t seem to be based on anything rational. I'm sorry to put so much emphasis on this, but it bugs me. You say it allows us to "get out of this problem". There's no "problem", science doesn't need to justify and prove the existence of all our traditional views, on the contrary! I still fail to see; A) How the behaviour of atoms at the quantum levels can be applied to the behaviour of systems in the brains. B) How QM is different from classical mechanics when it comes to free will. I think it's another example of people trying very hard to justify, at all cost, traditional beliefs (free will) with "hard science", and it's obviously not working very well.

This is nonsense for two reasons. First, you accept a statement just because you don't like a conclusion. Also, there's no way quantum theory could explain free will better than classical physics. I don't understand how you can image that, just because we can't know both the momentum and location of an atom with infinite precision, quantum physics would justify free will. As for Penrose's view, it's very "exotic", yet there's no concrete proof for now. The characteristics of the brain are possible because of complex interactions between cells and I really doubt quantum physics has anything to do with a system of this size/complexity.

Bascule said “Neoconservatism, at least under Bush”. You know what I’m « smarting » about ; a rigid and overly simplistic interpretation of the constitution. If draconian measures must be taken, then at least they should be supported by sound and rational arguments, not by a dogmatic endorsement of old documents.

... still, a large part of "Junk" DNA is composed of evolutionary artifacts.

If you trust wikipedia's article on Acamprosate (and the article seems to be well-sourced), then it's not a good idea. This drug is good for "maintaining abstinence", it looks like it's not a cure for alcoolism. They even quote a study showing that "[...] acamprosate only works with a combination of attending support groups and abstinence from alcohol." I understand that your situation is difficult, but I doupt you can cure your father's alcoholism if he doesn't want to be cured.

I'm curious, pioneer, have you read a book about molecular evolution and population genetics or you're just bashing what you don't understand ? It's clear that, following the discovery of molecular genetics, we've understood that "randomness" (drift,mutations,et cetera...) was much more important than we initially thought. But it's something that is based on powerful mathematical models and empirical studies both at the level of the genome and by studying the paleontological record, it's certainly not a "god". I think it's also clear, reading the comments made here by nonbiologists, that many people are just not going to accept "randomness".

Evolutionary biology produces predictions and tests, both at the so-called "macro" and "micro" levels. Most of the "hard" proofs of "macro"-evolution come from either palaeontology or molecular evolutionary biology, and most predictions are formed by theoretical population genetics/molecular evolutionary genetics/quantitative genetics, and are tested within the framework of molecular biology, it’s just that creationists don't bother to read about evolutionary biology before attacking it. If you want proofs and predictions, just read a book about molecular evolution, the books by Wen-Hsiung Li are generally very good.

Ron Paul is not really better than neoconservatives; it's just that instead of quoting the bible, he's quoting the constitution.

That... My contention is that things the government doesn't bother itself with stays reasonable. If the government started manufacturing chocolate bars, they would be 10 bucks a piece and would be dry and flaky. ...needs a lot of faith. It's not factual, state-controlled monopolies are often very efficient, sometime they are not as good as the private sector, sometime they are better, but the government can be reasonable. Although chocolate bars are doing very fine in the hands of the private sector.

It's not impossible, but what if it's not the case ? Invading Iraq was probably the biggest mistake by a U.S president in recent history, but now it's done and the U.S. has a responsability to solve the problems created by their "preemptive war". Iraq has no functional army, they badly need one, but they don't have any. Building an effective army takes years, many years, what are they going to do if/when the U.S. gets out ?

The U.S certainly has a moral responsibility to fix the problems created by the invasion of Iraq. Most Iraqis and Afghan would like to be free, but currently they would prefer security over democracy. But to be honest, I really don't see how the U.S. can get out without destabilizing the region, but I'm not sure staying in Iraq will yield results (although I think Afghanistan is not a lost cause).

You don't understand my point; it has nothing, really NOTHING to do with "middle ground". I'm politically to the left and I'm proud of it, but I think that many things have nothing to do with the left or with the right; it's about facts v. denial. You said "If the government started manufacturing chocolate bars, they would be 10 bucks a piece and would be dry and flaky." It's not about "loving capitalism", on the contrary, it's about economic fairy tales, and I don't think you can justify such a radical statement without invoking some sort of faith.

In my opinion, people like you are the problem, not the government You prefer to have faith in fairy tales than looking at the facts. If you truly believe what you say about chocolate bars, then perhaps you should read a little about economy and what's happening in the world. It’s simply not true that the government is the solution to everything, but it’s also not true the government is unable to manage anything. Both are subjected to different forces. To simplify a little, the private sector has to face competition and the pressure to reduce costs is very high. On the other hand, a government has to be elected, and they have to be good manager to be elected. Here in Quebec, health care is the hands of the the state and improving the health care system is often #1 on the list of priorities of citizens. Competition can both be good or bad, it depends. It can force companies to spend ridiculous amount of money to beat their adversary in marketing wars, just think of how much money is spent (wasted) in the US for publicity. And it’s just absurd how much money pharmaceutical companies are pouring in their marketing departments compared to how much they spent on research. The sad thing is that most debate about government programs and an increase/decrease of its involvement are dictated by two kinds of fanatics; First, those who believe the government is unable to do anything, taxes should be lowered at all cost, small government are always superior to big ones, et cetera. And those who think the government is the ultimate (and only) thing capable to stop evil capitalists. Both have their saviours, it’s the market or the state. Obviously, reality is more complicated. Privatization of water in Ontario was a mess (7 citizens died), it should’ve been kept in the hands of the government, privatization in the U.K. was also not a big success (prices rose by ~50% in a few years). Some state monopolies are very efficient, Hydro-Quebec is one of them, it’s a very powerful machine giving millions of dollars each year to the government, and providing cheap electricity for enterprises (something a private enterprise would not do). On the other side of the coin, privatization of water was much more positive in Argentina, and I think it was shown to have reduced mortality. There’s so many programs and regulations in a country like France that something as simple as firing an employee is complicated, hardly a good thing for the economy. I’m convinced that most issues in politics have very little to do with politics, but with objectives facts. Reducing theses complex issues to “government doesn't bother itself with stays reasonable” is unreasonable. it’s just a fairy tales of conservatives, many facts prove that the governement can be very reasonable. “The incompetent government” myth is as bad as the “perfect government” myth and both has to be rejected.

What ? My definition is fine, I'm 100% certain I could find similar definitions in peer-reviewed journals. "All things being equal" means the competing theories have the same predictive/descriptive power, if theory A and B have the same predictice/descriptive power, but theory B is less parsimonious, then A should be prefered.

Let's just rejoice in the fact that the pression is so high, even Bush has to change the tone. If the politicians could listen to the groups of expert for a change, much more would be done to fight AGW.

The Occam's razor only means that, all things being equal, the most parsimonious hypothesis should be prefered. Most people forget the "all things being equal" part.

Cognitive-behavioural therapies are very effective against phobias.

While you were arguing over definition of ID (which somehow proves my point that a broad definition leads to confusion), nobody answered my initial question; when will the political movement to introduce ID and creation "science" in science classes will stop? oh great, so now we'll have to stop using a certain number of models (or stop teaching them), because they are based on the idea of random mutations and mutational pressure? We should do the exact opposite. There's too much emphasis on natural selection, about the same amount of time should be devoted to the effect of mutations and random drift, then people could understand what we mean by "random". But there's really no way the scientific community will change the way it teaches something just because it offends some religious people, science is not a democracy.

Science is made by publishing articles in recognized peer-reviewed journals (id est: Nature, Evolution, Journal of Theoretical Biology...) Creationism/ID is not science. They don't publish articles in peer-reviewed journals, they don't predict anything. Therefore, Creationism/ID should not be taught in science classes. It's why Creationism/ID is a political movement, not a competing scientific hypothesis.

First I'd like to ask if you believe Ron Paul is representative of modern libertarianism ? About Paul's radicalism. As much as I dislike the Canadian system, I like ONE thing about our constitution; it's recognized that interpretations can evolve with time. The US constitution was established in a very different era, how can Ron Paul possibly ask a strict interpretation of the US constitution to be still relevant in every matter? When I heard him say "it's not in the constitution", as if it was an unbeatable argument per se, it makes me wonder if he can lead the US people in the 21th century. I just don't think it's possible to keep the same constitution for so many years if it's not allowed to evolve. About taxes, I think he's a radical but I heard him say only one thing about it (without much details) so I might be wrong. I heard him say he wanted to abolish income taxes (I really hope his main argument is not the constitution). It's always the same scenario; on the right some people think income taxes should be abolished, because it's against personal freedom or something like that. On the left, some argue we should abolish sales taxes, because it's regressive. In practice, both systems work very well together and they can easily serve both progressive and more conservative fiscal policies. On most occasions, the case to abolish one system is purely based on an ideological argument without much consideration for the practical issues, and IMO it's both radical and unpractical to abolish one system or the other.

Does it matter if the statement is based on pseudoscience and faulty logic ?

Haezed, You're right, sorry. I read carefully the post I quoted but I haven't read all your previous posts. Now I agree when you say it can't currently be tested. However... "Intelligent Design" was coined by Thaxton (of the Discovery Institute) and means that the complexity of life can't be explained without referring to a designer, and I prefer to keep that definition, it avoids confusion.