Another Gould blunder
Roger Schlafly
and his first and last columns are now online. His first (from Jan.
1974)
was on the hypothetical effect of scaling the size of an animal to be
larger or smaller.
But the numbers in the article don't make any sense. Consider this gem:
If a child half your height falls unsupported to the ground,
its head will hit with not half, but only 1/32 the energy of
yours in a similar fall. [Gould]
http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
Never mind the fact that a child half your height will have a head
that is larger than what simple scaling would predict. Assume that
everything is proportional. Gould apparently figured that kinetic
energy is .5mv^2, that mass (m) is 1/8 of yours because it is
proportional to volume, and that velocity (v) is 1/2 of yours because
it is half the distance divided by the same time. 1/32 = (1/8)(1/2)^2.
But this analysis is wrong because it is not the same time. It takes
longer for a head to fall a greater distance. The correct factor for
the energy is 1/16, not 1/32.
One way to look at the problem is that the energy is force (=mg)
times height. The acceleration of gravity (g) is constant, so the
evergy is scaled by 1/8 for the mass and 1/2 for the height. Thus
the child has 1/16 the energy in a fall.
This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
Jerry Freedman Jr
style, I expect a detailed crtique of his fashion sense soon. You don't
like MISMEASURE but are apparently unable to formulate a cogent
argument, rather you send a bagful of biased ( and evidently
undigested ) URLS. Give it up ( or will we see "Gould is a bad cook!!"
sometime soon.
J. Freedman,Jr
--
Creation took 6 days because God didn't
have an installed base
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
catshark
> and his first and last columns are now online. His first (from Jan.
> 1974)
> was on the hypothetical effect of scaling the size of an animal to be
> larger or smaller.
>
> But the numbers in the article don't make any sense. Consider this
gem:
>
> If a child half your height falls unsupported to the ground,
> its head will hit with not half, but only 1/32 the energy of
> yours in a similar fall. [Gould]
> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
>
> Never mind the fact that a child half your height will have a head
> that is larger than what simple scaling would predict. Assume that
> everything is proportional. Gould apparently figured that kinetic
> energy is .5mv^2, that mass (m) is 1/8 of yours because it is
> proportional to volume, and that velocity (v) is 1/2 of yours because
> it is half the distance divided by the same time. 1/32 = (1/8)(1/2)^2.
>
> But this analysis is wrong because it is not the same time. It takes
> longer for a head to fall a greater distance.
Oh, so you are assuming that the distance the adult falls is twice the
distance of the child instead of "a similar fall" that Gould specified?
> The correct factor for
> the energy is 1/16, not 1/32.
>
> One way to look at the problem is that the energy is force (=mg)
> times height. The acceleration of gravity (g) is constant, so the
> evergy is scaled by 1/8 for the mass and 1/2 for the height. Thus
> the child has 1/16 the energy in a fall.
>
> This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>
>
Really, Roger! Maybe you should hire someone to find you a life!
Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by one man
must strike even you a bit odd. Tried looking up "monomania" lately?
--
J. Pieret
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worthwhile
chewing through the leather straps.
Roger Schlafly
> ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> Yawwwnnn. Roger, you've discussed Gould's bad grammar, his writing
> style, I expect a detailed crtique of his fashion sense soon. You don't
> like MISMEASURE but are apparently unable to formulate a cogent
> argument, rather you send a bagful of biased ( and evidently
> undigested ) URLS.
We've had several detailed discussions of Gould's Mismeasure here
on t.o. Gould has some fans here, but they have a very hard time
defending Mismeasure. Not even Gould defends himself against the
criticism. A number of his other writings have been severely
criticized also. If you want to defend something he wrote, go
ahead.
Mismeasure criticisms:
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/psychology/IQ/carroll-gould.html
http://www.xenith.com/articles/iqandpress.html
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/jensen-gould-fossils
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/usenet/sci.anthropology/archive/august-1996/0579.html
http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/jpr_gould_paid.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/rushton091597.html
Roger Schlafly
> ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> Yawwwnnn. Roger, you've discussed Gould's bad grammar, his writing
> style, I expect a detailed crtique of his fashion sense soon. You don't
> like MISMEASURE but are apparently unable to formulate a cogent
> argument, rather you send a bagful of biased ( and evidently
> undigested ) URLS.
We've had several detailed discussions of Gould's Mismeasure here
Roger Schlafly
> ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by one man
> must strike even you a bit odd.
Someone else referred me to this site recently. It describes Gould:
"America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
not complete crap from beginning to end. Can you find anything by
him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
If Gould is "America's foremost evolutionist", then the science is
in a sorry state.
Some people here think that they are promoting the cause of science
by defending Gould and attacking creationists. They're not.
Gould is as much an attack on science as the wackiest of the
creationists.
Richard Wein
"Innumerate" is hardly justified. But I believe Gould has indeed made a
mistake, though Roger's reasoning is a bit off.
First of all, energy is not force. Roger was correct the first time when he
said that kinetic energy = .5mv^2.
According to the standard equations of motion, v^2 = u^2 + 2as, where u is
the starting velocity (in this case zero), and s is the distance travelled.
Substituting into the previous equation, we get e = m.a.s.
In other words, the energy is proportional to the height fallen. Since Gould
is apparently assuming that this is also the height of the person, and the
mass of the head is proportional to the cube of this, it follows that the
kinetic energy of the head on impact is proportional to the fourth power of
the height.
Thus the child's head does indeed (in this idealized scenario) hit the
ground with 1/16 of the energy of the adult's head.
So, well-spotted Roger! ;-)
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
Please change "nospam" to "rwein" in my email address.
Roger Schlafly
> ?This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> "Innumerate" is hardly justified. But I believe Gould has indeed made a
> mistake, though Roger's reasoning is a bit off.
> First of all, energy is not force. Roger was correct the first time when he
> said that kinetic energy = .5mv^2.
There is more than one way to do this. Kinetic energy is not force,
but the kinetic energy on impact equals the potential energy at the
start, and that is the force times the height.
Jon Fleming
wrote:
I believe that's incorrect: see below.
>
>First of all, energy is not force. Roger was correct the first time when he
>said that kinetic energy = .5mv^2.
He was also correct the second time, although he was a tad misleading
by leaving out the word "potential". Force times height is potential
energy . Calculating the potential energy relative to the end of the
fall and equating it to the kinetic energy at the end of the fall is a
valid and pretty easy way of doing the calculation.
>
>According to the standard equations of motion, v^2 = u^2 + 2as, where u is
>the starting velocity (in this case zero), and s is the distance travelled.
>Substituting into the previous equation, we get e = m.a.s.
>
>In other words, the energy is proportional to the height fallen. Since Gould
>is apparently assuming that this is also the height of the person, and the
>mass of the head is proportional to the cube of this, it follows that the
>kinetic energy of the head on impact is proportional to the fourth power of
>the height.
>
>Thus the child's head does indeed (in this idealized scenario) hit the
>ground with 1/16 of the energy of the adult's head.
>
>So, well-spotted Roger! ;-)
>
>Richard Wein (Tich)
>--------------------------------
>Please change "nospam" to "rwein" in my email address.
--
Change "nospam" to "group" to email
Ken Cope
Yet there is a significant difference between Gould, and the correspondent
from Schlaflyland. If this error were pointed out to Gould, he would no
doubt gratefully acknowledge that an error had been pointed out, and
would make an effort to revise future editions of the book in which
the essay appeared.
Roger, as he has demonstrated in post after post, would never admit that
he was mistaken about anything, or that any statement of his was
ever made in error, blaming any claims on a vast hyphenated conspiracy
of those too gullible to listen to his arguments from personal incredulity
and unsubstantiated denial of evidence.
catshark
Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> Jerry Freedman Jr wrote:
> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> > Yawwwnnn. Roger, you've discussed Gould's bad grammar, his writing
> > style, I expect a detailed crtique of his fashion sense soon. You
don't
> > like MISMEASURE but are apparently unable to formulate a cogent
> > argument, rather you send a bagful of biased ( and evidently
> > undigested ) URLS.
>
> We've had several detailed discussions of Gould's Mismeasure here
> on t.o. Gould has some fans here, but they have a very hard time
> defending Mismeasure. Not even Gould defends himself against the
> criticism. A number of his other writings have been severely
> criticized also. If you want to defend something he wrote, go
> ahead.
I see Roger is trotting out his favorite anti-Gould quotes again:
>
> Mismeasure criticisms:
> http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/psychology/IQ/carroll-
gould.html
"These pages are a home for the intellectually heterodox, the
politically incorrect and other independent thinkers. A home for
outlaws."
> http://www.xenith.com/articles/iqandpress.html
"We in the Eugenics movement are not interested in competing
against Adolph Hitler or Karl Marx for some minuscule little
1,000 year reich. We are interested in competing with
Jesus Christ and Buddha for the destiny of man."
> http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/jensen-gould-fossils
Same as #1
>
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/usenet/sci.anthropology/archive/aug
ust-1996/0579.html
A 1996 post to a Newsgroup maintained by the University of Sydney
<shrug>
> http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/jpr_gould_paid.html
" These pages, named after a book by Garrett Hardin, are for socio-
political thinkers unfettered by submission to the power of the
pejorative. Such labels as racist, fascist, communist, and reductionist
have little power here. If you are interested in exploring the
important issues of the day without the limiting fear of words or
labels, then consider yourself our honored guest."
> http://www.nationalreview.com/15sept97/rushton091597.html
>
A review of "Mismeasure of Man" by J. Phillipe Rushton who has received
large grants from the Pioneer Fund which, in turn, has literally
dozens of pages worth of explainations as to why it *isn't* a racist
organization.
http://www.pioneerfund.org/speak2.html
(Obviously a lot of people must disagree.)
Why Rushton shows up in the National Review I'll to your imagination,
but serious science sure isn't the reason.
>
--
J. Pieret
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worthwhile
chewing through the leather straps.
catshark
<Applying magic snip restorer:>
"Really, Roger! Maybe you should hire someone to find you a life!
Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by one man
must strike even you a bit odd. Tried looking up "monomania" lately?"
And no response to: "Oh, so you are assuming that the distance the
adult falls is twice the distance of the child instead of "a similar
fall" that Gould specified?"
Roger, you are getting even more boring (perhaps your greatest
acheivement in life, given where you started from), so why don't you
just go play with yourself.
Jon Fleming
>In article <3A7C3B04...@my-dejanews.com>,
> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>> S J Gould was a columnist for Natural History magazine for many years,
>> and his first and last columns are now online. His first (from Jan.
>> 1974)
>> was on the hypothetical effect of scaling the size of an animal to be
>> larger or smaller.
>>
>> But the numbers in the article don't make any sense. Consider this
>gem:
>>
>> If a child half your height falls unsupported to the ground,
>> its head will hit with not half, but only 1/32 the energy of
>> yours in a similar fall. [Gould]
>> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
>>
>> Never mind the fact that a child half your height will have a head
>> that is larger than what simple scaling would predict. Assume that
>> everything is proportional. Gould apparently figured that kinetic
>> energy is .5mv^2, that mass (m) is 1/8 of yours because it is
>> proportional to volume, and that velocity (v) is 1/2 of yours because
>> it is half the distance divided by the same time. 1/32 = (1/8)(1/2)^2.
>>
>> But this analysis is wrong because it is not the same time. It takes
>> longer for a head to fall a greater distance.
>
>Oh, so you are assuming that the distance the adult falls is twice the
>distance of the child instead of "a similar fall" that Gould specified?
A stopped clock is right twice a day ...
I can see interpreting "a similar fall" as either the same distance or
the same distance relative to the height of the individual. Roger and
Gould chose the latter. If one chooses the former, the kinetic
energies at the end of the fall are different by a factor of 1/8, the
cube of the ratio of the masses. Using either interpretation, Gould
erred.
>
>> The correct factor for
>> the energy is 1/16, not 1/32.
>>
>> One way to look at the problem is that the energy is force (=mg)
>> times height. The acceleration of gravity (g) is constant, so the
>> evergy is scaled by 1/8 for the mass and 1/2 for the height. Thus
>> the child has 1/16 the energy in a fall.
>>
>> This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>>
>>
>
>Really, Roger! Maybe you should hire someone to find you a life!
>Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by one man
>must strike even you a bit odd. Tried looking up "monomania" lately?
--
Roger Schlafly
> And no response to: "Oh, so you are assuming that the distance the
> adult falls is twice the distance of the child instead of "a similar
> fall" that Gould specified?"
To answer: Yes. That meaning is consistent with Gould's main point,
which was to look at everything scaled in proportion. It is also
consistent with mathematical use of the word "similar".
But either way, Gould's figure of 1/32 is wrong.
I think it is pretty clear Gould means that the adult falls twice
the distance, but I'll admit that it is a little more ambiguous
in the later sentence:
we are protected from the physical force of its tantrums, for the
child can
strike with, not half, but only 1/32 of the energy we can muster.
http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
But again, I don't see how 1/32 could possibly be correct.
Adam Marczyk
news:3A7C3B04...@my-dejanews.com...
Cripes, Roger, he's a biologist, not a physicist. Doesn't this obsession of
yours sometimes seem a little unhealthy even to you?
--
When I am dreaming,
I don't know if I'm truly asleep, or if I'm awake.
When I get up,
I don't know if I'm truly awake, or if I'm still dreaming...
--Forest for the Trees, "Dream"
To send e-mail, change "excite" to "hotmail"
Richard Wein
Fair point. I misread that part of your post.
Howard Hershey
But what was the point of this example? Was there something he was
saying where the error you mention is crucial to the argument, or was
it used in the context of a popular essay as an example of how scaling
matters in the physical world, in which case merely pointing out that
an adult falling hits with considerably greater force than a child is
sufficient (and, in that context, it matters not one whit whether the
force difference is 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 rather than merely 1/2.
Now I enjoy the stories of people who spend their time scanning movies
for trivial errors as much as the next person (like the Pacific Bell
phone both the hero calls from in "Diehard 2" -- from Dulles
International Airport in Washington, D.C.), but I hardly confuse that
with the main point of the movie (which was to see how much violence,
death, and mayhem one could pack into two hours (but don't hold me to
that time being accurate to the millisecond, Roger). But I do wonder
about the sanity of people who obsesss on such trivia (for example,
the VW that crosses the road at the end of "Finnigan's Rainbow" is
there not to make a directorial statement about the intrusions of
modern life, but because, unlike today, there was no way to digitally
remove it, digitally produce a rainbow, nor enough of a budget to wait
for the next rainbow).
Roger Schlafly
> Cripes, Roger, he's a biologist, not a physicist.
Its not rocket science. A very elementary freshman physics problem.
From the British newspaper The Guardian yesterday:
Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist and the closest thing
to a polymath that science has produced in the last 30 years ...
(as posted in the thread "Gould's Rock of Ages")
If Gould were just another bozo with an opinion, or a fundy loon,
or a wacky creationist, I wouldn't bother. But some people seem to
think that he is a preeminent scientific authority. As such, he is
giving Science a black eye, and I think the public should know that
he *is* just another bozo with opinions.
rich hammett
> catshark wrote:
>> ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>> ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by one man
>> must strike even you a bit odd.
> Someone else referred me to this site recently. It describes Gould:
> "America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
> The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
> not complete crap from beginning to end.
Roger, you have only read three popsci articles by Gould. What is thus
your sample frequency?
rich
> Can you find anything by
> him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
> If Gould is "America's foremost evolutionist", then the science is
> in a sorry state.
> Some people here think that they are promoting the cause of science
> by defending Gould and attacking creationists. They're not.
> Gould is as much an attack on science as the wackiest of the
> creationists.
--
-remove no from mail name and spam from domain to reply
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ hnoa...@eng.spamauburn.edu
\ ..basketball [is] the paramount
/ synthesis in sport of intelligence, precision, courage,
\ audacity, anticipation, artifice, teamwork, elegance,
/ and grace. --Carl Sagan
Boikat
Hmmm...
"If Gould were just another bozo with an opinion,
or a fundy loon, or a wacky creationist, I
wouldn't bother."
Is there some reason you single out "pro
mainstream" scientists to nit-pick, and ignore the
creation "scientists", who are the ones who are
actually attempting to present faulty reasoning
and dishonest "opinions" as "scientific fact", to
the public? While real scientists occasionally
make mistakes (and most people know this), compare
that to the average creation "scientist". If
looking for "mistakes presented as fact to the
public" is your thing, then creation "science" is
a target rich environment. You'd be as happy as a
pig in shit.
Boikat
catshark
Which all comes back to my original point: that Roger should look up
the meaning of "monomania".
Greg T-K
Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> catshark wrote:
> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> > ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by
one man
> > must strike even you a bit odd.
>
> Someone else referred me to this site recently. It describes Gould:
>
> "America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
>
> The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
> not complete crap from beginning to end. Can you find anything by
> him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
>
OK, here's one: Gould's writings on the evolution of baseball statistics
have been used to base serious statistical work in studies of sports,
including (in articles I have read) both baseball and basketball. The
statistical articles I've read in this area have appeared in the Journal
of the American Statistical Association. How is this related to
biological evolution? Because Gould was making a point about the
appearance of progress in non-progressive processes. The utility of
these models in sports of different maturity (baseball being more
"mature" than basketball) allows the models to be developed and tested
at different stages.
> If Gould is "America's foremost evolutionist", then the science is
> in a sorry state.
Is your obsession with Gould based on this sort of assessment of his
stature? Would it calm you down if you learned that people disagreed
about Gould's importance? Well, they do, and P.R. on some web site
doesn't change that. Many people (including me) do not see Gould as
America's formost evolutionist, not in primary science anyway, though he
is probably the most prolific popularizer of evoluton. Among his
Harvard colleagues alone, probably both E.O. Wilson and Dick Lewontin
have had as much scientific impact. So what? Gould makes mistakes --
in this case you are right if the child falls from standing, Gould is
right if the child is dropped, but Gould's point about the role of size
in modes of evolution has merit either way. And you are STILL wrong in
all of your criticisms of Gould's grammar and your mind-numbingly stupid
obsession with the term "Copernican Revolution".
> Some people here think that they are promoting the cause of science
> by defending Gould and attacking creationists. They're not.
> Gould is as much an attack on science as the wackiest of the
> creationists.
By "the wackiest of the creationists" do you mean ALL OF THEM? Gould
may not be "America's foremost evolutionist", but he has still had more
scientific impact than all creationists combined.
Greg
Jerry Freedman Jr
German, played by Kenny Mars goes on about how Hitler was a better
dancer than Churchill ... I fully expect to see an article here by Roger
where Arthur Murray says that Gould is a bad dancer and another one
talking about Gould's lack of fashion sense.
J. Freedman,Jr
--
Creation took 6 days because God didn't
have an installed base
Richard Wein
Greg T-K wrote in message <95ksto$mas$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
No, Gould is wrong either way. Depending on whether the head falls from a
fixed height (e.g. a roof) or head hight, the figure is either 1/8 or 1/16.
Gould has 1/32.
>but Gould's point about the role of size
>in modes of evolution has merit either way.
Quite.
Richard Wein
As an unashamed pedant myself, I have no problem with your drawing attention
to Gould's error. But, to call him "innumerate" or a "bozo" on the basis of
such an error is, quite frankly, idiotic--especially coming from someone who
makes as many errors as you do, and who is unable/unwilling to see them even
when they're pointed out to you. Gould is human, and, like all humans, is
fallible. So what?
I'm inclined to doubt whether Gould is "the closest thing to a polymath that
science has produced in the last 30 years", though I can't think of a
counterexample off hand.
I personally am in disagreement with Gould on a number of things. I think
that, in his haste to attack orthodoxies, he sometimes sets up straw men for
attack, as in his attacks on "panadaptationists". But that doesn't detract
from the very good work he has done in other areas, and the many excellent
books and articles that he's written.
Henry Barwood
Roger Schlafly wrote:
>
> S J Gould was a columnist for Natural History magazine for many years,
> and his first and last columns are now online.
snip.
> This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
I have to ask. Did Gould spit in your bean curd, or what? So, you feel
that denigrating the man somehow increases your self worth?
He made a math error. Are you saying that you have never made an error
yourself?
I'm afraid I don't see the point of these posts. Do you naively think
that by somehow discrediting evolutionary scientists that you will
somehow alter space-time and invalidate science in favor of your
personal theory of origins - whatever that may be?
Barwood
Greg T-K
Quite right. I was wondering if Roger would catch my error with the
same gusto that he caught Gould's, but you beat him to it. ;^)
Peter Nyikos
>Adam Marczyk wrote:
>> Cripes, Roger, he's a biologist, not a physicist.
>Its not rocket science. A very elementary freshman physics problem.
And here is a post showing how Gould making a very elementary
mathematics blunder:
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Pop quiz on S. J. Gould's math blooper
References: <1998050700...@milo.math.sc.edu> <3554BC1A...@technologist.coOm>
"J.J. Gauch" <Physi...@technologist.coOm> writes:
>Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> With the thread, "Directed panspermy and abiogenesis" in full
>> steam, I thought it especially appropriate to post a Gould
>> quote I came across a few days ago, as I was administering
>> the final exam to my second-semester calculus students.
>>
>> Gould made the following mathematical statement in
>> "An Early Start", a chapter in _The Panda's Thumb_
>> where the beginning of life on earth was the main topic,
>> making the statement especially misleading:
>>
>> Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
>> converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
>> years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
>>
>> Comment: Yeah, in a million years, he will have lots of opportunities
>> to substitute a two-headed coin for the one he is using, and then
>> switch back.
>>
>> For 5 points: Give a good *mathematical* reason why my comment
>> reads the way it does.
>>
>> For 10 points: Give a psychological reason (assuming a good degree
>> of mathematical sophistication in the audience, enough to earn
>> at least three points for the 5-point item above) why even my
>> comment won't rescue Gould.
>>
>> For 100 points [This takes historical research!] Ascertain whether
>> Gould bears full responsibility for that statement, or whether
>> at least part of the blame lies with George Wald, whom he
>> was writing about and whom he quoted immediately after
>> making the above statement.
>>
>> Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
>> University of South Carolina
>> Columbia, SC 29208
> Peter, a true story about statistics. My Modern Physics professor was
>introducing us to statistical physics and probabilities, to do this he was
>using an example of 4 coins. The professor tossed the coins into the air
>all at once and let them land on the table, the result? four heads. The
>professor continued talking about probabilities and which combinations
>were more likely. at the end of this lecture, after coming to the
>conclusion that two heads and two tails were the most likely outcome, he
>tossed the coins again. the result? four tails.
He had a 1 in 16 chance of getting whatever he got on each
trial. Your anecdote may well illustrate
how Gould arrived at his numbers: getting 10 heads in a row
can be expected, on the average, every 1024 trials, and Gould may have
figured that getting from 10 to 100 probably isn't all THAT
much harder than getting from 4 to 10.
>Just because outcomes are unlikely does NOT mean they are impossible.
With this truism, your post started going downhill, and I
deleted the rest.
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
============================== end included post
>From the British newspaper The Guardian yesterday:
> Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist and the closest thing
> to a polymath that science has produced in the last 30 years ...
Utter bilge. Roger Penrose is a much more solid competitor
for the title than Gould.
But Penrose has sympathies towards the existence of God,
and is unencumbered with Marxist intellectual baggage,
so it is understandable that _The Guardian_ would prefer
to confer that distinction on Gould.
Still, I'm surprised they didn't mention Fracis Crick.
Much less of a polymath than Penrose AFAIK, but still
far more of one than Gould IMHO.
>(as posted in the thread "Gould's Rock of Ages")
>If Gould were just another bozo with an opinion, or a fundy loon,
>or a wacky creationist, I wouldn't bother. But some people seem to
>think that he is a preeminent scientific authority. As such, he is
>giving Science a black eye, and I think the public should know that
>he *is* just another bozo with opinions.
Like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, the latter far superior
to Gould in the scope of his popular scientific writings,
and far less prone to errors [though he did make at least
one statisical howler].
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Peter Nyikos
>Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote in message
>news:3A7C3B04...@my-dejanews.com...
>> S J Gould was a columnist for Natural History magazine for many years,
>> and his first and last columns are now online. His first (from Jan.
>> 1974)
>> was on the hypothetical effect of scaling the size of an animal to be
>> larger or smaller.
And he had plenty of time to come up with good examples. There
is a classic by Haldane, "On Being the Right Size" with far
more entertaining examples.
>> But the numbers in the article don't make any sense. Consider this gem:
>>
>> If a child half your height falls unsupported to the ground,
>> its head will hit with not half, but only 1/32 the energy of
>> yours in a similar fall. [Gould]
>> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
>>
>> Never mind the fact that a child half your height will have a head
>> that is larger than what simple scaling would predict.
Adam was grateful for this giving of an inch, and promptly
took a mile below, a act that speaks volumes about him.
>> Assume that
>> everything is proportional. Gould apparently figured that kinetic
>> energy is .5mv^2, that mass (m) is 1/8 of yours because it is
>> proportional to volume, and that velocity (v) is 1/2 of yours because
>> it is half the distance divided by the same time. 1/32 = (1/8)(1/2)^2.
>>
>> But this analysis is wrong because it is not the same time. It takes
>> longer for a head to fall a greater distance. The correct factor for
>> the energy is 1/16, not 1/32.
>>
>> One way to look at the problem is that the energy is force (=mg)
>> times height. The acceleration of gravity (g) is constant, so the
>> evergy is scaled by 1/8 for the mass and 1/2 for the height. Thus
>> the child has 1/16 the energy in a fall.
>>
>> This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>Cripes, Roger, he's a biologist, not a physicist.
You want a biological example? Glad to oblige.
============ excerpt from followup to Henry Barwood
>Ah, yes. One of the tricks of the trade for lawyers, who are well
>trained in the art of deceit. Avoid checking things yourself, for
>that gives you a plausible deniability when accused of a lie.
That is not confined to lawyers.
Stephen Jay Gould was a liar by Barwood's standards when he
said, in _Dinosaur in a Haystack_, in the essay on whales,
that all aquatic mammals swim by utilizing an up-and-down motion of
the vertebral column. He surely had heard of the giant
otter shrew of Africa, yet didn't bother to check up on it.
The powerful tail is flattened and it swims by
moving it from side to side.
--Collins Guide to Rare Mammals of the World, by
John A. Burton & Bruce Pearson, William Collins
Sons & Co., Ltd., 1987 ISBN 0 00 219172 5 p. 34
====================== end of excerpt
Here is where you took most of your mile, Adam:
> Doesn't this obsession of
>yours sometimes seem a little unhealthy even to you?
This attempt to play amateur psychologist is what
is really unhealthy, especially the way it was picked up by several other
participants like sharks attracted to blood. [In fact, one
of them was, appropriately enough, "catshark".] I suspect
the real mover and shaker in this feeding frenzy is Howard
Hershey, who flaunted his insincerity and hypocrisy by
either initiating this amateur psychology binge,
or lending it the force of his considerable influence
in this newsgroup.
I wonder how many of these copycats [Hey, that's another
reason why "catshark" is an appropriate name!] realize
how badly they are shooting "yojimbo5681" and, yes,
Howard Hershey himself in the foot by doing this.
Details to follow in followup to Hershey.
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Peter Nyikos
>In article <95kreq$le9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> catshark <cats...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> In article <3A7D7CE8...@indiana.edu>,
>> hers...@indiana.edu wrote:
>> > Roger Schlafly wrote:
>> > >
>> > > catshark wrote:
>> > > > And no response to: "Oh, so you are assuming that the distance
>the
>> > > > adult falls is twice the distance of the child instead of "a
>> similar
>> > > > fall" that Gould specified?"
>> > > To answer: Yes. That meaning is consistent with Gould's main
>point,
>> > > which was to look at everything scaled in proportion. It is also
>> > > consistent with mathematical use of the word "similar".
>> > >
>> > > But either way, Gould's figure of 1/32 is wrong.
Of course, neither Hershey, nor catshark, nor Freedman
disputed this claim. There is not even an acknowledgement from
"catshark" below that his challenge had been met. In fact,
it seems "catshark" was just playing "good cop" to
Hershey's "bad cop" [see excerpt below] and to his
own "bad cop" performance before and after this innocent-sounding
question. [See further below.]
>> > > I think it is pretty clear Gould means that the adult falls twice
>> > > the distance, but I'll admit that it is a little more ambiguous
>> > > in the later sentence:
>> > >
>> > > we are protected from the physical force of its tantrums, for
>the
>> > > child can
>> > > strike with, not half, but only 1/32 of the energy we can
>muster.
>> > >
>http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
>> > >
>> > > But again, I don't see how 1/32 could possibly be correct.
[most of diversionary expedition by Hershey, to be dealt with in
direct followup to him, deleted]
>> > that time being accurate to the millisecond, Roger). But I do
>wonder
>> > about the sanity of people who obsesss on such trivia
No, Hershey does not; if he did, he'd be wondering about
his own sanity and that of "yojimbo5681", and dozens of
allies of his who *massively* obsess on such trivia as two questions
of mine that "yojimbo5681" keeps putting in his .sig.
Hershey knows that if he did not obsess on such trivia,
he'd have to fall back on actionable libel against me,
like his libels of last April,
or other outright lies, and he likes to be somewhat sparing
of such things.
More details to come in direct followup to Hershey.
(for example,
>> > the VW that crosses the road at the end of "Finnigan's Rainbow" is
>> > there not to make a directorial statement about the intrusions of
>> > modern life, but because, unlike today, there was no way to
>digitally
>> > remove it, digitally produce a rainbow, nor enough of a budget to
>wait
>> > for the next rainbow).
>> Which all comes back to my original point: that Roger should look up
>> the meaning of "monomania".
>> --
>> J. Pieret
Ah, so Pieret was the real instigator of this feeding frenzy in
amateur psychology, eh? even so, Hershey is probably the
real power behind it. Hershey is a pure "might makes right"
propagandist, who actually *flaunts* his insincerity and
hypocrisy, as a kind of warning to all readers: "Don't mess
with me--you will become the victim of my dishonesty
and hypocrisy if you do."
>In the Mel Brooks movie "The Producers" ( one of my favorites ) the
>German, played by Kenny Mars goes on about how Hitler was a better
>dancer than Churchill ... I fully expect to see an article here by Roger
>where Arthur Murray says that Gould is a bad dancer and another one
>talking about Gould's lack of fashion sense.
>J. Freedman,Jr
That full expectation speaks volumes about you--but then,
you are a bit player in talk.origins, aren't you?
Peter Nyikos
who are participating in this amateur psychology slugfest
against Schlafly. Now I go for the organ-grinder:
Howard Hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
>Roger Schlafly wrote:
>>
>> catshark wrote:
>> > And no response to: "Oh, so you are assuming that the distance the
>> > adult falls is twice the distance of the child instead of "a similar
>> > fall" that Gould specified?"
>> > [usual ad hominem attack snipped]
>>
>> To answer: Yes. That meaning is consistent with Gould's main point,
>> which was to look at everything scaled in proportion. It is also
>> consistent with mathematical use of the word "similar".
>>
>> But either way, Gould's figure of 1/32 is wrong.
>>
>> I think it is pretty clear Gould means that the adult falls twice
>> the distance, but I'll admit that it is a little more ambiguous
>> in the later sentence:
>>
>> we are protected from the physical force of its tantrums, for the
>> child can
>> strike with, not half, but only 1/32 of the energy we can muster.
>> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
>>
>> But again, I don't see how 1/32 could possibly be correct.
>But what was the point of this example?
Go do your own research, you Gould-idolizer. You are looking
for ways to make it look like Gould should ONLY be judged
on something Haldane did ages before him, as though purely
derivative writing, like the kind *you* fill posts with,
deserved hosannahs of praise.
> Was there something he was
>saying where the error you mention is crucial to the argument,
Why do you care about the argument? What makes you
think it is at all on-topic for talk.origins, the
way Gould's blunder about coin flipping is? Or do you
even think that--are you not, in fact, determined to
maintain Gould's status as an idol of the anti-creationist
movement at all costs?
Just look at the cost to yourself that you
are risking with your subsequent comments.
> or was
>it used in the context of a popular essay as an example of how scaling
>matters in the physical world, in which case merely pointing out that
>an adult falling hits with considerably greater force than a child is
>sufficient (and, in that context, it matters not one whit whether the
>force difference is 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 rather than merely 1/2.
It matters if Gould wants credit for doing some original
thinking, as opposed to blundering his way through an
attempted improvement on Haldane's classic essay.
>Now I enjoy the stories of people who spend their time scanning movies
>for trivial errors as much as the next person (like the Pacific Bell
>phone both the hero calls from in "Diehard 2" -- from Dulles
>International Airport in Washington, D.C.), but I hardly confuse that
>with the main point of the movie
...because your propagandistic instincts are not
awakened by it, and you view it for entertainment.
> (which was to see how much violence,
>death, and mayhem one could pack into two hours
...two hours of wasted time which you thoroughly
enjoyed, thanks to scumbags like "yojimbo5681" taking
over so much of your dirty work for you in this ng, eh?
[...]
> (but don't hold me to
>that time being accurate to the millisecond, Roger). But I do wonder
>about the sanity of people who obsesss on such trivia [...]
Then you should wonder about your own sanity,
and that of "yojimbo5681," with both of you dishonestly
and perennially obsessing
on trivia like my question about heme, or
my question about bilayers, and totally
ignoring the ON-TOPIC issues that were being
debated in those contexts.
In the heme example, we were discussing Moran's intellectually
dishonest treatment of a comparison of phylogenies obtained
by clasical methods, and those using DNA sequences.
The DNA evidence biochemist Moran trumpeted as showing
"birds are more closely related to reptiles than to mammals"
actually supported the hypothesis that
birds are more closely related to mammals than they
are to lizards, and more closely related to turtles than
to crocodilians. That is at complete loggerheads with every
morphological study ever done.
semi-trivia: you are one of the few people in this ng who is biologically
savvy enough to note the pun hidden in the foregoing completely
accurate paragraph. And I doubt that even you will notice
it very easily.
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Peter Nyikos
>Greg T-K wrote in message <95ksto$mas$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>>In article <3A7C62C4...@my-dejanews.com>,
>> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>>> catshark wrote:
>>> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>>> > ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by
>>one man
>>> > must strike even you a bit odd.
Monkey see, monkey do. Gould-idolizers like Howard
and Adam and "catshark" start casting hypocritical aspersions
on Roger's sanity, so others like Greg T-K get into
the act too. See below.
>>> Someone else referred me to this site recently. It describes Gould:
>>>
>>> "America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
>>> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
>>>
>>> The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
>>> not complete crap from beginning to end. Can you find anything by
>>> him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
Roger seems to have read very little of Gould. I'd say
at least half the essays in _Panda's Thumb_, where I got
Gould's "coin-flipping" blooper from, are error-free.
The same goes for that book, _Dinosaur in a Haystack_,
from which I got Gould's biological blooper about
swimming mammals.
>>OK, here's one: Gould's writings on the evolution of baseball statistics
>>have been used to base serious statistical work in studies of sports,
>>including (in articles I have read) both baseball and basketball. The
>>statistical articles I've read in this area have appeared in the Journal
>>of the American Statistical Association. How is this related to
>>biological evolution? Because Gould was making a point about the
>>appearance of progress in non-progressive processes.
That's really stretching the definition of "evolution" to
where it has no real application to biological evolution.
>> The utility of
>>these models in sports of different maturity (baseball being more
>>"mature" than basketball) allows the models to be developed and tested
>>at different stages.
Bafflegab.
>>> If Gould is "America's foremost evolutionist", then the science is
>>> in a sorry state.
>>Is your obsession with Gould based on this sort of assessment of his
>>stature?
Monkey see, ...
>> Would it calm you down if you learned that people disagreed
>>about Gould's importance? Well, they do, and P.R. on some web site
>>doesn't change that. Many people (including me) do not see Gould as
>>America's formost evolutionist, not in primary science anyway, though he
>>is probably the most prolific popularizer of evoluton. Among his
>>Harvard colleagues alone, probably both E.O. Wilson and Dick Lewontin
>>have had as much scientific impact. So what?
So, why couldn't this baseball fan have picked an example where Gould
did a top-notch, error-free contribution to *biological* evolution?
Could it be that his claims about Wilson and Lewontin are
based on pure hearsay, rather than on actual knowledge
of biological evolutioin?
>> Gould makes mistakes --
>>in this case you are right if the child falls from standing, Gould is
>>right if the child is dropped,
>No, Gould is wrong either way. Depending on whether the head falls from a
>fixed height (e.g. a roof) or head hight, the figure is either 1/8 or 1/16.
>Gould has 1/32.
>>but Gould's point about the role of size
>>in modes of evolution has merit either way.
>Quite.
What IS that point as regards modes of *evolution*?
Was it not simply a new variant on Haldane's essay,
which had essentially nothing about *evolution*
and oodles about *physiology* in it?
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
Roger Schlafly
> ?? Cripes, Roger, he's a biologist, not a physicist.
> ?Its not rocket science. A very elementary freshman physics problem.
> ?From the British newspaper The Guardian yesterday:
> ? Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist and the closest thing
> ? to a polymath that science has produced in the last 30 years ...
> ?(as posted in the thread "Gould's Rock of Ages")
> ?If Gould were just another bozo with an opinion, or a fundy loon,
> ?or a wacky creationist, I wouldn't bother. But some people seem to
> ?think that he is a preeminent scientific authority. As such, he is
> ?giving Science a black eye, and I think the public should know that
> ?he *is* just another bozo with opinions.
> As an unashamed pedant myself, I have no problem with your drawing attention
> to Gould's error. But, to call him "innumerate" or a "bozo" on the basis of
I said "more evidence". I wouldn't call him innumerate based on one
error. Gould makes a lot of them.
> I'm inclined to doubt whether Gould is "the closest thing to a polymath that
> science has produced in the last 30 years", though I can't think of a
> counterexample off hand.
> I personally am in disagreement with Gould on a number of things. I think
> that, in his haste to attack orthodoxies, he sometimes sets up straw men for
> attack, as in his attacks on "panadaptationists". But that doesn't detract
> from the very good work he has done in other areas, and the many excellent
> books and articles that he's written.
The average university has dozens of polymaths that I'd rank higher
than Gould. They don't have large public followings, but they are
learned in many areas.
Peter Nyikos
>Roger Schlafly wrote:
>>
>> S J Gould was a columnist for Natural History magazine for many years,
>> and his first and last columns are now online.
>snip.
>
>> This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>I have to ask. Did Gould spit in your bean curd, or what? So, you feel
>that denigrating the man somehow increases your self worth?
It takes one to know one...you've done little in followup
to me except denigrate me--on false premises, if that.
>He made a math error. Are you saying that you have never made an error
>yourself?
Roger isn't the object of adulation and hero-worship
in this newsgroup. Gould is.
>I'm afraid I don't see the point of these posts. Do you naively think
>that by somehow discrediting evolutionary scientists that you will
>somehow alter space-time and invalidate science in favor of your
>personal theory of origins - whatever that may be?
You will see the point of the posts, if you'll just look
at the content of your own personal attacks on me.
By the way, I seem to owe you an apology for confusing
Neil Rickert with you--an understandable confusion since
the two of you are equally prone to dishonest deletia,
but a regrettable one none the less.
============================== begin included followup
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Where Nyikos stands (synopsis)
References: <k0es9s8vq4kn8e4mq...@4ax.com> <2000020711...@milo.math.sc.edu> <87mia6$7...@ux.cs.niu.edu>
Neil W Rickert <ricke...@cs.niu.edu> writes:
>Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> writes:
>>Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>>>In talk.origins I read this message from Peter Nyikos
>>><nyi...@math.sc.edu>:
>>>[snip]
>>>|No, I don't know that. I've repeatedly made challenges to people
>>>|to give me demonstrations of the dishonesty of creationists,
>>>|and been rebuffed each time. Here's a post from near the the tail end
>>>|of my earliest try:
>>>|
>>>|http://x38.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=136418028
>>>Well we have documented evidence for two pieces of dishonesty by
>>>Johnson, does that count? We have his false claim about the Scientific
>>>American article and his false comment that Kansas farmers don't grow
>>>cotton. Both were times when Johnson distorted the facts for
>>>rhetorical and propagandistic affect.
>>That assumes he checked the things out for himself, instead of
>>relying on the reports of others.
>Ah, yes. One of the tricks of the trade for lawyers, who are well
>trained in the art of deceit. Avoid checking things yourself, for
>that gives you a plausible deniability when accused of a lie.
That is not confined to lawyers.
Stephen Jay Gould was a liar by Barwood's standards when he
said, in _Dinosaur in a Haystack_, in the essay on whales,
that all aquatic mammals swim by utilizing an up-and-down motion of
the vertebral column. He surely had heard of the giant
otter shrew of Africa, yet didn't bother to check up on it.
The powerful tail is flattened and it swims by
moving it from side to side.
--Collins Guide to Rare Mammals of the World, by
John A. Burton & Bruce Pearson, William Collins
Sons & Co., Ltd., 1987 ISBN 0 00 219172 5 p. 34
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
University of South Carolina
================================ end of excerpt
I will apologize if you voice disagreement with Rickert's
and Silberstein's conclusions, Henry.
Howard Hershey
Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> writes:
>
> >Adam Marczyk wrote:
[snip]
>
> > Peter, a true story about statistics. My Modern Physics professor was
> >introducing us to statistical physics and probabilities, to do this he was
> >using an example of 4 coins. The professor tossed the coins into the air
> >all at once and let them land on the table, the result? four heads. The
> >professor continued talking about probabilities and which combinations
> >were more likely. at the end of this lecture, after coming to the
> >conclusion that two heads and two tails were the most likely outcome, he
> >tossed the coins again. the result? four tails.
>
> He had a 1 in 16 chance of getting whatever he got on each
> trial.
Well, he had a 1/16 chance of getting all heads and a 1/16 chance of
all tails, but he had a 3/8 chance of getting 2 heads and 2 tails (and
a 1/4 chance of 1 head/3 tails and 1/4 chance of 1 tail/3 heads). Of
course, I am not a full professor of mathematics, so I could be wrong.
Roger Schlafly
> And here is a post showing how Gould making a very elementary
> mathematics blunder:
> ?? "An Early Start", a chapter in _The Panda's Thumb_
> ?? where the beginning of life on earth was the main topic,
> ?? making the statement especially misleading:
> ?? Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
> ?? converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
> ?? years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
Yes, this is quite incorrect. Not even close. A million years is
about 3*10^7 seconds. 2^100 is about 10^30. Gould is off by a
factor of about a million million million. I don't know what his
error here was. More evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> ?From the British newspaper The Guardian yesterday:
> ? Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist and the closest thing
> ? to a polymath that science has produced in the last 30 years ...
> Utter bilge. Roger Penrose is a much more solid competitor
> for the title than Gould.
> But Penrose has sympathies towards the existence of God,
> and is unencumbered with Marxist intellectual baggage,
> so it is understandable that _The Guardian_ would prefer
> to confer that distinction on Gould.
Gould is not smart enough to even read what Penrose has
written. Someone with Gould's limitations is not much of
a science polymath.
Adam Marczyk
news:2001020517...@milo.math.sc.edu...
*turns down the lights and holds a flashlight under his chin*
The truth... is out there.
[snip]
Howard Hershey
Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Howard Hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
>
> >Roger Schlafly wrote:
> >>
> >> catshark wrote:
[snip]
>
> In the heme example, we were discussing Moran's intellectually
> dishonest treatment of a comparison of phylogenies obtained
> by clasical methods, and those using DNA sequences.
>
> The DNA evidence biochemist Moran trumpeted as showing
> "birds are more closely related to reptiles than to mammals"
> actually supported the hypothesis that
> birds are more closely related to mammals than they
> are to lizards, and more closely related to turtles than
> to crocodilians. That is at complete loggerheads with every
> morphological study ever done.
>
> semi-trivia: you are one of the few people in this ng who is biologically
> savvy enough to note the pun hidden in the foregoing completely
> accurate paragraph. And I doubt that even you will notice
> it very easily.
Yawn. Loggerhead turtle. But I am quite sure that even zoe and Roger
caught that.
Adam Marczyk
Are you _sure_ you're not a creationist?
Loggerhead turtles. Even I knew that. :P
Adam Marczyk
>
>
> >Greg T-K wrote in message <95ksto$mas$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >>In article <3A7C62C4...@my-dejanews.com>,
> >> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> >>> catshark wrote:
> >>> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> >>> > ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by
> >>one man
> >>> > must strike even you a bit odd.
>
>
> Monkey see, monkey do. Gould-idolizers like Howard
> and Adam and "catshark" start casting hypocritical aspersions
> on Roger's sanity, so others like Greg T-K get into
> the act too. See below.
So I'm a "Gould-idolizer" now? How silly of you. I was merely pointing out,
as others have done, that for Roger to scour everything Gould has written
even in fields unrelated to biology, apparently rechecking every computation
he performs to see if it's correct, is pretty darn close to an unhealthy
obsession. Of course Gould makes mistakes, and I do think he overestimates
the impact of some of his work. But this obsessive hounding of him is very
strange behavior to engage in.
--
Derek Stevenson
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> Hershey ... catshark ... Freedman ... "catshark" ... "catshark" ...
> Hershey's ... "yojimbo5681" ... dozens of allies ... "yojimbo5681"
> ... Hershey ... Hershey ... Pieret ... Hershey ... Hershey
See how it's done, Roger?
Your thing about Gould is a very good starting but you won't be
recognized as a true master until you're able to juggle *dozens* of
obsessions, as seen here.
Keep trying, though. You're certainly well on your way.
Henry Barwood
Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Henry Barwood <hbar...@indiana.edu> writes:
>
> >Roger Schlafly wrote:
> >>
> >> S J Gould was a columnist for Natural History magazine for many years,
> >> and his first and last columns are now online.
>
> >snip.
> >
> >> This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>
> >I have to ask. Did Gould spit in your bean curd, or what? So, you feel
> >that denigrating the man somehow increases your self worth?
>
> It takes one to know one...you've done little in followup
> to me except denigrate me--on false premises, if that.
Oh please master, allow me to bask in your radiance. We who are so
humble beg your divine forgiveness. Should I throw myself on the eternal
fire now or wait until you get the marshmallows?
> >He made a math error. Are you saying that you have never made an error
> >yourself?
>
> Roger isn't the object of adulation and hero-worship
> in this newsgroup. Gould is.
Yes, we all worshiped Gould in error. Unbelievers all to the true gods
of masculine power and certitude like you and Schalafly. We are so
unworthy, oh great ones
> >I'm afraid I don't see the point of these posts. Do you naively think
> >that by somehow discrediting evolutionary scientists that you will
> >somehow alter space-time and invalidate science in favor of your
> >personal theory of origins - whatever that may be?
>
> You will see the point of the posts, if you'll just look
> at the content of your own personal attacks on me.
I have mocked you and ridiculed you, but as best I can remember, I have
never attacked you. Why would I want to attack a defenseless buffoon
like you?
> By the way, I seem to owe you an apology for confusing
> Neil Rickert with you--an understandable confusion since
> the two of you are equally prone to dishonest deletia,
> but a regrettable one none the less.
Ahh, a backhanded apology. How Nyikosian of you. Since this particular
screw up was buried in one of your interminable rants, I actually had
not seen it.
I've left all the garbage in this post since it drives Nyikos even more
nuts to have anything clipped for clarity. After all someone might
delete some of HIS words.
Long live the great one. Bow down vassals! Worship at the feet of the
great and powerful OZ,......er Nyikos.
Barwood
Howard Hershey
Roger Schlafly wrote:
>
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > And here is a post showing how Gould making a very elementary
> > mathematics blunder:
> > ?? Gould made the following mathematical statement in
> > ?? "An Early Start", a chapter in _The Panda's Thumb_
> > ?? where the beginning of life on earth was the main topic,
> > ?? making the statement especially misleading:
> > ?? Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
> > ?? converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
> > ?? years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
>
> Yes, this is quite incorrect. Not even close. A million years is
> about 3*10^7 seconds. 2^100 is about 10^30. Gould is off by a
> factor of about a million million million. I don't know what his
> error here was. More evidence that Gould is innumerate.
If, of course, you had actually read the Gould article in question,
Roger, you would have noted 1) there is every reason to think that
Gould is actually citing someone else on this analogy, 2) that the
quote is not intended to be a serious calculation of probabilities,
and 3) he is, in the rest of the article, pointing out that the
*evidence* of nature (specifically the early occurrence of life on
this planet) points to a different conclusion than the one that
assumes that life arose via chance working over long time frames,
namely that life must be easier to generate than one might think
rather than being the result of chance over long periods of time. In
short, he is using this idea of "only the immensity of time guaranteed
the result" to argue for the opposite position. BTW, using 1 sec per
flip, one would have a reasonably good chance (>50%) of getting a
string of at least 45-50 heads in a row in a million years, AIR.
Isn't that about right, Peter? You are the full (of it) professor of mathematics.
>
[snip]
Mitchell Coffey
Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> Jerry Freedman Jr wrote:
> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> > Yawwwnnn. Roger, you've discussed Gould's bad grammar, his writing
> > style, I expect a detailed crtique of his fashion sense soon. You
don't
> > like MISMEASURE but are apparently unable to formulate a cogent
> > argument, rather you send a bagful of biased ( and evidently
> > undigested ) URLS.
>
> We've had several detailed discussions of Gould's Mismeasure here
> on t.o. Gould has some fans here, but they have a very hard time
> defending Mismeasure. Not even Gould defends himself against the
> criticism. A number of his other writings have been severely
> criticized also. If you want to defend something he wrote, go
> ahead.
You fail to mention that you have not actually read Mismeasure.
[snip]
Mitchell Coffey
_____________________________________________________
"Nostalgia is the handmaiden of fascism"
- Mary Gordon
Matt Silberstein
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
[snip]
> I will apologize if you voice disagreement with Rickert's
> and Silberstein's conclusions, Henry.
What do I have to do with any of this?
--
Matt Silberstein
Doctor Feelgood, I promised this lady
If I can't dance she's gonna break my nose
N.L.
Roger Schlafly
> ? ? And here is a post showing how Gould making a very elementary
> ? ? mathematics blunder:
> ? ? ?? Gould made the following mathematical statement in
> ? ? ?? "An Early Start", a chapter in _The Panda's Thumb_
> ? ? ?? where the beginning of life on earth was the main topic,
> ? ? ?? making the statement especially misleading:
> ? ? ?? Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
> ? ? ?? converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
> ? ? ?? years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
> ? Yes, this is quite incorrect. Not even close. A million years is
> ? about 3*10^13 seconds. 2^100 is about 10^30. Gould is off by a
> ? factor of about a million million million. I don't know what his
> ? error here was. More evidence that Gould is innumerate. [corrected]
Correcting myself, I meant to say a year is about 3*10^7 seconds.
A million years is about 3*10^13 seconds.
> If, of course, you had actually read the Gould article in question,
> Roger, you would have noted 1) there is every reason to think that
> Gould is actually citing someone else on this analogy, 2) that the
> quote is not intended to be a serious calculation of probabilities,
Either way, the calculation is not right.
> and 3) he is, in the rest of the article, pointing out that the
> *evidence* of nature (specifically the early occurrence of life on
> this planet) points to a different conclusion than the one that
> assumes that life arose via chance working over long time frames,
> namely that life must be easier to generate than one might think
> rather than being the result of chance over long periods of time. In
> short, he is using this idea of "only the immensity of time guaranteed
> the result" to argue for the opposite position.
I wouldn't expect his argument to have any more validity than a typical
foolish creationist argument.
> BTW, using 1 sec per
> flip, one would have a reasonably good chance (?50%) of getting a
> string of at least 45-50 heads in a row in a million years, AIR.
That's about right.
Ken Cope
>
>Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> ?From the British newspaper The Guardian yesterday:
>> ? Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist and the closest thing
>> ? to a polymath that science has produced in the last 30 years ...
>> Utter bilge. Roger Penrose is a much more solid competitor
>> for the title than Gould.
>> But Penrose has sympathies towards the existence of God,
>> and is unencumbered with Marxist intellectual baggage,
>> so it is understandable that _The Guardian_ would prefer
>> to confer that distinction on Gould.
Penrose is guilty of a biological howler with his quantum microtubules.
Nobody cares what his private sympathies regarding whatever the hell is
meant by the term 'God.' Penrose, in Emperor's New/Shadows of the Mind,
wades out of his depth into biological waters too deep for him, when he
insists that the nature of consciousness will forever remain a mystery
filled gap. This Platonist, who wants his physics to be deterministic,
doesn't argue his case as well as Hofstadter argues the opposite view,
who along with Dennett, takes a dim view of Penrose's rationalizations
for his conclusions. Hofstadter rolled his eyes and told me he thought
Penrose was crazy when I asked him what he thought of Penrose's quantum
consciousness. A review of Shadows of the Mind by Dennett can be read here:
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/04/32/cog00000432-00/penrose.htm
>Gould is not smart enough to even read what Penrose has
>written. Someone with Gould's limitations is not much of
>a science polymath.
Gould claims to be an explicit supporter of Penrose's ideas about
the impossibility of Turing machines, but only after being accused
of sharing Penrose's confusion about the nature of algorithms by
Daniel C. Dennet in his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Gould addresses
Dennett's criticisms here:
http://cogweb.english.ucsb.edu/Debate/Gould.html
In their vain efforts to count coup against Gould by trying to
identify themselves with Penrose, Nyikos and Schlafly have only
empty ad hominems to hurl from the fringe.
Ken Cope
Greg T-K
If I remember correctly, the stretch if any was in the opposite
direction: ideas used previously to discuss the concept of progress in
evolutionary biology were applied to a non-biological situation.
>
> >> The utility of
> >>these models in sports of different maturity (baseball being more
> >>"mature" than basketball) allows the models to be developed and
tested
> >>at different stages.
>
> Bafflegab.
Hrglshmurp.
>
> >>> If Gould is "America's foremost evolutionist", then the science is
> >>> in a sorry state.
>
> >>Is your obsession with Gould based on this sort of assessment of his
> >>stature?
>
> Monkey see, ...
Huh?
>
> >> Would it calm you down if you learned that people disagreed
> >>about Gould's importance? Well, they do, and P.R. on some web site
> >>doesn't change that. Many people (including me) do not see Gould as
> >>America's formost evolutionist, not in primary science anyway,
though he
> >>is probably the most prolific popularizer of evoluton. Among his
> >>Harvard colleagues alone, probably both E.O. Wilson and Dick
Lewontin
> >>have had as much scientific impact. So what?
>
> So, why couldn't this baseball fan have picked an example where Gould
> did a top-notch, error-free contribution to *biological* evolution?
Which baseball fan? You? Me? I'm not a baseball fan; you may be, but
you've already assessed that most of the essays in "The Panda's Thumb"
are error free. Whether you think they are top notch is your opinion.
> Could it be that his claims about Wilson and Lewontin are
> based on pure hearsay, rather than on actual knowledge
> of biological evolutioin?
Whose claims? Mine? Gould's? I chose Lewontin and Wilson as
examples because each has made fundamental contributions to evolutionary
biology, they disagree with each other vehemently, and they come from a
relatively small pool (Harvard faculty).
Greg
Henry Barwood
Matt Silberstein wrote:
>
> In article <2001020518...@milo.math.sc.edu>,
> Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > I will apologize if you voice disagreement with Rickert's
> > and Silberstein's conclusions, Henry.
>
> What do I have to do with any of this?
The Nyikos moves in mysterious ways.
Barwood
Greg T-K
Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> catshark wrote:
> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
> > ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by
one man
> > must strike even you a bit odd.
>
>
> "America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
>
> The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
> not complete crap from beginning to end. Can you find anything by
> him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
>
> in a sorry state.
I found a web site that described William Demski as "the Isaac Newton of
information theory". Do you think that means that information theory is
in a sorry state? I think the statement is simply wrong, and has
nothing to do with the state of information theory. It is much
stranger than calling Gould "America's foremost evolutionist", since
there are some Darwinians who probably view Gould that way, but probably
virtually no information theorists who view Dembski as their Newton.
The motivation of the two statements is similar, however: Natural
History magazine was giving P.R. to their columnist, and one Discovery
Fellow (Rob Koons) was giving P.R. to another (Dembski). The web
site with the quote about Dembski, however, did not mention that Koons
is also a Discovery Fellow, whereas Natural History magazine is clearly
promoting Gould as their columnist.
PZ Myers
<pin...@ozcot.com> wrote:
Oy, Penrose. All of his microtubular consciousness crap is so
irritatingly airy-fairy and unfounded, I can't stand reading it.
I plowed through his books with a disgusted sneer plastered on my
face the whole time, even though I know that in his field, he is
far smarter than I am. I think.
>
> >Gould is not smart enough to even read what Penrose has
> >written. Someone with Gould's limitations is not much of a
> >science polymath.
>
> Gould claims to be an explicit supporter of Penrose's ideas
> about the impossibility of Turing machines, but only after
> being accused of sharing Penrose's confusion about the nature
> of algorithms by Daniel C. Dennet in his book, Darwin's
> Dangerous Idea. Gould addresses Dennett's criticisms here:
>
> http://cogweb.english.ucsb.edu/Debate/Gould.html
I hate to play into the hands of a Schlafly here, but I found
that paragraph indecipherable. What idea is Gould saying that he
now explicitly supports? I certainly couldn't figure it out from
that context. Is there any place else that Gould has stated what
he thinks of Penrose's ideas, perhaps a little bit more clearly?
[snip]
--
PZ Myers
Howard Hershey
Roger Schlafly wrote:
>
> Howard Hershey wrote:
> > ? ? And here is a post showing how Gould making a very elementary
> > ? ? mathematics blunder:
> > ? ? ?? Gould made the following mathematical statement in
> > ? ? ?? "An Early Start", a chapter in _The Panda's Thumb_
> > ? ? ?? where the beginning of life on earth was the main topic,
> > ? ? ?? making the statement especially misleading:
> > ? ? ?? Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
> > ? ? ?? converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
> > ? ? ?? years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
> > ? Yes, this is quite incorrect. Not even close. A million years is
> > ? about 3*10^13 seconds. 2^100 is about 10^30. Gould is off by a
> > ? factor of about a million million million. I don't know what his
> > ? error here was. More evidence that Gould is innumerate. [corrected]
>
> Correcting myself, I meant to say a year is about 3*10^7 seconds.
> A million years is about 3*10^13 seconds.
Then you are obviously a Gouldian-Leftist-Kuhnian conspirator
incapable of being even marginally numerate.
>
> > If, of course, you had actually read the Gould article in question,
> > Roger, you would have noted 1) there is every reason to think that
> > Gould is actually citing someone else on this analogy, 2) that the
> > quote is not intended to be a serious calculation of probabilities,
>
> Either way, the calculation is not right.
SFW.
>
> > and 3) he is, in the rest of the article, pointing out that the
> > *evidence* of nature (specifically the early occurrence of life on
> > this planet) points to a different conclusion than the one that
> > assumes that life arose via chance working over long time frames,
> > namely that life must be easier to generate than one might think
> > rather than being the result of chance over long periods of time. In
> > short, he is using this idea of "only the immensity of time guaranteed
> > the result" to argue for the opposite position.
>
> I wouldn't expect his argument to have any more validity than a typical
> foolish creationist argument.
So, if Gould argues that abiogenesis requires long periods of time for
chance to work its effect, he is wrong. And if Gould argues that
abiogenesis does not require long periods of time for chance to work
its effect, he is wrong. I do see a pattern here.
Peter Nyikos
>Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>
>> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> writes:
>>
>> >Adam Marczyk wrote:
>[snip]
>>
>> > Peter, a true story about statistics. My Modern Physics professor was
>> >introducing us to statistical physics and probabilities, to do this he was
>> >using an example of 4 coins. The professor tossed the coins into the air
>> >all at once and let them land on the table, the result? four heads. The
>> >professor continued talking about probabilities and which combinations
>> >were more likely. at the end of this lecture, after coming to the
>> >conclusion that two heads and two tails were the most likely outcome, he
>> >tossed the coins again. the result? four tails.
>>
>> He had a 1 in 16 chance of getting whatever he got on each
>> trial.
>Well, he had a 1/16 chance of getting all heads and a 1/16 chance of
>all tails, but he had a 3/8 chance of getting 2 heads and 2 tails (and
>a 1/4 chance of 1 head/3 tails and 1/4 chance of 1 tail/3 heads). Of
>course, I am not a full professor of mathematics, so I could be wrong.
By "whatever he got" I meant the exact disposition of each
coin, whether it landed heads or tails. I am using the
standard approach of going to a space of equiprobable events.
One can then use it to arrive at the conclusions you gave just now.
[...]
Roger Schlafly
> ? Gould claims to be an explicit supporter of Penrose's ideas
> ? about the impossibility of Turing machines, but only after
> ? being accused of sharing Penrose's confusion about the nature
> ? of algorithms by Daniel C. Dennet in his book, Darwin's
> ? Dangerous Idea. Gould addresses Dennett's criticisms here:
> ? http://cogweb.english.ucsb.edu/Debate/Gould.html
> I hate to play into the hands of a Schlafly here, but I found
> that paragraph indecipherable. What idea is Gould saying that he
> now explicitly supports? I certainly couldn't figure it out from
> that context. Is there any place else that Gould has stated what
> he thinks of Penrose's ideas, perhaps a little bit more clearly?
I couldn't figure it out either. Gould is attacking a quote from
Dennett which seems to be taking a swipe at Gould and Dennett.
Gould seems to want to disassociate himself with Penrose, but then
there is a sentence in brackets in the quotes that says the
opposite. Is that sentence supposed to be written by Gould?
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by Boikat <boi...@bellsouth.net>:
<snip>
>If
>looking for "mistakes presented as fact to the
>public" is your thing, then creation "science" is
>a target rich environment.
Actually, based on those criteria, I have to disagree.
Creation "science" doesn't present "mistakes", it presents
as true data which are known to be false. There's a word for
that, and the word isn't "mistake".
<snip>
--
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness
to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
--H. L. Mencken
Peter Nyikos
>Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message
>news:2001020517...@milo.math.sc.edu...
[Hershey:]
>> >> > that time being accurate to the millisecond, Roger). But I do
>> >wonder
>> >> > about the sanity of people who obsesss on such trivia
>> No, Hershey does not; if he did, he'd be wondering about
>> his own sanity and that of "yojimbo5681", and dozens of
>> allies of his who *massively* obsess on such trivia as two questions
>> of mine that "yojimbo5681" keeps putting in his .sig.
Hershey not only obsessed on the first over a span
of several years, but obsessively rewrote Usenet
history on what it was about, conning quite a few
people including Ken Cox and even (temporarily)
John Harshman.
I do believe Roger Schlafly has a long way to go before
he can match Hershey's obsessive record wrt just that
one "heme" example.
>> Hershey knows that if he did not obsess on such trivia,
>> he'd have to fall back on actionable libel against me,
>> like his libels of last April,
>> or other outright lies, and he likes to be somewhat sparing
>> of such things.
>*turns down the lights and holds a flashlight under his chin*
>The truth... is out there.
Yes, it is. But objective truth is a concept alien to propagandists
like Hershey. The truth of the statement "people who
obsess on trivial mistakes are of questionable sanity"
is very much dependent,
in the World According to Howard Hershey, on who says it,
whom one is talking to, and the propagandistic objective
one is aiming for.
Peter Nyikos
>Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message
>news:2001020517...@milo.math.sc.edu...
>> Enough of going after the monkeys (as in "monkey see, monkey do")
>> who are participating in this amateur psychology slugfest
>> against Schlafly. Now I go for the organ-grinder:
>>
>> Howard Hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
>>
>> >Roger Schlafly wrote:
>> >>
>> >> catshark wrote:
>> >> > And no response to: "Oh, so you are assuming that the distance the
>> >> > adult falls is twice the distance of the child instead of "a similar
>> >> > fall" that Gould specified?"
>> >> > [usual ad hominem attack snipped]
>> >>
>> >> To answer: Yes. That meaning is consistent with Gould's main point,
>> >> which was to look at everything scaled in proportion. It is also
>> >> consistent with mathematical use of the word "similar".
>> >>
>> >> But either way, Gould's figure of 1/32 is wrong.
The consensus on this thread seems to be moving more
and more towards this, but I expect Hershey never
to admit it outright.
>> >> I think it is pretty clear Gould means that the adult falls twice
>> >> the distance, but I'll admit that it is a little more ambiguous
>> >> in the later sentence:
>> >>
>> >> we are protected from the physical force of its tantrums, for the
>> >> child can
>> >> strike with, not half, but only 1/32 of the energy we can muster.
>> >> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
>> >>
>> >> But again, I don't see how 1/32 could possibly be correct.
>>
>> >But what was the point of this example?
>>
>> Go do your own research, you Gould-idolizer. You are looking
>> for ways to make it look like Gould should ONLY be judged
>> on something Haldane did ages before him, as though purely
>> derivative writing, like the kind *you* fill posts with,
>> deserved hosannahs of praise.
>>
>>
>> > Was there something he was
>> >saying where the error you mention is crucial to the argument,
>>
>>
>> Why do you care about the argument? What makes you
>> think it is at all on-topic for talk.origins, the
>> way Gould's blunder about coin flipping is? Or do you
>> even think that--are you not, in fact, determined to
>> maintain Gould's status as an idol of the anti-creationist
>> movement at all costs?
>Are you _sure_ you're not a creationist?
Of course. What brought on this complete non sequitur
of a question?
Do you really think the reputation of someone like
Gould depends upon making excuses for every little
mistake he makes? Hershey even tried to spin-doctor
Gould's mistake about coin-flipping into something
completely insignificant, back several years ago
when I first brought it to people's attention.
Have you EVER seen Hershey even acknowledge that
Gould made a mistake? He was just dancing all over
the topic in the post to which I was following up.
Are you so amoral as to think that an evolutionist must
overlook the rampant dishonesty and hypocrisy of people
like Howard Hershey?
Or are you simply ignorant of Hershey's track record,
both wrt Gould and wrt the most fundamental principles
of truth and justice?
>> Just look at the cost to yourself that you
>> are risking with your subsequent comments.
>>
>>
>> > or was
>> >it used in the context of a popular essay as an example of how scaling
>> >matters in the physical world, in which case merely pointing out that
>> >an adult falling hits with considerably greater force than a child is
>> >sufficient (and, in that context, it matters not one whit whether the
>> >force difference is 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 rather than merely 1/2.
>>
>>
>> It matters if Gould wants credit for doing some original
>> thinking, as opposed to blundering his way through an
>> attempted improvement on Haldane's classic essay.
I meant, in this particular essay. Gould has done a lot
of original thinking, of that there can be no doubt.
But even the best of people have lapses from time to time.
[...]
>When I am dreaming,
>I don't know if I'm truly asleep, or if I'm awake.
I do know almost every time I stop to think about it in
my dreams (which is not often).
> --Forest for the Trees, "Dream"
What's your experience been, Adam?
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Peter Nyikos
>Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message
>news:2001020517...@milo.math.sc.edu...
>> "Richard Wein" <nos...@lineone.net> writes:
>>
>>
>> >Greg T-K wrote in message <95ksto$mas$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>> >>In article <3A7C62C4...@my-dejanews.com>,
>> >> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>> >>> catshark wrote:
>> >>> > ? This is more evidence that Gould is innumerate.
>> >>> > ... Surely spending your days scouring the web for some mistake by
>> >>one man
>> >>> > must strike even you a bit odd.
>>
>>
>> Monkey see, monkey do. Gould-idolizers like Howard
>> and Adam and "catshark" start casting hypocritical aspersions
>> on Roger's sanity, so others like Greg T-K get into
>> the act too. See below.
>So I'm a "Gould-idolizer" now? How silly of you. I was merely pointing out,
>as others have done, that for Roger to scour everything Gould has written
What makes you think he is doing that?
>even in fields unrelated to biology, apparently rechecking every computation
>he performs to see if it's correct, is pretty darn close to an unhealthy
>obsession. Of course Gould makes mistakes, and I do think he overestimates
>the impact of some of his work. But this obsessive hounding of him is very
>strange behavior to engage in.
Where did the obsessive hounding take place? See below.
>> >>> Someone else referred me to this site recently. It describes Gould:
>> >>>
>> >>> "America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
>> >>> http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
>> >>>
>> >>> The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
>> >>> not complete crap from beginning to end. Can you find anything by
>> >>> him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
>> Roger seems to have read very little of Gould.
I stand by that statement. Roger could, of course,
claim otherwise. Until he does, I don't see why
people claim he is obsessed with Gould.
>> I'd say
>> at least half the essays in _Panda's Thumb_, where I got
>> Gould's "coin-flipping" blooper from, are error-free.
>>
>> The same goes for that book, _Dinosaur in a Haystack_,
>> from which I got Gould's biological blooper about
>> swimming mammals.
What's more, Gould is not afraid to criticize his fellow
biologists, sometimes scathingly, including the part in
_Eight Little Piggies_ where he relates
how professional biologists lie about each other
in articles, and how his own father
calls this to his attention. He wryly comments that
his father just could not fathom how research
scientists could be capable of such things.
That is exactly the kind of reverence for scientists
which Gans, Myers, Hershey,
"yojimbo5681", Cox, Silberstein, Syvanen, and many, many
others cynically exploit in this newsgroup. They know
a great many of the anti-creationists here have a similar
lofty view of scientists that Gould's father did, but
have yet to discover just how thoroughly dishonest
some scientists can be.
Hence, they are very vigorous in shooting the bearers
of *any* bad news about scientists like Gould, lest
they stop hero-worshipping anti-creationist scientists in general.
Be careful lest you become like them, Adam.
[...]
>> >>but Gould's point about the role of size
>> >>in modes of evolution has merit either way.
>>
>> >Quite.
>>
>> What IS that point as regards modes of *evolution*?
>>
>> Was it not simply a new variant on Haldane's essay,
>> which had essentially nothing about *evolution*
>> and oodles about *physiology* in it?
I wonder whether anyone in this thread can answer this
question.
Peter Nyikos
>I have mocked you and ridiculed you, but as best I can remember, I have
>never attacked you.
Most of those mockings and ridiculings were personal attacks.
> Why would I want to attack a defenseless buffoon
>like you?
See, there's another dishonest attack right there.
[...]
[Nyikos:]
>> By the way, I seem to owe you an apology for confusing
>> Neil Rickert with you--an understandable confusion since
>> the two of you are equally prone to dishonest deletia,
>> but a regrettable one none the less.
>Ahh, a backhanded apology.
Not really. It all depends on your reaction to
the following post.
I see you did not deny the statement that Gould is a liar
by your standards. Until you do, no apology is in order.
>I've left all the garbage in this post since it drives Nyikos even more
>nuts to have anything clipped for clarity.
This is another dishonest personal attack by you.
>Long live the great one. Bow down vassals! Worship at the feet of the
>great and powerful OZ,......er Nyikos.
Now, THIS mocking is not a personal attack unless it
is meant to imply that I think people *should* behave
anything like this. In that case, it borders on libel.
Ken Cope
>><http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/04/32/cog00000432-00/penrose.htm>
>
>Oy, Penrose. All of his microtubular consciousness crap is so
>irritatingly airy-fairy and unfounded, I can't stand reading it.
>I plowed through his books with a disgusted sneer plastered on my
>face the whole time, even though I know that in his field, he is
>far smarter than I am. I think.
Who knows? You may have noticed that was Dennett's review of 'Emperor,' not
'Shadows' as I had incorrectly identified it. Roboticist Hans Moravec crafted
a hilarious dialogue between a robot and a Penrose 'construct' in his response
to 'Shadows,' http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-06-moravec.html
where he rips into Penrose and his 'platonic quantum gravitational collapse
neural mechanism.'
Spare me from quixotic luddites.
[snip]
>> Gould claims to be an explicit supporter of Penrose's ideas
>> about the impossibility of Turing machines, but only after
>> being accused of sharing Penrose's confusion about the nature
>> of algorithms by Daniel C. Dennet in his book, Darwin's
>> Dangerous Idea. Gould addresses Dennett's criticisms here:
>>
>> http://cogweb.english.ucsb.edu/Debate/Gould.html
>
>I hate to play into the hands of a Schlafly here, but I found
>that paragraph indecipherable. What idea is Gould saying that he
>now explicitly supports? I certainly couldn't figure it out from
>that context. Is there any place else that Gould has stated what
>he thinks of Penrose's ideas, perhaps a little bit more clearly?
It's hard for me to defend, since I haven't found any other writings
about Penrose from Gould (online, and Gould is not well represented
in my library, though even one Gould book is more than Roger has read).
I couldn't be sure those bracketed remarks were Gould's until I contrasted
them with Dennett's enumerated differences with Gould in his book, where
he criticized Gould for his thesis of radical contingency, wondering whether
Gould thinks it refutes what Dennett claims is the "core Darwinian idea that
evolution is an algorithmic process." There doesn't appear to be a clear
referent for the idea of which Gould has "now become an explicit supporter"
in Gould's response to this criticism; the only two candidates being that of
Penrose, and the one that Dennett refers to as "Darwin's Dangerous
Idea." Gould doesn't subscribe to Dennett's "Fundamentalist Darwinism,"
yet he has just bristled at Dennett's conjecturing that he holds similar
views to Penrose. If I'm interpreting Gould's remarks correctly, he seems
to object to Dennett smearing Gould with Penrose's views with no basis
for believing that Gould shared them. Then in Gould's rebuttal, he says that
*after* Dennett made those accusations, Gould now claims he has become an
explicit supporter (of Penrose's ideas). I hope my interpretation is wrong.
However, if Nyikos and Schlafly want to kick Gould around, Dennett
rained multiple blows on Gould years ago in a well-received book,
putting their meager efforts to shame, employing for example, humor
(the intentional variety), with chapter titles like "The Spandrel's
Thumb." As a consequence, anything Roger says that echoes Dennett,
must be wrong, since Dennett, while discussing Gould's Marxism,
describes himself as an ACLU liberal.
Ken Cope
Peter Nyikos
>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>>
>> In article <2001020518...@milo.math.sc.edu>,
>> Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
>> [snip]
That was a sneaky marked snip by Silberstein,
dishonestly exploited by Barwood.
[Begin restoration of snipped text.]
>> ================================ end of excerpt
[End of restoration]
>> > I will apologize if you voice disagreement with Rickert's
>> > and Silberstein's conclusions, Henry.
>>
>> What do I have to do with any of this?
Read the accusation of dishonesty against Johnson, my
rebuttal, and Rickert's propaganda that supported
the accusation.
>The Nyikos moves in mysterious ways.
Barwood again shows how to dishonestly exploit
sneaky marked snips. He makes another personal
attack that depends for its effect on the
*absence* of the completely
non-mysterious things Silberstein wrote in the snipped
post.
>Barwood
Roger Schlafly
> ? "America's foremost evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould"
> ? http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/media_kit/mission.html
> ? The trouble is that I have never found anything by Gould that was
> ? not complete crap from beginning to end. Can you find anything by
> ? him that is *not* filled with mistakes?
> ? If Gould is "America's foremost evolutionist", then the science is
> ? in a sorry state.
> I found a web site that described William Demski as "the Isaac Newton of
> information theory". Do you think that means that information theory is
> in a sorry state? I think the statement is simply wrong, and has
> nothing to do with the state of information theory. It is much
> stranger than calling Gould "America's foremost evolutionist", since
> there are some Darwinians who probably view Gould that way, but probably
> virtually no information theorists who view Dembski as their Newton.
Natural History is a disinguished magazine. It is not the only
source that sings the praises of Gould. Gould gets good press
elsewhere too.
Ken Cox
> Matt Silberstein wrote:
> > Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> > > I will apologize if you voice disagreement with Rickert's
> > > and Silberstein's conclusions, Henry.
> > What do I have to do with any of this?
> The Nyikos moves in mysterious ways.
I thought he was just moving down some list in alphabetical
order.
--
Ken Cox k...@research.bell-labs.com
Roger Schlafly
> ? I wouldn't expect his argument to have any more validity than a typical
> ? foolish creationist argument.
> So, if Gould argues that abiogenesis requires long periods of time for
> chance to work its effect, he is wrong. And if Gould argues that
> abiogenesis does not require long periods of time for chance to work
> its effect, he is wrong. I do see a pattern here.
Yes, there's a pattern here. But not entirely Gould's fault -- very
little is known about abiogenesis.
Roger Schlafly
> Penrose is guilty of a biological howler with his quantum microtubules.
And what was that howler?
> Nobody cares what his private sympathies regarding whatever the hell is
> meant by the term 'God.' Penrose, in Emperor's New/Shadows of the Mind,
> wades out of his depth into biological waters too deep for him, when he
> insists that the nature of consciousness will forever remain a mystery
> filled gap. This Platonist, who wants his physics to be deterministic,
> doesn't argue his case as well as Hofstadter argues the opposite view,
> who along with Dennett, takes a dim view of Penrose's rationalizations
> for his conclusions. Hofstadter rolled his eyes and told me he thought
> Penrose was crazy when I asked him what he thought of Penrose's quantum
> consciousness.
Hofstadter is at the other extreme in the strong AI debate.
> A review of Shadows of the Mind by Dennett can be read here:
> http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/04/32/cog00000432-00/penrose.htm
Thanks for the link.
Roger Schlafly
> ? I wouldn't expect his argument to have any more validity than a typical
> ? foolish creationist argument.
> So, if Gould argues that abiogenesis requires long periods of time for
> chance to work its effect, he is wrong. And if Gould argues that
> abiogenesis does not require long periods of time for chance to work
> its effect, he is wrong. I do see a pattern here.
Yes, there's a pattern here. But not entirely Gould's fault -- very
Matt Silberstein
Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> PZ Myers wrote:
> > ? Gould claims to be an explicit supporter of Penrose's ideas
> > ? about the impossibility of Turing machines, but only after
> > ? being accused of sharing Penrose's confusion about the nature
> > ? of algorithms by Daniel C. Dennet in his book, Darwin's
> > ? Dangerous Idea. Gould addresses Dennett's criticisms here:
> > ? http://cogweb.english.ucsb.edu/Debate/Gould.html
> > I hate to play into the hands of a Schlafly here, but I found
> > that paragraph indecipherable. What idea is Gould saying that he
> > now explicitly supports? I certainly couldn't figure it out from
> > that context. Is there any place else that Gould has stated what
> > he thinks of Penrose's ideas, perhaps a little bit more clearly?
>
> I couldn't figure it out either. Gould is attacking a quote from
> Dennett which seems to be taking a swipe at Gould and Dennett.
Did you mean Gould and Penrose?
> Gould seems to want to disassociate himself with Penrose, but then
> there is a sentence in brackets in the quotes that says the
> opposite. Is that sentence supposed to be written by Gould?
I assume the paragraph in question is the one number 12.
[begin excerpt]
ś12 In an even more unfair example, Dennett conjectures about what I
might believe (but I don't, and he cites nothing to support his
supposition), and then seems to pretend that I hold such a view by
attacking someone else who truly does:
Is it likely that Gould could be so confused about the nature of
algorithms? As we shall see in chapter 15, Roger Penrose, one of
the world's most distinguished mathematicians, wrote a major book
(1989) on Turing machines, algorithms, and the impossibility of
Artificial Intelligence, and his whole book is based on that
confusion. This is not really such an implausible error, on either
thinker's part [I have now become an explicit supporter of the
idea--]. A person who really doesn't like Darwin's dangerous idea
often finds it hard to get the idea in focus.
[end excerpt]
If so, the passage the confuses me seems to be written by Dennett, not
by Gould. I can't figure out the sentence that ends "his whole book is
based on that confusion". The "his" should refer to Penrose. If so,
what confusion is referred to? Gould possible confusion or Penrose's?
If Gould's, why would Penrose base a book on Gould's confusion? If
Penrose, why would he write a book based on his own confusion? I have
have not read _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, who has and can give us
context?
--
Matt Silberstein
Doctor Feelgood, I promised this lady
If I can't dance she's gonna break my nose
N.L.
David C. Fritzinger
Gee, Roger. Despite your assertions to the contrary, maybe there
is a reason why Gould gets good press.
I know, the media has been overrun with
leftist-Gouldians-Freudians-Marxists-Whatevers.
Dave Fritzinger
wf...@ptd.net
<roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
now we have to wait for roger to drop the other shoe and tell us how
fringe natural history is. after all, its a very popular magazine...
>
and...@my-deja.com
Jon Fleming <jo...@fleming-nospam.com> wrote:
> A stopped clock is right twice a day ...
>
> I can see interpreting "a similar fall" as either the same distance or
> the same distance relative to the height of the individual. Roger and
> Gould chose the latter. If one chooses the former, the kinetic
> energies at the end of the fall are different by a factor of 1/8, the
> cube of the ratio of the masses. Using either interpretation, Gould
> erred.
It should surprise no one to see mathematical errors published by
Gould. He majored in geology at Antioch College. Geology is a field
that naturally attracts people who want to be scientists but are weak
mathematically.
According to someone who went to Georgetown with Clinton, he started
out as pre-med but couldn't hack it, and thus ended up in politics.
Nothing wrong with this, unless the person blames the discipline rather
than himself, or lets the experience bias his outlook. Some physicians
think Clinton has held a grudge against the medical profession, and
there's evidence for that view. Gould, for his part, seems determined
to show that he does have mathematical skills after all, leaving to the
rest of us the task of sorting out the published errors.
Andy
Matt Silberstein
You are right, I missed my name in there. I actually skipped most of
the post and simply saw my name there and did not see the relevant. I
guess somehow you want someone to comment on something I said about
Johnson some number of years ago. And if he agrees with you then he is
honest and if he disagrees he is dishonest.
> >The Nyikos moves in mysterious ways.
>
> Barwood again shows how to dishonestly exploit
> sneaky marked snips. He makes another personal
> attack that depends for its effect on the
> *absence* of the completely
> non-mysterious things Silberstein wrote in the snipped
> post.
Or he missed it as well since I have had nothing to do with the thread
at all.
--
Matt Silberstein
Doctor Feelgood, I promised this lady
If I can't dance she's gonna break my nose
N.L.
Ken Cope
>In article <3A7F2902...@my-dejanews.com>,
> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>> PZ Myers wrote:
>> > ? Gould claims to be an explicit supporter of Penrose's ideas
>> > ? about the impossibility of Turing machines, but only after
>> > ? being accused of sharing Penrose's confusion about the nature
>> > ? of algorithms by Daniel C. Dennet in his book, Darwin's
>> > ? Dangerous Idea. Gould addresses Dennett's criticisms here:
>> > ? http://cogweb.english.ucsb.edu/Debate/Gould.html
>> > I hate to play into the hands of a Schlafly here, but I found
>> > that paragraph indecipherable. What idea is Gould saying that he
>> > now explicitly supports? I certainly couldn't figure it out from
>> > that context. Is there any place else that Gould has stated what
>> > he thinks of Penrose's ideas, perhaps a little bit more clearly?
>>
>> I couldn't figure it out either. Gould is attacking a quote from
>> Dennett which seems to be taking a swipe at Gould and Dennett.
>
>Did you mean Gould and Penrose?
That's appears to me to be what he must have meant...
>> Gould seems to want to disassociate himself with Penrose, but then
>> there is a sentence in brackets in the quotes that says the
>> opposite. Is that sentence supposed to be written by Gould?
>
>I assume the paragraph in question is the one number 12.
>
>[begin excerpt]
>
>ś12 In an even more unfair example, Dennett conjectures about what I
>might believe (but I don't, and he cites nothing to support his
>supposition), and then seems to pretend that I hold such a view by
>attacking someone else who truly does:
>
> Is it likely that Gould could be so confused about the nature of
> algorithms? As we shall see in chapter 15, Roger Penrose, one of
> the world's most distinguished mathematicians, wrote a major book
> (1989) on Turing machines, algorithms, and the impossibility of
> Artificial Intelligence, and his whole book is based on that
> confusion. This is not really such an implausible error, on either
> thinker's part [I have now become an explicit supporter of the
> idea--]. A person who really doesn't like Darwin's dangerous idea
> often finds it hard to get the idea in focus.
>
>[end excerpt]
That's the confusing paragraph, all right. The bracketed statement is
inserted by Gould into his quote of the offending passage from Dennett.
>If so, the passage the confuses me seems to be written by Dennett, not
>by Gould. I can't figure out the sentence that ends "his whole book is
>based on that confusion". The "his" should refer to Penrose. If so,
Yes, in the quoted chapter Dennett promises to examine Penrose's
confusion about the nature of algorithms in an upcoming chapter,
and asserts that Gould shares that confusion with Penrose.
>what confusion is referred to? Gould possible confusion or Penrose's?
>If Gould's, why would Penrose base a book on Gould's confusion? If
>Penrose, why would he write a book based on his own confusion? I have
>have not read _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, who has and can give us
>context?
For an article about the differences between Dennett and Gould in
these exchanges, see http://users.bigpond.net.au/marshan/article3.htm
Here's a more critical review of Dennett's book:
http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR21.3/Orr.html
Dennett claims that Penrose's confusion is evident from his writings
about the impossibility of strong AI.
Dennett quotes Penrose on page 447 of his book, before commenting:
To my way of thinking there is still something mysterious about
evolution, with its apparent 'groping' towards some future purpose.
Things at least *seem* to organize themselve somewhat better than
they 'ought' to, just on the basis of blind-chance evolution and
natural selection. It may well be that such appearances are quite
deceptive. There seems to be something about the way that the laws
of physics work, which allows natural selection to be a much more
effective process than it would be with just arbitrary laws.
[Penrose 1989, p. 416]
There could not be a clearer, more heartfelt expression of the hope for
skyhooks than this. And though we cannot yet rule out "in principle" the
existence of a quantum-gravity skyhook, Penrose has not yet given us any
reason to believe in one. If his theory of quantum gravity were already
a reality, it could well turn out to be a crane, but he hasn't got that
far yet, and I doubt that he ever will. At least he's trying, however.
He wants his theory to provide a unified, scientific picture of how the
mind works, not an excuse for declaring the mind to be an impenetrable
Ultimate Source of Meaning. My own opinion is that the path he is now
exploring--in particular, the possible quantum effects occurring in the
microtubules of the cytoskeleton of neurons, an idea enthusiastically
promoted in Abisko by Stuart Hameroff--is a nonstarter, but that is not
a topic for this occasion. (I can't resist raising one question for Penrose
to ponder; if the magnificent quantum property lurks in the microtubules,
does that mean that cockroaches have noncomputable minds too? They have
the same kind of microtubules we have.)
[Dennet 1995, p. 447-8]
Roger Schlafly
> ? Natural History is a disinguished magazine. It is not the only
> ? source that sings the praises of Gould. Gould gets good press
> ? elsewhere too.
> Gee, Roger. Despite your assertions to the contrary, maybe there
> is a reason why Gould gets good press.
> I know, the media has been overrun with
> leftist-Gouldians-Freudians-Marxists-Whatevers.
Bingo. I am finally getting thru to someone! <g>
Gould does manage to stay on politically correct (leftist) sides of
various issues. And a lot of people do like his writing, altho I've
never figured out why.
Ken Cox
> *turns down the lights and holds a flashlight under his chin*
>
> The truth... is out there.
"... but the lies are in your head."
-- Terry Pratchett, in one of the Discworld novels
--
Ken Cox k...@research.bell-labs.com
Roger Schlafly
> views to Penrose. If I'm interpreting Gould's remarks correctly, he seems
> to object to Dennett smearing Gould with Penrose's views with no basis
> for believing that Gould shared them. Then in Gould's rebuttal, he says that
> *after* Dennett made those accusations, Gould now claims he has become an
> explicit supporter (of Penrose's ideas). I hope my interpretation is wrong.
ISTM that neither Dennett nor Gould is making himself very clear here.
> However, if Nyikos and Schlafly want to kick Gould around, Dennett
> rained multiple blows on Gould years ago in a well-received book,
> putting their meager efforts to shame, employing for example, humor
> (the intentional variety), with chapter titles like "The Spandrel's
> Thumb." As a consequence, anything Roger says that echoes Dennett,
> must be wrong, since Dennett, while discussing Gould's Marxism,
> describes himself as an ACLU liberal.
Thanks for the heads-up. Being an ACLU liberal is not too incriminating
since most of academia is anyway. That may help to explain his fondness
for Darwinism and Strong AI. But he doesn't seem to be part of the
Darwinian-Marxist-Kuhnian-Gouldian camp.
Ken Cope
>
>Ken Cope wrote:
>> Penrose is guilty of a biological howler with his quantum microtubules.
>
>And what was that howler?
http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Quantum/mystic.pdf has a good
critique of "mytical physics," including this quick objection, among
many:
Penrose and Hameroff have proposed a new idea: The seat of quantum
effects in the brain lies in microtubules, hollow fibers that form
part of the cytoskeletons of most of the cells of animal and human
bodies (not just brain cells). They suggest these may be the cell's
own "nervous system." However, microtubules are much larger than the
synaptic gap and so are certainly "macroscopic" objects in the sense
used above. Penrose suggests that microtubules act in a coherent way,
but has no hard evidence to back up this notion. And why should the
microtubules in neurons alone show quantum effects, and not those of
other cells say in those of the liver?
This kind of silliness just plays into the hands of the quantum foamers.
>> Nobody cares what his private sympathies regarding whatever the hell is
>> meant by the term 'God.' Penrose, in Emperor's New/Shadows of the Mind,
>> wades out of his depth into biological waters too deep for him, when he
>> insists that the nature of consciousness will forever remain a mystery
>> filled gap. This Platonist, who wants his physics to be deterministic,
>> doesn't argue his case as well as Hofstadter argues the opposite view,
>> who along with Dennett, takes a dim view of Penrose's rationalizations
>> for his conclusions. Hofstadter rolled his eyes and told me he thought
>> Penrose was crazy when I asked him what he thought of Penrose's quantum
>> consciousness.
>
>Hofstadter is at the other extreme in the strong AI debate.
Considering how much each of them have written about Godel (and
Hofstadter has co-edited "The Mind's I" with Dennett), you'd think
they'd be closer on their widely divergent opinions.
>> A review of Shadows of the Mind by Dennett can be read here:
>>http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/04/32/cog00000432-00/penrose.htm
>
>Thanks for the link.
You're welcome.
Ken Cope
>
>Ken Cope wrote:
>> views to Penrose. If I'm interpreting Gould's remarks correctly, he seems
>> to object to Dennett smearing Gould with Penrose's views with no basis
>> for believing that Gould shared them. Then in Gould's rebuttal, he says that
>> *after* Dennett made those accusations, Gould now claims he has become an
>> explicit supporter (of Penrose's ideas). I hope my interpretation is wrong.
>
>ISTM that neither Dennett nor Gould is making himself very clear here.
In reviewing the reaction to Gould's New York Review of Books defense,
Gould seemed to successfully shrug off the criticisms.
>> However, if Nyikos and Schlafly want to kick Gould around, Dennett
>> rained multiple blows on Gould years ago in a well-received book,
>> putting their meager efforts to shame, employing for example, humor
>> (the intentional variety), with chapter titles like "The Spandrel's
>> Thumb." As a consequence, anything Roger says that echoes Dennett,
>> must be wrong, since Dennett, while discussing Gould's Marxism,
>> describes himself as an ACLU liberal.
>
>Thanks for the heads-up. Being an ACLU liberal is not too incriminating
>since most of academia is anyway. That may help to explain his fondness
>for Darwinism and Strong AI. But he doesn't seem to be part of the
>Darwinian-Marxist-Kuhnian-Gouldian camp.
It wasn't until the ACLU prohibited liberal Darwinists from membership
unless they also advocated Strong AI, that AI found a foothold in
Academia, although adherents of any flavor of the Anthropic Principle
are still excluded.
weasel
>Penrose is guilty of a biological howler with his quantum microtubules.
The difference between your above assertion, on the one hand, and
Schlafly's and Nyikos's on the other, is that yours is just a bald
unsubstantiated opinion with no supporting argument; whereas Schlafly and
Nyikos gave explicit detail to support their claims and showing where the
errors were.
Roger Schlafly
> >> Penrose is guilty of a biological howler with his quantum microtubules.
> >And what was that howler?
> http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Quantum/mystic.pdf has a good
> critique of "mytical physics," including this quick objection, among
> many:
> Penrose and Hameroff have proposed a new idea: The seat of quantum
> effects in the brain lies in microtubules, hollow fibers that form
> part of the cytoskeletons of most of the cells of animal and human
> bodies (not just brain cells). They suggest these may be the cell's
> own "nervous system." However, microtubules are much larger than the
> synaptic gap and so are certainly "macroscopic" objects in the sense
> used above. Penrose suggests that microtubules act in a coherent way,
> but has no hard evidence to back up this notion. And why should the
> microtubules in neurons alone show quantum effects, and not those of
> other cells say in those of the liver?
Ok, Penrose's theory is wildly speculative and improbable, but that
doesn't make it a howler. No one else good explanations for
consciousness and the other mental processes that Penrose is trying
to explain either.
> This kind of silliness just plays into the hands of the quantum foamers.
So does a lot of modern theoretical physics.
> >Hofstadter is at the other extreme in the strong AI debate.
> Considering how much each of them have written about Godel (and
> Hofstadter has co-edited "The Mind's I" with Dennett), you'd think
> they'd be closer on their widely divergent opinions.
Yes. Well, people disagree about Aristotle, Jesus, Darwin, and others.
wf...@ptd.net
>In article <1nvo7t4okqj1sdmi3...@4ax.com>,
> Jon Fleming <jo...@fleming-nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> A stopped clock is right twice a day ...
>>
>> I can see interpreting "a similar fall" as either the same distance or
>> the same distance relative to the height of the individual. Roger and
>> Gould chose the latter. If one chooses the former, the kinetic
>> energies at the end of the fall are different by a factor of 1/8, the
>> cube of the ratio of the masses. Using either interpretation, Gould
>> erred.
>
>It should surprise no one to see mathematical errors published by
>Gould. He majored in geology at Antioch College. Geology is a field
>that naturally attracts people who want to be scientists but are weak
>mathematically.
you should see organic chemistry...or biochemistry, ala mike behe...
>
catshark
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> Jerry Freedman Jr <jerry_f...@my-deja.com> writes:
>
> >In article <95kreq$le9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > catshark <cats...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >> In article <3A7D7CE8...@indiana.edu>,
> >> hers...@indiana.edu wrote:
> >> > Roger Schlafly wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > catshark wrote:
> >> > > > And no response to: "Oh, so you are assuming that the
distance
> >the
> >> > > > adult falls is twice the distance of the child instead of "a
> >> similar
> >> > > > fall" that Gould specified?"
>
> >point,
> >> > > which was to look at everything scaled in proportion. It is
also
> >> > > consistent with mathematical use of the word "similar".
> >> > >
> >> > > But either way, Gould's figure of 1/32 is wrong.
>
> disputed this claim. There is not even an acknowledgement from
> "catshark" below that his challenge had been met. In fact,
> it seems "catshark" was just playing "good cop" to
> Hershey's "bad cop" [see excerpt below] and to his
> own "bad cop" performance before and after this innocent-sounding
> question. [See further below.]
>
Is this like the scene when Ridley is running away from the aliens and
suddenly it gets quiet and she slowly turns around . . . and . . .
there . . . is . . . the *QUEEN* . . . .
. . or what!!!!!
> >> > > I think it is pretty clear Gould means that the adult falls
twice
> >> > > the distance, but I'll admit that it is a little more ambiguous
> >> > > in the later sentence:
> >> > >
> >> > > we are protected from the physical force of its tantrums, for
> >the
> >> > > child can
> >> > > strike with, not half, but only 1/32 of the energy we can
> >muster.
> >> > >
> >http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/editors_pick/november99_pick.html
> >> > >
> >> > > But again, I don't see how 1/32 could possibly be correct.
>
> [most of diversionary expedition by Hershey, to be dealt with in
> direct followup to him, deleted]
>
> >> > that time being accurate to the millisecond, Roger). But I do
> >wonder
> >> > about the sanity of people who obsesss on such trivia
>
> No, Hershey does not; if he did, he'd be wondering about
> his own sanity and that of "yojimbo5681", and dozens of
> allies of his who *massively* obsess on such trivia as two questions
> of mine that "yojimbo5681" keeps putting in his .sig.
>
> Hershey knows that if he did not obsess on such trivia,
> he'd have to fall back on actionable libel against me,
> like his libels of last April,
> or other outright lies, and he likes to be somewhat sparing
> of such things.
>
> More details to come in direct followup to Hershey.
>
> (for example,
> >> > the VW that crosses the road at the end of "Finnigan's Rainbow"
is
> >> > there not to make a directorial statement about the intrusions of
> >> > modern life, but because, unlike today, there was no way to
> >digitally
> >> > remove it, digitally produce a rainbow, nor enough of a budget to
> >wait
> >> > for the next rainbow).
>
> >> Which all comes back to my original point: that Roger should look
up
> >> the meaning of "monomania".
>
> >> --
> >> J. Pieret
>
> Ah, so Pieret was the real instigator of this feeding frenzy in
> amateur psychology, eh?
With *all* due respect to your professorial renown and towering
intellect, if you didn't have your head so far up your ass you'd
recognise that I was making a (admittedly small) joke about Roger's
penchant for Gould bashing over ultimately minor things.
> even so, Hershey is probably the
> real power behind it. Hershey is a pure "might makes right"
> propagandist, who actually *flaunts* his insincerity and
> hypocrisy, as a kind of warning to all readers: "Don't mess
> with me--you will become the victim of my dishonesty
> and hypocrisy if you do."
"Power", "might", "warning", "victim", eh? Boy, Howard, you sure do a
lot with just a computer and a modem. You must tell me how you do it,
especially since I haven't got a clue who the heck you are, except that
I've seen some of your posts on t.o. and you seem to be on the "right"
side. Still, I now have it on the highest authority that you are the
real power behind me, so would you please introduce yourself, at least.
>
> >In the Mel Brooks movie "The Producers" ( one of my favorites ) the
> >German, played by Kenny Mars goes on about how Hitler was a better
> >dancer than Churchill ... I fully expect to see an article here by
Roger
> >where Arthur Murray says that Gould is a bad dancer and another one
> >talking about Gould's lack of fashion sense.
>
> >J. Freedman,Jr
>
> That full expectation speaks volumes about you--but then,
> you are a bit player in talk.origins, aren't you?
>
> Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
>
Oh and by the way, I haven't a clue how to calculate kinetic energy and
never claimed to be able to. I was tweeking Roger about his *reading*
of Gould's statement, since Roger has so frequently criticised Gould's
writing before. But I should have congratulated Roger for admitting,
at least, that there was another way to read it, since that is the
closest he has ever come to admitting any error except, perhaps, in
the "Great Gould Double-Negative Debate" a while back.
>
--
J. Pieret
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worthwhile
chewing through the leather straps.
catshark
hers...@indiana.edu wrote:
>
>
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > Howard Hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
> >
> > >Roger Schlafly wrote:
> > >>
> > >> catshark wrote:
>
> >
> > In the heme example, we were discussing Moran's intellectually
> > dishonest treatment of a comparison of phylogenies obtained
> > by clasical methods, and those using DNA sequences.
> >
> > The DNA evidence biochemist Moran trumpeted as showing
> > "birds are more closely related to reptiles than to mammals"
> > actually supported the hypothesis that
> > birds are more closely related to mammals than they
> > are to lizards, and more closely related to turtles than
> > to crocodilians. That is at complete loggerheads with every
> > morphological study ever done.
> >
> > semi-trivia: you are one of the few people in this ng who is
biologically
> > savvy enough to note the pun hidden in the foregoing completely
> > accurate paragraph. And I doubt that even you will notice
> > it very easily.
>
> Yawn. Loggerhead turtle. But I am quite sure that even zoe and Roger
> caught that.
Unless he was going for something feindishly "subtle" about trumpeter
swans. Opps, have I succumbed to your deep, dark control over me? How
*do* you do that!
> >
> > Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
> > University of South Carolina
> > Columbia, SC 29208
>
>
--
and...@my-deja.com
catshark <cats...@my-deja.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Oh and by the way, I haven't a clue how to calculate kinetic energy
and
Note how many evolution believers don't really claim to know anything
about science either. That's why when they are asked substantive
questions, they respond with absurd metaphors about "goalpost shifting"
or insist that someone else somehow provided an answer.
Andy
Howard Hershey
The pattern, of course, is that Gould is wrong no matter what he says.
If Gould said that Roger was a genius, Roger would argue that Gould
was wrong...and would incidently be right for once.
Howard Hershey
Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Howard Hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
>
> >Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>
> >> Roger Schlafly <roger...@my-dejanews.com> writes:
> >>
> >> >Adam Marczyk wrote:
>
> >[snip]
> >>
> >> > Peter, a true story about statistics. My Modern Physics professor was
> >> >introducing us to statistical physics and probabilities, to do this he was
> >> >using an example of 4 coins. The professor tossed the coins into the air
> >> >all at once and let them land on the table, the result? four heads. The
> >> >professor continued talking about probabilities and which combinations
> >> >were more likely. at the end of this lecture, after coming to the
> >> >conclusion that two heads and two tails were the most likely outcome, he
> >> >tossed the coins again. the result? four tails.
> >>
> >> He had a 1 in 16 chance of getting whatever he got on each
> >> trial.
>
> >Well, he had a 1/16 chance of getting all heads and a 1/16 chance of
> >all tails, but he had a 3/8 chance of getting 2 heads and 2 tails (and
> >a 1/4 chance of 1 head/3 tails and 1/4 chance of 1 tail/3 heads). Of
> >course, I am not a full professor of mathematics, so I could be wrong.
>
> By "whatever he got" I meant the exact disposition of each
> coin, whether it landed heads or tails.
Of course you did. But read the first paragraph above. The professor
said that "two heads and two tails were the most likely outcome".
That meant that he was not concerned with the exact disposition of
heads and tails, but with the ratio of heads and tails. The most
common result would be 2 heads and 2 tails (probability of 3/8), as I
pointed out. It would not be a 1 in 16 chance of getting whatever he
got on each trial.
> I am using the
> standard approach of going to a space of equiprobable events.
So did I. But I answered the real question being asked and you didn't.
> One can then use it to arrive at the conclusions you gave just now.
>
> [...]
>
> >> Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
> >> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
Ken Cope
[snip]
>Ok, Penrose's theory is wildly speculative and improbable, but that
>doesn't make it a howler. No one else good explanations for
>consciousness and the other mental processes that Penrose is trying
>to explain either.
No, I should not have referred to Penrose's desperate quantum handwaving
as a howler; nor should you have responded with another of your unsupportable
non-existence claims. There are plenty of explanations for consciousness,
plenty of them good; many are not satisfying, depending on what you want
consciousness to be. Penrose wants consciousness to be a mystery which
no machine can ever experience, so he neatly defines all the things that
consciousness isn't, and to the extent that brains might be emulatable,
he has to show that brains aren't the part of you that are conscious.
Not only are they wildly speculative and improbable, his quantum microtubules
are the biological corner into which Penrose has painted himself in order to
maintain that consciousness will be forever made of unexplainium. You needn't
be able to follow every shred of his brilliant explication of quantum mechanics
to see the very human motivations behind resorting to an argument that plays
to platonists, but not to anybody who knows that microtubules are found in
all cells, not just neurons.
>> This kind of silliness just plays into the hands of the quantum foamers.
>
>So does a lot of modern theoretical physics.
Yes, but most of modern theoretical physics is trying to talk about what
might be possible in extending our understanding; Penrose is rationalizing
his position that he is not a biological machine by hedging that someday,
there might be a theory of quantum gravitation that proves he's right and
everybody else is wrong.
Steven Pinker, in _How the Mind Works_ sums up Penrose's argument, when
he says (on p. 97), "Penrose's mathematical argument has been dismissed as
fallacious by logicians, and his other claims have been reviewed unkindly
by experts in the relevant disciplines. One big problem is that the gifts
Penrose attributes to his idealized mathematician are not possessed by
real-life mathematicians, such as the certainty that the system of rules
being relied on is consistent. Another is that quantum effects almost
surely cancel out in nervous tissue. A third is that microtubules are
ubiquitous among cells and appear to play no role in how the brain
achieves intelligence. A fourth is that there is not even a hint as to
how consciousness might arise from quantum mechanics."
(Citing Dennett's observation) "Penrose's denunciation of the computational
theory of mind turns out to be a backhanded compliment. The computational
theory fits so well into our understanding of the world that, in trying to
overthrow it, Penrose had to reject most of contemporary neuroscience,
evolutionary biology, and physics!"
>> >Hofstadter is at the other extreme in the strong AI debate.
>> Considering how much each of them have written about Godel (and
>> Hofstadter has co-edited "The Mind's I" with Dennett), you'd think
>> they'd be closer on their widely divergent opinions.
>
>Yes. Well, people disagree about Aristotle, Jesus, Darwin, and others.
It's one thing to disagree, but there are better ways to do it than to
claim that in your hand, you might live long enough to someday hold
a theory that might explain that everything that everybody else thought
they knew about science was wrong, and you don't have to explain yourself
beyond showing what a math wiz they aren't. I'm glad Penrose is there
for Hawking when he needs a calculator.
Roger Schlafly
> Not only are they wildly speculative and improbable, his quantum microtubules
> are the biological corner into which Penrose has painted himself in order to
> maintain that consciousness will be forever made of unexplainium. You needn't
Penrose describes it as speculative. Most of the book is mainstream
and well-accepted stuff. Can't he speculate?
> be able to follow every shred of his brilliant explication of quantum mechanics
> to see the very human motivations behind resorting to an argument that plays
> to platonists, but not to anybody who knows that microtubules are found in
> all cells, not just neurons.
You are accusing him of having human motivations in trying to explain
human consciousness?
> Steven Pinker, in _How the Mind Works_ sums up Penrose's argument, when
> he says (on p. 97), "Penrose's mathematical argument has been dismissed as
> fallacious by logicians, and his other claims have been reviewed unkindly
Being dissed by Pinker means nothing. Pinker has a number of very
peculiar and controversial views himself. Pinker is certainly quite
wrong here -- Penrose's argument is not mathematically fallacious.
The AI crowd has attacked Penrose, of course.
> by experts in the relevant disciplines. One big problem is that the gifts
> Penrose attributes to his idealized mathematician are not possessed by
> real-life mathematicians, such as the certainty that the system of rules
> being relied on is consistent. Another is that quantum effects almost
> surely cancel out in nervous tissue. A third is that microtubules are
> ubiquitous among cells and appear to play no role in how the brain
> achieves intelligence. A fourth is that there is not even a hint as to
> how consciousness might arise from quantum mechanics."
Some of these arguments make Penrose's theory speculative.
> I'm glad Penrose is there for Hawking when he needs a calculator.
Damning with faint praise? I guess you are referring to their joint
work on singularity theorems. But in case you want to downplay
Penrose's work, you should know that Penrose was already famous
in the field before Hawking came along.
catshark
(Keeping as straight a face as possible)
That is: "don't really claim to know *everything* about science", which
is a self-evident proposition to anyone who isn't under the delusion
that you can know everything about science by reading a 2000+ year old
book.
And when *you* ever get within hailing distance of a "substantive
question", in science or anything else for that matter, Andy, please
wave a flag or something so that don't miss it in the welter of your
usual postings.
--
J. Pieret
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worthwhile
chewing through the leather straps.
catshark
[snip]
> Here is where you took most of your mile, Adam:
>
> > Doesn't this obsession of
> >yours sometimes seem a little unhealthy even to you?
>
> This attempt to play amateur psychologist is what
> is really unhealthy, especially the way it was picked up by several
other
> participants like sharks attracted to blood. [In fact, one
> of them was, appropriately enough, "catshark".]
Actually, all I had to pick up was a dictionary, which is what I urged
Roger to do, but you know how much Webster likes to play amateur
psychologist.
> I suspect
> the real mover and shaker in this feeding frenzy is Howard
> Hershey, who flaunted his insincerity and hypocrisy by
> either initiating this amateur psychology binge,
> or lending it the force of his considerable influence
> in this newsgroup.
You really must tell us how he does that! And, while you're at it,
please tell me who the heck Howard is!
>
> I wonder how many of these copycats [Hey, that's another
> reason why "catshark" is an appropriate name!]
I guess that a sharpening of one's wit is one of the benefits of being
a full professor of mathematics.
> realize
> how badly they are shooting "yojimbo5681" and, yes,
> Howard Hershey himself in the foot by doing this.
>
> Details to follow in followup to Hershey.
[Breathless anticipation all around]
>
> Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
> University of South Carolina
> Columbia, SC 29208
>
>
--
Howard Hershey
Roger Schlafly wrote:
>
> Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >making a serious calculation). One would think that a *real*
> > >mathematician would have noted that this was not meant to be a serious
> > >calculation
> > It is worded as though it were a serious rough estimate:
> > Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
> > converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
> > years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
>
> Yes, it sounds to me like Gould meant it to be a serious calculation.
And you are basing this conclusion on what? Peter Nyikos' opinion?
Peter is as utterly incompetent at reading any essay in context as you
are, so relying on Peter for informed and intelligent comment is a
decidedly dicey proposition. Like you, he would read the "Gettysburg
Address" and criticise it because Lincoln forgot to add "and 221 days,
6 hours, and 17 minutes" to the "fourscore and ten years" (those are
not to be taken as serious numbers, just in case you want to criticize
me because it was actually 16 min) and also mention that Lincoln was a
(horrors!) Radical Republican and that he failed to button the top
button on his fly. But, Roger, since you have not read the essay in
question (I presume this since you have read so little of Gould in
reaching your conclusions), I will give you the entire paragraph and
put the above into context:
The essay was probably written sometime around 1977-8 (i.e., almost a
quarter century ago) and is a discussion of findings, at that time, of
the oldest procaryote fossils thereto known, which placed the first
evidence of life 3.4 billion years ago. Immediately preceeding the
paragraph I will quote, Gould talks about a summer he had spent at the
U. of Colorado twenty years previously (that is, the mid to late
1950s) where he had heard a talk by George Wald, in which Wald
presented the following viewpoint, which he describes as being
"orthodoxy until very recently." Gould continues...
"In Wald's view, the spontaneous origin of life could be considered as
a virtually inevitable consequence of the earth's atmosphere and
crust, and of its favorable size and position in the solar system.
Still, he argued, life is so staggeringly complex that its origin from
simple chemicals must have consumed an immense amount of time --
probably more time than its entire subsequent evolution from DNA
molecule to advanced beetles (or whatever you choose to place atop the
subjective ladder). Thousands of steps, each requiring the one
before, each improbable in itself. Only the immensity of time
guaranteed the result, for time converts the improbable to the
inevitable--give me a million years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a
row more than once. Wald wrote in 1954: "Time is in fact the hero of
the plot. The time with which we have to deal is [sic, I think there
is a missing 'in'] the order of two billion years... Given so much
time, the 'impossible' becomes possible, the possible probable, and
the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself
performs the miracles."
The next paragraph starts out "This orthodox view congealed without
the benefit of any direct data from paleontology to test it, for the
paucity of fossils before the great Cambrian "explosion" 600 million
years ago is, perhaps, the outstanding fact and frustration of my profession."
He then talks in much more detail (for the next 6 pages) about the new
*evidence from nature* that discredits this old "Waldian" or
'gradualistic' view that producing life must have required enormous
spans of time. This leads to the very Kuhnian (and, horrors,
revolutionary) perspective that Roger most hates [and with which I
*partly* agree with him]:
"...I am led to wonder why the old, discredited orthodoxy of gradual
origin ever gained such strong and general assent. Why did it seem so
reasonable? Certainly not because any direct evidence supported it.
[new paragraph] I am...an advocate of the position that science is
not an objective truth-directed machine, but a quintessentially human
activity, affected by passions, hopes, and cultural biases. Cultural
traditions of thought strongly influence scientific theories, often
directing lines of speculation, especially (as in this case) when
virtually no data exist to constrain either imagination or prejudice."
He then goes on to attribute the failure to seriously consider that
life arose quickly (until the evidence made it clear that life did so
arise) to a cultural preference for gradualism and against
revolutionary giant leaps in nature (such as the universe essentially
being created in a few seconds), interrupted by periods of stasis.
> Why else would he say "more than once"? It looks like he made some
> sort of gross mathematical error in calculation or suffers from
> some serious conceptual misunderstanding.
As for this being meant to be a serious calculation, I will point out
the following:
1) It is a parenthetical phrase which is mentioned or referred to only
this once in the entire essay.
2) If this parenthetical phrase were deleted from the paragraph, no
one would notice it's absence. There is nothing in the rest of the
article that depends upon or rests upon the 'absolute' veracity of
this calculation.
3) If it were a serious calculation that were somehow important to the
argument Gould is making, the absence of crucial information like how
long each coin flip takes and whether one is dealing with individual
trials of 100 coin flips or a continuous series of coin flips within
which one searched for the relevant string, would be much more serious criticisms.
4) The position taken by the putative coin flipper is not Gould's
position in any case. It is entirely possible that he is merely
repeating what he had heard supporters of that position say, given the context.
In short, the position that you and Peter are taking is nothing but a
cheap shot taken by two pseudointelectual individuals who are so
incompetent as scholars in this field and so intellectually shallow
and incapable of comprehending what they read that such 'cheap shots'
are all they can take. Everything else goes over their heads. There
are serious criticisms that one can make against Gould (and others
have made them). If you want to argue that Gould is wrong (I do think
he overdoes the Kuhnian explanation), argue against a position that he
actually takes rather than a cheap strawman which is, at best, trivial
and irrelevant to the points being made. Argue, for example, that the
fossil procaryotes are really 'artifacts' and that producing "life"
from "nonlife" really does require long periods of time (and present
your evidence). Argue that the earlier 'orthodoxy' that "life"
required enormous amounts of time was really based on hard evidence
and was not due to 'cultural bias'. There are good arguments that an
intelligent and informed person could make against some of Gould's
position, but your superficial "Gould made a silly math mistake" is a
total irrelevancy based solely on poor reading comprehension, and that
reflects badly on those who make it.
Derek Stevenson
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> catshark <cats...@my-deja.com> writes:
[snip]
> >"Power", "might", "warning", "victim", eh? Boy, Howard, you sure do
> >a lot with just a computer and a modem.
>
> ...and oodles of allies. A habitual liar like Howard
> would not get anywhere without allies and toadies
> to bombard anyone who dares to show how dishonest
> and hypocritical he is.
[snip]
> I think they do this out of fear that I will start aiding the
> better creationists in exposing the weaknesses of so many
> of the arguments they use, as I actually have done in the
> past on occasion, and so they try to keep me busy with
> wild accusations:
There's a way to render this strategy completely ineffective, Peter.
Do you know what it is?
[snip]
Peter Nyikos
>Roger Schlafly wrote:
>>
>> Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> > >making a serious calculation). One would think that a *real*
>> > >mathematician would have noted that this was not meant to be a serious
>> > >calculation
>> > It is worded as though it were a serious rough estimate:
>> > Only the immensity of time guaranteed the result, for time
>> > converts the improbable to the inevitable--give me a million
>> > years and I'll flip a hundred heads in a row more than once. [p.218]
>>
>> Yes, it sounds to me like Gould meant it to be a serious calculation.
>And you are basing this conclusion on what? Peter Nyikos' opinion?
>Peter is as utterly incompetent at reading any essay in context as you
>are,
I re-read it last night, and I am pleased to report
that my reading of it is far better than yours,
and that I caught another howler at the end.
A howler that is carefully couched with "may" but
still showing how out of touch Gould is with
cosmology. Cosmologists have long agreed that
only hydrogen and helium were produced in all but
the minutest traces during the big bang, while
the rest of the elements have been produced in
the stars.
I've deleted the rest of what you wrote, which I will deal with at my
leisure. You are a sorry apologist for Gould, of that you
may be sure.
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
Derek Stevenson
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> Derek Stevenson <dstev...@my-deja.com> writes:
> >In article <2001020522...@milo.math.sc.edu>,
> > Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> >> I meant, in this particular essay. Gould has done a lot
> >> of original thinking, of that there can be no doubt.
>
> >I suspect that Roger doubts it. Perhaps you might care to discuss the
> >matter with him.
>
> Glad to do so, if your suspicion is correct. What reason
> have you for thinking it is? Is this part of a
> personal vendetta of yours against Roger?
I've read what he's posted.
You seem to be unable to comprehend that such a straightforward
cause-and-effect relationship -- devoid of reference to packs,
alliances, boot-lickers or whatever -- can exist, but there it is.
> >Or are your personal vendettas more important?
>
> I am only concerned with truth and justice. If you were
> to start behaving with justice, I would not attack you.
Uh-huh.
We'll see how you deal with Roger.
> But I doubt that justice is more important to you
> than the victory of the gay rights and privileges movement
> [what I have heretofore called the gay liberation
> movement, but I think my new term is more accurate]
> to take just one example of many. Hence your solidarity
> with the man, Hershey, who repeatedly libeled me concerning my
> attitude towards that (highly heterogeneous) movement.
Huh? What is this all about?
Oh, wait -- I see. It's an attempt at guilt by association.
Nice try, but it comes off much like Slartibarfast's approach to threats
-- "I've never been very good at them, but I'm told they can be terribly
effective."
Which, I wonder, is the more damning association in Peter's mind -- the
gay rights movement, or Howard?
Derek Stevenson
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> Derek Stevenson <dstev...@my-deja.com> writes:
> >In article <2001020522...@milo.math.sc.edu>,
> > Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> >> >So I'm a "Gould-idolizer" now? How silly of you. I was merely
> >> >pointing out, as others have done, that for Roger to scour
> >> >everything Gould has written
> >>
> >> What makes you think he is doing that?
>
> Derek was too wrapped up in his vendetta against me to
> say anything here, I guess.
Telepathic powers functioning with their usual acuity, I see.
Since this is essentially the same as "Where did the obsessive hounding
take place?", below, I deal with it below.
> >> >even in fields unrelated to biology, apparently rechecking every
> >> >computation he performs to see if it's correct,
>
> Derek apparently doesn't give a fig for truth and justice,
> because he never questioned this provocative statement by
> Adam, yet made smart alecky remarks about my
> own concern for truth and justice below.
Because it pretty much sums up the attitude Roger has demonstrated to Gould.
> >> >is pretty darn close to an unhealthy obsession. Of course Gould
> >> >makes mistakes, and I do think he overestimates the impact of some
> >> >of his work. But this obsessive hounding of him is very strange
> >> >behavior to engage in.
>
> >> Where did the obsessive hounding take place? See below.
>
> >I guess I may have been a bit too subtle a week or so back when I
> >inquired about the usual age at which children become aware of the
> >concept of "object permanence" in response to one of Peter's posts,
> >so let me be more direct.
>
> >Peter, things happen even when you're not around.
>
> You ducked the question.
Subtlety is utterly wasted on you, I see.
It happened when you weren't looking. Roger didn't turn up yesterday; he
has been posting here since September. The fact that you didn't notice
doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
> >Perhaps it's true that a pack of rabid anti-creationists are
> >viciously libelling an innocent who refuses to toe the party line.
>
> The put-downs about fear for Roger's sanity don't amount
> to vicious libel. Adam's, for instance, is still a good
> ways even from just plain libel.
Har har. (Or do you not recognize a parody of your own attitude when you
see it?)
> >Or perhaps the participants in this discussion are responding to a
> >pattern of behavior displayed in threads which you haven't seen.
>
> Thanks for making it abundantly clear, with your "perhaps",
> that you are ducking the question.
As you are mine. I was asking about *your* thought patterns, Peter. Can
you conceive of the possibility that people are actually responding to
Roger's past statements, rather than merely piling-on in order to stay
in the good graces of the leaders of the Pack?
It may not be invited in to put its feet up and get comfortable, but
does the idea at least make an appearance at your mind's front door?
[snip]
> >> >> Roger seems to have read very little of Gould.
> >>
> >> I stand by that statement. Roger could, of course,
> >> claim otherwise. Until he does, I don't see why
> >> people claim he is obsessed with Gould.
>
> >Perhaps because they have had discussions with him that you haven't
> >seen?
>
> There you go again with your "perhaps".
Yes, there I go again. Do you consider it a possibility that this has
taken place?
> Anyway, thanks for cutting the ground out from under "catshark,"
> who claimed it should be obvious to me that he was kidding
> about Roger having a monomania.
What's "catshark" to me, or me to "catshark"?
> >> What's more, Gould is not afraid to criticize his fellow
> >> biologists, sometimes scathingly, including the part in _Eight
> >> Little Piggies_ where he relates how professional biologists lie
> >> about each other in articles, and how his own father calls this to
> >> his attention. He wryly comments that his father just could not
> >> fathom how research scientists could be capable of such things.
>
> >Doesn't this exchange strike you as being just the least bit *odd*,
> >Peter?
>
> Don't you ever tire of being so indirect, and never saying
> where you stand?
Who's being indirect? It's a question about how your mind works, about
whether you're capable of thinking objectively about your behavior and
how it appears to others.
> >Above, we have Roger making a couple of statements which you
> >clearly reject, displaying an ignorance of Gould's work that's
> >evident even to you.
>
> Lack of familiarity with most, is the way it seems to me.
>
> Like your lack of familiarity with most of what I post.
"Is not in awe of its genius" != "is not familiar with".
> >Yet instead of taking *Roger* to task, you view this as yet another
> >opportunity to launch an assault on your favourite adversaries.
>
> I've said numerous times, I don't believed in overkill.
> My "favourite" adversaries are well supplied with scumbags like
> yourself, ready to do their dirty work for them, as well
> as all the other people on this thread who are dumping on Schlafly
> and me.
>
> More to the point, there is a broad campaign in this thread
> to whitewash Gould's mistakes thru *ad hominem* attacks on
> Schlafly and, more recently, me.
That's an interesting view of the thread's history.
The alternative view -- and again, I'd like to know if this is an idea
that flickers even for a moment across your mind -- is that Roger is
using a fairly minor error to bolster *his* standard ad hominem attack
on Gould, and that people aren't falling for it.
> Doesn't it strike you as being a bit strange that you have not a
> single negative word to say about Gould, while leaping on this
> spacious bandwagon?
No. I'm more interested in the curious behavior of certain of the
participants than in what Gould said.
You don't think Roger is motivated by a serious desire to rectify an
error, do you?
> >If you're truly here as a guardian of truth and justice, as you
> >claim, shouldn't you be challenging false statements, and endorsing
> >accurate ones, regardless of who makes them?
>
> Where's the false statement? I'm trying to suss out what Roger
> meant by his statement
> "I have never found anything...",
> up there. Does he mean "anything I have
> read from one end to the other" for instance?
>
> >> That is exactly the kind of reverence for scientists
> >> which Gans, Myers, Hershey,
> >> "yojimbo5681", Cox, Silberstein, Syvanen, and many, many
> >> others cynically exploit in this newsgroup. They know
> >> a great many of the anti-creationists here have a similar
> >> lofty view of scientists that Gould's father did, but
> >> have yet to discover just how thoroughly dishonest
> >> some scientists can be.
> >>
> >> Hence, they are very vigorous in shooting the bearers
> >> of *any* bad news about scientists like Gould, lest
> >> they stop hero-worshipping anti-creationist scientists in general.
>
> Unable to counter this, Derek goes in for something bordering
> on libel:
>
> >Whereas *you* exhibit precisely the opposite behavior. The enemy of
> >your enemies, no matter how foolish, hostile or uninformed, is always
> >your friend. Is that any better?
>
> No, it is a shameless falsehood. I'd like to see you try and name a
> few such "friends" of mine,
Well, they rarely turn out to be friends, but that's a whole 'nother story.
> and try to back the statement you've just made in full.
Sorry, Peter. Unlike some people, I don't obsessively compile everything
said by, to or about the folks I happen to disagree with, so I can't
provide you with the complete list as requested. It's just a pattern
that I perceive in your behavior here.
If you're interested, however, you could always do a Deja search on
posts I've made containing the phrase "White Knight" or "Fair Maiden",
in which I comment on examples of this pattern as they crop up.
Derek Stevenson
Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> Derek Stevenson <dstev...@my-deja.com> writes:
[snip]
> >No, Peter's issue is much more primal: "Pack bad. Enemy of Pack
> >good".
>
> You are projecting your own unalloyed vendatta against me
> on me. The following is a classic illustration of how far
> you are willing to carry this vendetta of yours:
>
> >I suspect Peter would be in there slugging away on Roger's behalf if
> >Roger had described the Pope as an axe murderer, provided the Pack
> >had objected.
>
> If you are sincere, your sanity is seriously to be
> questioned.
>
> I expect you and your fellow Roger-bashers
> to yammer about "hyperbole" without
> attempting to touch the issue of how MUCH of a hyperbole it is.
>
> The fact is, I doubt that you or anyone else can come
> up with a TRUTHFUL statement along the lines of this
> insane-seeming claim of yours.
It's kind of a pointless exercise, inasmuch as anything said by a Pack
member or follower is apparently by definition unTRUTHFUL, but:
"You have a tendency to come to the defense of anyone severely
criticised by certain regular participants in this group without taking
much time to examine that person's posting history or past statements."
And yes, it's probably a bit unfair to say that you would back up --
well, let's stop picking on Roger and call him "John Doe" instead -- if
he were to claim that the post is an axe murderer. The usual pattern
would go something like this:
- John Doe appears on the group and begins to make questionable or
counterfactual statements indicating both a lack of knowledge and a
pronounced anti-Catholic bias, including the axe-murderer allegation.
- Several t.o. regulars respond to these statements.
- John Doe responds with additional outrageous statements.
- Several regulars respond, this time with additional heat.
- John Doe responds ...
Anyway, repeat the above process twenty or thirty times, until ...
- T.o. regulars set upon John Doe with considerable vehemence.
- Peter Nyikos realizes that John Doe exists, and that some of the
regulars, including people he has clashed with in the past, aren't being
very nice to him.
- Peter Nyikos chimes in, proclaiming that this perfectly beastly
behavior is part of the usual pattern of malfeasance (backed up by much
reposting and revisiting of ancient grievances) and that John Doe really
isn't such a bad chap after all -- never, mind, you, having taken the
effort to find out what John Doe has said in the past.
You will not, of course, recall anything of the sort having happened in
the past, but that too is part of the pattern ...
Peter Nyikos
>[snip]
>[snip]
Yes. To cease caring about dishonesty and injustice,
and to join in the massive overkill of creationists,
adding just one more voice to the vast throng of
people who have the creationists humiliatingly outnumbered
and outclassed.
However, to judge by what Paul Myers told me in e-mail,
it is insufficient to reason with creationists, "because
that is just what they want", while Gans claims "that
just plays into their hands". So until I join in
personal attacks on creationists, people will probably
be trying to avenge old exposes I did of them.
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
University of South Carolina
Tracy P. Hamilton
"Derek Stevenson" <dstev...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:95s88v$vqo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Allow me to make some further UNMARKED changes to the text, to what Derek
SHOULD have said. Thos who want the original have to go to that post.
> And yes, it's probably a bit unfair to say that you would back up --
> well, let's stop picking on Roger and call him "Don Quixote" instead -- if
> he were to claim that the post is an axe murderer. The usual pattern
> would go something like this:
>
> - Don Quixote appears on the group and begins to make questionable or
> counterfactual statements indicating both a lack of knowledge and a
> pronounced anti-Catholic bias, including the axe-murderer allegation.
>
> - Several t.o. regulars respond to these statements.
>
> - Don Quixote responds with additional outrageous statements.
>
> - Several regulars respond, this time with additional heat.
>
> - Don Quixote responds ...
>
> Anyway, repeat the above process twenty or thirty times, until ...
>
> - T.o. regulars set upon Don Quixote with considerable vehemence.
>
> - Sancho Panza realizes that Don Quixote exists, and that some of the
> regulars, including people he has clashed with in the past, aren't being
> very nice to him.
>
> - Sancho Panza chimes in, proclaiming that this perfectly beastly
> behavior is part of the usual pattern of malfeasance (backed up by much
> reposting and revisiting of ancient grievances) and that Don Quixote
really
> isn't such a bad chap after all -- never, mind, you, having taken the
> effort to find out what Don Quixote has said in the past.
>
> You will not, of course, recall anything of the sort having happened in
> the past, but that too is part of the pattern ...
I know it doesn't fit exactly. Ask me if I care.
Tracy P. Hamilton
Martin Crisp
the 'To' and 'Newsgroups' headers for details. ]]
On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 3:11:46 +1100, Peter Nyikos wrote
(in message <2001020616...@milo.math.sc.edu>):
> Howard Hershey <hers...@indiana.edu> writes:
[chomp]
> Fanaticism, thy name is Howard Hershey.
Laughing this hard may be hazardous to my health.
=> <PLONK>
Have Fun
Martin
--
Kinky:
What I do that you wouldn't
Perverted:
What you do that I wouldn't
David C. Fritzinger
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Derek Stevenson <dstev...@my-deja.com> writes:
>
> >In article <2001020522...@milo.math.sc.edu>,
> > Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote:
> >> "Adam Marczyk" <ebon...@excite.com> writes:
> >> >Peter Nyikos <nyi...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message
> >> >news:2001020517...@milo.math.sc.edu...
>
> >> >> Monkey see, monkey do. Gould-idolizers like Howard
> >> >> and Adam and "catshark" start casting hypocritical aspersions
> >> >> on Roger's sanity, so others like Greg T-K get into
> >> >> the act too. See below.
> >>
> >> >So I'm a "Gould-idolizer" now? How silly of you. I was merely
> >> >pointing out, as others have done, that for Roger to scour everything
> >> >Gould has written
> >>
> >> What makes you think he is doing that?
>
> Derek was too wrapped up in his vendetta against me to
> say anything here, I guess.
>
> [Big Snip]
Rant on...
Peter, you have to realize that people don't have vendettas against you. They
just get sick and tired of your jamming the threads with your accusations,
etc. Again, if you must continue this line of posting, please just start your
own thread, or your own newsgroup, so you can tell everyone about all of the
injustices you've faced, real or imagined, without destroying threads that I,
and others, care to read.
Thank you.
Rant off.
Dave Fritzinger
>
>
> Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
and...@my-deja.com
Like most evolutionist claims, your argument is directly contradicted
by the evidence. In fact, you and others care very much to read
Peter's postings, and even spend time trying (unsuccessfully) to rebut
them.
Maybe there's a way you can persuade your partisan t.o moderator to
block Peter's ISP, as so many other ISP's are already blocked from
posting here!
Andy