Open Thread: Lioness
by Bradford
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Featured Books
The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues by Mike Gene 
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body 
Catalyzing Inquiry at the Interface of Computing and Biology 
System Modeling in Cellular Biology: From Concepts to Nuts and Bolts 
The Plausibility of Life By Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart 
Agents Under Fire by Angus Menuge 
Life's Solution by Simon Conway Morris 
Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life by Hubert P. Yockey 
The Fifth Miracle by Paul Davies 
Nature, Design, and Science by Del Ratzsch 
Origination of Organismal Form by Muller & Newman 
Biased Embryos and Evolution by Wallace Arthur 
Rare Earth by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee 
The Privileged Planet by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards 
The Way of the Cell by Franklin Harold 
The Volitional Brain by Benjamin Libet 
Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka & Marion Lamb 
The Evolution-Creation Struggle by Michael Ruse
June 24th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
"Do I like rabbits? Of course I like rabbits."
Comment by Bilbo — June 24, 2009 @ 8:41 pm
June 25th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Hey, speaking of disingenuous our tax cheating Wall Street mogul Secretary of the Treasury is struggling to find ways to get the economy moving without setting off a round of inflation. But Geithner has the teflon afforded by being one who institutes policies aimed at ever expanding government. Is a guy like that disingenuous? Nah, but he would be if he advocated intelligent design. It's one thing to cheat the government, another thing to cheat the taxpayer. That can be forgiven. But don't insinuate that naturalism is insufficient. That's really offensive.
Comment by Bradford — June 25, 2009 @ 6:25 pm
June 25th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Bradford,
What makes him not disingenuous is that he doesn't really understand the conflict you are pointing out. That the government can and should solve all problems is ingrained in our politicians' heads, but we shouldn't ignore that it is voters, and not just liberal voters, that ingrained it.
Comment by don provan — June 25, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
June 25th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Hi Bradford,
If I understand it, the financial debacle that we are currently in is a result of not enough government regulation. In 1999, the Republican Congress and the Democratic President officially created the derivatives market but refused to regulate it. That market has resulted in trillions of dollars in speculation that AIG was allowed to insure.
I disagree with the way the Bush and Obama administrations and the Federal Reserve have tried to deal with the mess, which is basically trying to cover the bad bets.
Comment by Bilbo — June 25, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
June 25th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
BLOG YOUR WAY TO ANTARCTICA:
FWIW, I voted for Wesley Elsberry (here's his essay) but I've read several other good entries there, too.
Comment by Rob R. — June 25, 2009 @ 8:46 pm
June 26th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Hardcover Nonfiction #1 bestseller- LIBERTY AND TYRANNY, by Mark R. Levin. The New York times Best Sellers Way to go Mark.
Comment by Bradford — June 26, 2009 @ 8:56 am
June 26th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I just got a hold of The Ages of Everything. I was away on a trip when Olegt recommended the book, and I just returned.
I'm starting to read it as I have time (in between other books).
Thanks to Olegt for recommending this book.
I couldn't help but jump to the section on general relativity briefly:
I am surprised that there hasn't been something done to make GR and Special Relativity recouched into a classical approach by redefining electrodynamics.
We can take one system and functionally transform it into another to make the math a little more elegant. In classical mechanics we often will resort to moving cooridinate systems or use eigen value methods to find an optimal set of coordinate axes to perform math.
In order to deal with the problems which electromagnetism posed for galilean transformations, Lorentz suggested what we now call Lorentz transformations. I described the resolution of this problem which Lorentz provided here:
Lorentz Covariance and the Creationist Maxwell's Equations. But couldn't we equivalently redefine electromagnetism to such that the transformations revert to the Galliean form?
Here is an attempt to revise the equations of electrodynamics in order to merge Special Relativity with Classical Mechanics. A slight correction to Maxwell's equations resulted, which should in principle be measurable experimentally.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 26, 2009 @ 9:26 am
June 26th, 2009 at 9:35 am
There might be ways of relating a Euclidean to an Non-Euclidean geometry. For example here is an analysis of a Spherical Triangle.
It would seem that our use of a euclidean or non-euclidean geometry is somewhat dependent on how we prefer to perceive something. They can fundamentally describe the same things, but each with a different language. One language, however, might result in more elegant mathematical analyses.
For certain sophisticated aircraft navigation, the non-euclidean approach can be more viable given that the Earth is spherical.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 26, 2009 @ 9:35 am
June 26th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Hi Salvador. Out of curiosity what do you intend to do after getting a degree studying physics?
Comment by Bradford — June 26, 2009 @ 11:13 am
June 26th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Oops, I forgot to provide a link to Dr. Lucas' work.
Lucas Force Law
Dr. Lucas deals with the issue of the Lorentz transformation which is very central to Maxwell's equations and Einstein's relativity.
For the reader's benefit, Maxwell's equations are not a mere theoretical musing. Maxwell's equations unitfy theories of electricity, magnetism, and optics. The modern world of engineering would not be able to create all their magical devices (like radios, microwave ovens, radar, cell phones, tv's, etc. etc.) without Maxwell's equations. Amendments to maxwell's work must be done with enormous reverence and care!
Dr. Lucas suggest a very minor change. I met him, and hope to follow up with him someday.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 26, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
June 26th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
As far as a profession, I probably will still be involved in trading financial derivatives as I am doing now. That is my current source of income. Physics and finance go hand in hand in the modern financial derivatives market.
Since I am only a part-time MS student, I won't be done for another 3 years. After that, God willing, it will be a matter of deciding if I can get through a PhD program, probably in some kind of physics intensive bio-engineering or nano-molecular engineering. I hope by God's grace to keep earning income from derivatives trading while I'm studying engineering. Understanding physics is very appropriate to doing engineering. In fact, at the Applied Physics Lab, in my physics classes, half the students are engineers. There seems to be great portability between the two disciplines (one of my undergrads was in electrical engineering ). And at APL, many of the physics students are re-treads from the engineering world (like me).
There is a lot of physics involved in understanding the 3-D architecture of proteins. Even though we can easily list the amino acids in sequential order which compose a protein, acutally understanding how proteins have some of their magical properties requires a lot of physics (recall the protein folding problem!).
But understanding molecular biology is not far from topics in nano-molecular engineering.
Building molecular machines is insanely difficult even with today's best technology. Because of all the quantum noise and brownian motion one needs lots of:
1. error correction
2. self-healing
We don't have a lot of technology on methods of building such machines. When we build cars today, we don't give much thought to buidling a self-healing car, but at the nano-molecular level, machines don't last very long without self-healing, other wise, they get disposed of. Recall that cells are constantly dumping expended machines that have worn out ( proteins are a form of machine).
When you look throgh a microscope of bacteria you seel all that brownian motion. Those machines are taking a constant pounding.
Finally, I'm very interested in a topic Olegt brought up here regarding the Gaia space probe. I've not be able to use the telicthoughts search engine to find the discussion I had with Olegt about 1 or 2 months ago. But I will summarize briefly.
Olegt mentioned a particular space probe called Gaia which will fly in 2011.
The YECs will have much to celebrate if the space probe returns anomalous results.
The probe is expected to accurately measure distances out to some 30,000 light years using parallax methods. There has been a brewing debate as to whether quasars are billions of light years away or are actually nearby (as in a few thousand light years!). We actually don't know because our parallax methods are good only out to a few hundred light years.
I hope to talk to Dr. Lucas regarding what we expect to gather from the Gaia space probe. I'm going to Minnesota this week to coordinate with some of the physicists there regarding the expected results of the space probe. I mentioned at TelicThoughts the NPA (Natural Philosophy Alliance) which met at the Unviersity of Connecticut this past Spring under the sponsorship of Dr. Domina Spencer (an MIT PhD in math and physics). There are some elements of the NPA in Minnesota!
Also there is a professor of astrometry at Yale I hope to talk to who is an expert in astrometry (the measurement of distance using parallax). Here is a very good astrometric argument that quasars are close:
Proper Motion of Quasars
So Gaia, could return some interesting results if they are willing to ask forbidden questions.
As far as ID, I'm confident Darwinsim and materialistic OOL will self-destruct on their own demerits. The fact that people without a lot of vested religious interest (like Jack Trevors, Don Johnson, Michael Denton, David Berlinski, …) so many others have been critical of materialistic OOL and Darwinism suggest to me the trend away from the blind acceptance of Darwinism and materialistic OOL will continue.
Thus, I don't expect that I will be researching ID.
In the meantime, over the summer break, I hope to hook up with Walter ReMine and John Sanford regarding their important work on population genetics. I might be helping Dr. Sanford and Walter put together youtube videos explaining their important work.
If successful, I might help put together news videos and Mp3's. I interviewed Dr. Stephen Meyer last night. In a month or so, I hope to release the interview. I asked some pointed questions!
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 26, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
June 26th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Mike Gene once remarked that an ideal combination for an IDist would be an engineering background combined with a science. But as you're pointing out there is much more that can be done with that combination.
Folding and sequencing are related in that function transitions are impacted. There is no smooth continuum. In fact the unpredictability inherent to protein folding and amino acid substitutions make the already speculative evolution of novel systems ever more problematic. Despite what Darwinian critics claim IC is not a dead issue.
The latter is at the cutting edge of attempts to fully understand the former.
Yet some hand wave the suggestion of design. When profound obstacles prevent the construction of what allegedly results from unguided and unknown physical dynamics, then at the very least a modicum of humility should guide sincere critics of ID.
If I find this exchange I'll let you know.
Good luck. You do get around. If you ever decide it is worthwhile doing a teaser guest thread at TT on any of your activities let me know.
Comment by Bradford — June 26, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
June 27th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
The Intersection: John Wilkins is Making Sense (from Discover Blogs)
Read these and immediately thought of TT. I'm curious what some of atheist commenters[sic?*] here think of the so-called "accommodationist argument."
*what the heck do you call one whom posts comments on a blog?? Apparently, according to my spell-checker, "commenters" isn't a word. I seem to remember Oleg(?) taking offense at "TT member" (which I thought was the correct usage.) *shrug*
Comment by Rob R. — June 27, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
June 30th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
California is a harbinger of things to come for the nation as a whole. At one time the state was known for technological innovation; leading the nation in that direction. Today California has the worse credit rating in the country. Too much unfinanced spending and little willingness on the part of taxpayers to finance continued folly. Obama's not listening. It could be too late when we awaken from this fiscal nightmare. It's not all that difficult. Live within your means. Governments included.
here
Comment by Bradford — June 30, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
June 30th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Give me your money. I want a monument to myself. Maxine Waters- proud Porker of the Month.
Comment by Bradford — June 30, 2009 @ 9:48 pm
July 1st, 2009 at 6:23 am
Yeah, that's what happens when you break your economy.
Still channeling Herbert Hoover.
The U.S. alone lost $6 trillion in residential equity, about $4 trillion in commercial equity, trillions more in retirement savings. This great transfer of wealth has already grossly distorted the markets and left millions of people who worked hard and played by the rules much poorer (and others far richer than they deserved). The U.S. had little choice but to take actions to stabilize the markets.
You may rail. You may shake your fist at the sky. You may curse the Fates. But the money is already gone. All that is left is to pick up the pieces. Oh, and try to learn a lesson from the string of debacles that constituted the Bush Administration. Don't abandon "reality" again.
Comment by Zachriel — July 1, 2009 @ 6:23 am
July 1st, 2009 at 7:17 am
No. I'm hoping that we begin to lose the candyman approach to gubbermint which holds that we can spend and borrow without regard to consequences. California is waking up to the consequences of years of that foolishness.
Government ownership of large segments of the economy does not stabilize markets. History has shown over and over again that centralized economies do not work. But are lessons ever learned by leftists? No. Obama is now pondering a second stimulus package after the first disaster. He's clueless. A largely pork barrel approach does not stimulate the economy. Giving billions to state governments merely postponed the needed wake up call to fiscal reality.
Yes, almost 10 trillion in spending is gone. A pointless burden on posterity that has brought us little in return.
That excuse is wearing thin. You're going to have to think of another one for the guy running the show for more than five months and counting.
Comment by Bradford — July 1, 2009 @ 7:17 am
July 1st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
From Yahoo News:
States without budgets as key deadline passes
It's not just California in trouble:
Irresponsible governing has its consequences. Needed is less government, not more taxes.
Comment by Bradford — July 1, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 am
California has balanced budget laws which make it illegal for them to spend more than the general fund revenues for the fiscal year. This is part of why they hit the crisis state faster than other states, when their revenues declined due to unemployment and decreased property taxes their spending power was immediately curbed. On the other hand, in theory this should put California in a much better position to recover once the economy picks up. California should be a great lesson for future generations of economists debating deficit spending verse balanced budgets. If they truly recover faster then balanced budgets will be vindicated, but if their more constrained spending slows their recovery then a case will be made for government stimulus. Personally I expect them to recover more quickly thus demonstrating the value of balanced budget.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — July 2, 2009 @ 9:59 am
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 am
I agree with much of what you wrote but would point out that California's economic fortunes are so intertwined with the economies of the other states that unilateral action by California can not control the course of their economy even in theory.
Comment by Bradford — July 2, 2009 @ 10:48 am
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
here
Comment by Bradford — July 3, 2009 @ 3:15 pm
July 4th, 2009 at 9:33 am
The U.S. has had a mixed system since the 1930's, including sizeable government control and regulation of large sectors of the economy. Is that why the U.S. economy has stagnated since 1933?
No one is suggesting a centralized economy. The juxtaposition of your two statements illustrates your confusion.
Government spending, short of preexisting full employment, does stimulate the economy—in the short run. This is a basic fact of economics. The problem is that such spending can lead to long term problems, such as debt and inflation.
Sigh. Ten trillion and more in wealth, overnight. This damage to the free markets is very serious when those who played by the rules are made poorer and the undeserving richer. You can't just pretend this didn't undermine the markets and that you can just keep on going as before.
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 9:33 am
July 4th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Of course not. Judge by actions not words. In less than a year the US government has acquired control and ownership over large segments of the economy. Our largest automaker- GM. The banking system. Chrysler. And environmental regulatory controls, extended over utilities will force up electricity costs substantially. But it's not becoming more centralized. Nah. Denial works for a while.
It shows you're living in a fantasy world that will be exposed by economic realities in the near and long term future. We're headed the way of California.
That's a neat slight of hand pulled off by Obama. A 780 billion stimulus bill and the economy is
stimulated?No it's not. It's leftist mythology. Economies grow because of what does and does not occur in the private sector where innovation and output occur.
Too bad that posterity will have to deal with the latter and the onset of inflation is often delayed just long enough to allow its architects political cover through obfuscation of responsibility.
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 10:16 am
July 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Sorry, you're already there. The last U.S. administration ran their economy into the ground and took the world economy with it. The distortion is in the range of tens of trillions of dollars just in the U.S., and it took a bailout to keep the system from complete collapse.
The biggest stimulus in U.S. history was WWII. It was largely financed by massive deficit spending. The economy surged. I'm not sure where you get your facts from, but they're clearly not from history.
If you want to discuss the long term problems associated with stimulus spending, or the lack of political will required to correct such problems, then that would be a reasonable line of argument.
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 10:31 am
July 4th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Bradford, those sectors were in collapse. They were bankrupt and threatening the entire system. Your pretense that you can keep the old system has been thoroughly discredited. You have to reach deep into the bowels of FoxNews to find an economist who doesn't think the U.S. economy was threatened with systemic collapse.
A trend is not a destination. Most of those businesses will be returned to the private sector, but there should be significant new regulatory controls to prevent a repeat of the debacle. You do understand the global banking system was in seizure and that this impacted all sectors of the economy, including jobs?
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 10:43 am
July 4th, 2009 at 10:46 am
This is a creed used to justify ever more governmental control over people's lives. The economy is in horrible shape after
Bush'sObama's "stimulus" spending. Employmet is hovering close to 10 percent. Eventually people will turn on the present power clique once the scales fall from their eyes.WWII is not analogous to what is taking place today. During the war millions of men were given jobs fighting Nazis while millions of women entered the work force for the first time- a stituation not about to be duplicated. The war destroyed the economies of old Europe, placed America's in preeminance and put a Marshall Plan into effect which allowed rebuilding in very unique circumstances- from the ground up. There is nothing comparable today. The war also put an end to the WWI debt system that had stricken the German economy and deepened the world wide depression. There is no world wide depression today which is all the more reason radical revision of our basic economy in favor of socialism is uncalled for.
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 10:46 am
July 4th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Economic collapse as in double digit unemployment rates, an economy that is going backwards, spending that is forfeiting our grandchildrens' futures and government takeovers of huge segments of the economy a la Eastern Europe. As I have pointed out. Obamaites cannot wriggle out of this unless the economy is put back together. It is looking like the solution is a collapse to millions of unemployed. This is political death if not turned around.
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 10:51 am
July 4th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Someone please send Bradford an introductory Macroeconomics textbook. I would do it myself if I had Bradford's address.
Comment by Raevmo — July 4, 2009 @ 11:02 am
July 4th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Raevmo's usual flair for brilliant come backs.
Hey my Mr. Green works.
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 11:06 am
July 4th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Duh. That's the whole point.
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 11:50 am
July 4th, 2009 at 11:57 am
So Obama's going to put millions into the armed forces but since women are already employed en masse the whole point is exactly what?
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 11:57 am
July 4th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
The point was that government spending acts as a stimulus when there is less than full employment. And you explained it quite well. It put unemployed people to work. The economy rapidly expanded.
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 12:04 pm
July 4th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
What you're missing is the falseness of your analogies. There was a huge rerservior of competent and able employees ready to step into the gaps during WWII. They are called women. It was new back then. Not so now. In addition the government paid GIs peanuts with a few K rations thrown in. The analogy to today is what- a draft or government employment at GS pay scales?
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 12:10 pm
July 4th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
And those gaps were created by men being employed elsewhere. It is a clear instance of a stimulus leading to full employment and a surging economy. There is now ~10% unemployment in the U.S. That is a sufficient resevoir for a stimulus to create a boost in economic activity. You might argue about the problems inherent in a stimulus, but not that there is no stimulative effect.
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
July 4th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
It's a clear instance of a false analogy. You've avoided the specific questions. What would millions be employed doing. Shuffling government papers?
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
July 4th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
You say that, but your previous argument failed. The fact is that government spending can provide a short term stimulus. Can you provide some support from economics that this is not the case?
In terms of short term stimulus, it doesn't matter. They could build tanks and ship them off to Europe. Or they could build new infrastructure or invest in science, education and health care in order to provide some long term benefit. It's not a difficult concept. Can you provide some support from economics that this is not the case?
Comment by Zachriel — July 4, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
July 4th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Zachriel:
Glad you asked Zach. Contemporary USA. 780 billion dollar stimulus bill passed in Feb. 2009. On Independence Day the economy is in trouble. Unemployment hovering around 10%. Contracting economy. Shyrocketing budget deficits. Many states in trouble. California, a state which would be the sixth largest economy in the world if an independent state, is issuing IOUs instead of payment checks to creditors. Federal government needing to borrow an additional trillion come the next fiscal year (Oct 2009). Markets due to be impacted. Will have to raise interests rates or risk an inflationary spiral. The USA foolishly implements envirnomental regulations that will cost consumers this coming winter. Stocks down. Pension plans hurt. The effect of government spending? Obviously not averting this mountain of economic woes. Aside from this all is well. I mean the President is entertaining. Lots of charisma. Only problem is one can't pay bills with charisma.
Comment by Bradford — July 4, 2009 @ 6:39 pm