The Borneo Monster

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of...

And to think, a large creature like this might still exist and not have been detected or catalogued after two hundred years of natural philosophy.

Let's hope it's real!

"I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade."

Interesting article in the New York Times, which yes, sometimes has stuff worth reading. Rarely, but it does happen.

At one point, a kinesiology student is quoted with the line in the title: "putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade."

This is the thing I want to dispute, because with an adult assessment of the problem, one sees immediately that it is not true. The thing grades are supposed to reflect is a student's mastery of the material. If a student has put in a lot of effort and hasn't mastered the material, then it definitely should NOT be rewarded with a high grade.

This argument is better understood if you don't think about it as "writing papers and getting an A, B, C, D or F." Instead, imagine that the classroom is Kodiak Island, and the assignment is to survive a bear attack. Depending upon your mastery of such skills as "running fast," "throwing the bear off your scent trail," "shooting high powered rifles accurately," or possibly "shouting and screaming at the bear until it decides you are more dangerous than he is," you may pass the assignment.

Any of the above skills, applied with a sufficient degree of mastery will earn you a grade of "survives unscathed," "survives with minor injuries," or "survives with major injuries." Lacking mastery will earn grades of "badly mauled and maimed for life," or else "killed and eaten."

Now if a person tries to run, and runs with all their effort as best they possibly can, and the bear still catches up with them (which is probable), then their effort won't matter when they receive the grade of "killed and eaten." If a person tries to use the rifle and doesn't kill the charging bruin, their efforts won't be much appreciated by the dread jaws of their evaluator. On the other hand, the person who drops the bear with a high caliber bullet through the left eyeball deserves the grade of "survives unscathed" since he or she has displayed full mastery of the skills required to complete this assignment.

Homework reflects real life. It's supposed to at any rate. Effort doesn't count in life. Only results.

The Stupidity of Popular Science

In many ways, I feel sorry for the family who now has to undergo this. They loved their boy, and wanted him cured. So they took him to some ex-Soviet era scientists to try what may politely be called a "controversial" treatment. The use of fetal stem cells.

With predictably bad results. Poor kid.

I say "predictably" bad, because there are things about fetal stem cells which make them obviously bad medicine and bad science. This is altogether independent of the moral dimension of using the flesh of a baby that has been killed as a life-extender for someone else. That aspect reminds me of certain horrendous Irish fairy tales.

But from the SCIENTIFIC merits alone, fetal stem cells have always been an unpromising waste of money. There is the two-fold issue involved with them that is an apparently unsolvable paradox. On the one hand, the cells are foreign tissue, and a recipient's immune system must be suppressed if the cells are not to be attacked and destroyed by the recipient's body. This is a situation that often results in the recipient's death. On the other hand, the cells are capable of turning into any tissue... including cancerous ones or else just benign tumors. And there is precious little that keeps them from doing so. Except for the patient's immune system, which would have suppresed the tumors... if it hadn't been suppressed so that the cells wouldn't be rejected in the first place.

The more one suppresses the immune system, the greater the probability of tumor growth. The more one fights against tumors, the greater the chance that the immune system will reject the tumors.

Ultimately, if you ran a drug company and had any other drug that caused tumor growth or tissue rejection in two thirds of all who take it and no effect in one third, you would throw that drug in the trash and never look at it again. I often wonder why that doesn't happen with fetal stem cell technology, especially since ADULT stem cell technology avoids the twin problem rather handily.

Economic Folly

I'm reading this article which says that sales figures rose "unexpectedly" and "defied economists' predictions." I've read several articles like this one, and they have phrases of predicted doom such as this:

...which marked the weakest holiday selling season since at least 1969.
"This is a big surprise, though the net rise in sales is less impressive than it looks because (December and November) were revised down by 0.3 percent each," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note. "The headline relief today is welcome but it is unlikely to last."

Now, I work in a scientific field, where if the facts don't work out the way the model predicts, we assume the model is wrong. Facts, as John Adams once said, are stubborn things. I am not going to say that the economic woes of this country are over, especially since I am convinced my government is going to be working 24 hours a day to make sure they continue. However, the model predicted a worse economic situation than the one which appeared. People didn't act as predicted.

As I say, in my field, we don't make excuses for faulty data, and we sure as heck don't change the data, which in this case would mean FORCING people to behave the way you wanted them to and keeping them from buying or selling if you want economic activity to be bad. Change the economic model until it correctly predicts behavior. In the meantime, don't be surprised that people act differently than your wrong economic idea says they will.