Bottom up versus Top Down Logic

Listening to the SGU # 373 I reached the part of the Science of Fiction. This episode was live at DragonCon 2012. And here the 3 Science of Fiction news Items:

1. Scientists have discovered Western Scrub Jays performing a funeral-like behavior when they discover one of their members has died;
2. A recent study finds that adults are more likely to accept a supernatural explanation than children;
3. Researchers find that the shape of the glass affects how drunk alcohol-drinkers become

And Stephen Novella was able to wipe out his fellow skeptics but a little bit more than half the audience got it right. Listening to the podcast very late I was able to guess correctly, or at least got one right! Your guess?

Fiction is number #3, and all the panellists got it wrong, maybe because they are American so the 3rd did a lot of sense. And ALL chosen number #2 as Fiction. And I was sure that this one was Science all the time. So first some more research on the News Item and then why I think it is correct.

The SGU website points to the UPI website for the News Item:

“The findings show supernatural explanations for topics of core concern to humans are pervasive across cultures," Legare said in a statement. "If anything, in both industrialized and developing countries, supernatural explanations are frequently endorsed more often among adults than younger children.”, UPI

So I did some more research and tried to find the source, and the University of Texas, where Legare is from, has a much deeper article on the topic:

“Reliance on supernatural explanations for major life events, such as death and illness, often increases rather than declines with age, according to a new psychology study from The University of Texas at Austin” (Texas)

““As children assimilate cultural concepts into their intuitive belief systems — from God to atoms to evolution — they engage in coexistence thinking,” said Cristine Legare, assistant professor of psychology and lead author of the study. “When they merge supernatural and scientific explanations, they integrate them in a variety of predictable and universal ways.”” (Texas)

““The findings show supernatural explanations for topics of core concern to humans are pervasive across cultures,” Legare said. “If anything, in both industrialized and developing countries, supernatural explanations are frequently endorsed more often among adults than younger children.”” (Texas)

““The standard assumption that scientific and religious explanations compete should be re-evaluated in light of substantial psychological evidence,” Legare said. “The data, which spans diverse cultural contexts across the lifespan, shows supernatural reasoning is not necessarily replaced with scientific explanations following gains in knowledge, education or technology.”” (Texas)

I was able to find where the article is published but you have to be part of the club to have access to it. So I couldn’t read the source.

But Why I think it is correct?

This is the usual statistic of one and not very scientific, but if happen that you have kids or you are around kids and observe them you will find that kids have a very straightforward logic that they apply to every day things and to think about the Universe (Why? Why? Why?).

I will go with examples that you cannot generalize but if you have been carefully listening to your kids and observe others you will see this pattern:

• kids have to figure out cause and effect quickly. This matters: If I do A, the effect B will cause pain; basic survival;
• kids figure out first physical things, or cause and effects that have no intentions: if the glass drops from the table, it will crash; if something is hot, I get burnt (figuring out what it is hot or not is more complex, but also they are very good at that from 4 and up);
• also they can realize of intentions very quickly, but the intentions are again straightforward connections: if I cry I get food (or water, or a candy); if I cry all the time, I piss off the adults around me; if I kick the dog it will bite me (or bark at me and it is frightening – also figuring out attitudes frightening/friendly is very complex but they do right away)

With this logic machinery they start asking other questions:

• Why are so many different animals around us?
• Why do we die?
• Why is there Winter/Summer?
• Why do we stop growing?

For a particular example one kid asked me the last question, and carefully thinking on that I realized I didn’t have a good answer except: “This is the way it is” (remember this answer). In fact, I was thinking it was a very good question and I was trying to remember if there is some animal or plant that does not stop growing. And there are some, and there some ways that they never stop growing but… Other kid answered right away (5 years old): “Because if you do not stop growing you cannot get into a car, or a house”

The answer is great and of course wrong, but it shows this straightforward logic machinery in action. All living things grow, but somewhat they stop, and every creature has to be able to fit somewhere. This is what I call bottom up logic. Also the logic has its own beauty, because it can be tested, it does not assume a theological argument, and with some research you can come with some more rational answer like: “It is a capacity problem, based on available resources that are finite”. Technically are creatures that do not stop growing but they die, or they slow down their growth exponentially.

But this is a perfect logic machinery to keep intact. I think that it is screwed up for many reasons:

• It is that way because I say so; the authoritarian argument;
• Because I say so; again authoritarian;
• Because God wanted it to be like that; a theological argument;
• etc;

In any case all these logics are top down: you start with some non observable statement (“God”…) and then you follow from there. Anything that you elaborate from there will be by definition obtuse. And kids they have to learn this second logic machinery (more by memory rather than by reasoning) because peer pressure, social pressure, or I do not want my parents be mad at me (or something else I have no idea).

I still believe that both machineries keep working together. In a way you will use the 1st machine to figure out things that can kill you immediately: you can believe some witch pass to you HIV; but you know that jumping from a 10th floor is suicide, even if the same witch (or wizard, or priest or anyone) assures you a spell casted on you will save you. If you believe in the safe-landing-with-no-parachute spell, you have been totally brainwashed and of course your 1st machine has been disabled…

You rely more on the 2nd machine for things that the cause is not obvious or immediate (not using condoms will increase your chances of getting something nasty as HIV, but of course you do not believe that), or this argument (a.k.a. “belief”) is not something you care a lot about it (Hell for example).

References

• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe #373, Science of Fiction Item #2, SGU
• Adults like Supernatural Explanations, UPI – Health News, UPI
• People Merge Supernatural and Scientific Beliefs When Reasoning With the Unknown, Study Shows, University of Texas, Texas
• The Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations Across Cultures and Development, Wiley Online Library, Wiley

For More Info:

• Jessica Sinn, College of Liberal Arts, 512-471-2404;
• Cristine Legare, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, 512-468-8238, legare@psy.utexas.edu

Doom's Name: 2011 AG5

Asteroid 2011 AG5: a football-stadium-sized rock to watch carefully

It seems that Apophis will still hit the Earth in 2036 (by 49 million Km, pufff!). But there is another medium size kid in the block. Not a planet killer but big enough: asteroid 2011 AG5. Bad Astronomy has a good article in evaluating the options for start planning a mission to potentially change the orbit of the asteroid.

Before scaring anyone it is god to remember that NASA estimates very low the probability of an impact in a recently update: Asteroid 2011 AG5 - A Reality Check. Ranked "1" in the Torino Scale...

With something with so low probability to happen (crash into Earth) and only one agency from one country maybe considering it (NASA/US) I cannot see the people deciding where to expend the budget to invest some money on a close up mission and a potentially deflecting one.

But it would be nice just for 2 other things even if it is downgrade to Torino level "0":

1. the scientific value of a mission like this
2. it will be cool to follow the news of a mission to deflect an asteroid, even just for practice!

The 2nd option I think it's more important: if really we have to deflect an asteroid, I'm sure we will not do it correctly the first time, so some practice will come handy (and we can put some military-oriented minds on shooting at something useful for all mankind)

Getting Closer to catch the Higgs

Maybe the most amazing hunting so far in Physics! But the final comment sounds very "futbolistico":

"Boost for Higgs from Tevatron data : Nature News & Comment: For the now-closed Tevatron, a demonstration of sensitivity to the Higgs can be seen as a kind of moral victory, says theorist Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 2011, researchers at Fermilab argued for an extension to the machine's run, on the grounds that they might be able to obtain evidence for the Higgs if they had more time, but their proposal was turned down by the US Department of Energy"

Ok, you did not make the goals, but morally won....

 Jokes apart, the search is fascinating. That some indication of the Higgs could be buried in the data of the Tevatron is cool. Taking in consideration the shutdown of the accelerator, and the suspension of the next generation accelerator by the US...

But it is for the LHC to find it. I hope so.

Started a book on particles (going back to my beloved physics) but yet not get a fully idea of what the article is talking about....

Einstein got it right. Again! Neutrinos respect speed limit…

Ok – a long time not here. But it is good to go back with some interesting and funny (you can say that) news item. At the end neutrinos are encased within the Relativity Laws, they didn’t stunned scientists, but instead a faulty technical plug was the cause of very much excitement…

Not final on this but 2 potential errors can put the neutrinos back into Eintein’s realm, from Nature’s reporting:

• “the passage of time on the clocks between the arrival of the synchronizing signal has to be interpolated and OPERA now says this may not have been done correctly”
• “there was a possible faulty connection between the GPS signal and the OPERA master clock”

Scientific American reports basically on the same. Amazing Einstein!

And complicated experimental science. 60 nanoseconds! And just a faulty connector! Audio engineers know this well, and one of my teachers in Engineering school always said “plug in two cables and you will create some sparks. Beware of connections!”

Neutrinos stunned scientists…

A quick search on neutrinos faster speed will show a list of recently news about awesome results, if they are confirmed.

[interesting if you key in Google with ‘neutrinos fast… Google will suggest ‘neutrinos faster than light’, neutrinos faster than the speed of light’, ‘neutrinos faster light’, ‘neutrinos faster speed light’… seems a lot of people keyed in the same a lot, neutrinos are in fashion]

A friend of mine, physic by heart, study and profession, pointed to me to this more than strange results from the OPERA experiment.

Also enjoying my weekly Skeptic Guide to the Universe Podcast #327 I was updated on the recently developments and possible impact of this new in the mainstream media. Just tune for the podcast in the segment from 10:21 sec to 20:01 sec’s. I like in particular Bob saying “I do not want live in a Universe that Effect precedes Cause” (11:33 – 11:49 sec’s aprox).

They pointed to one reasonable explanation: “that the difference (60 nanoseconds! an statistical correlation from the result of 15K experiments!) can be explained if the clocks at the ending points were not synchronized correctly”. Or:

“The OPERA team timed the neutrinos using clocks at each location that were synchronized using GPS (Global Positioning System) signals from a single satellite. Contaldi's paper says the group's calculations do not take into account one aspect of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity: that slight differences in the force of gravity at the two sites would cause the clocks to tick at different rates” (see Faster-than-light neutrinos face time trial)

Like the Pioneer Anomaly the explanation will be complicated and hard to calculate (reality can be messy), but it will not overthrown Relativity Theory…

60 nanoseconds! Incredibly! So precise is the model!

Getting the indexes right–Midiendo los índices correctamente

Statistics can have a bad reputation including for the lay person, but it is a field with incredible real life applications. You have to be very skilled to use it and very gifted to elaborated on it. But most important very carefully to read and interpret the results. Maybe the last statement is the most important for all of us, being key decision makers or voters.

Indexes or KPIs in the MBA jargon are important to have an idea where you are and what corrected measures to take. It is used for everything but everyday is taking more importance for defining and deciding which are the best policies, from school systems, health care reforms, or just guiding the economy of a country, last but not least important. The debate is always heated as in today US health care reform, and reading carefully the data is important in order to keep the debate reasonable and not fall in partisan views.

Comparison between health care cost and life expectancy – source National Geographic

This is why I was sorry reading about the meddling of the actual Argentinean government with the Inflation Index or Consumer Price Index (CPI): Lies and Argentine statistics with the subtitle of “Stalinist practices In Buenos Aires”.

“MOST Argentines reacted with a shrug when their government began doctoring its consumer-price index in 2007. Cooking the books cost holders of the country’s inflation-linked bonds at least $2.3 billion last year (…) They reckon that inflation is now running at about 25%. That is far above the 10% reported by INDEC, the government statistics agency, but less than the 30% wage increases public employees have received in recent years.”

“A presidential election looms in October and inflation, and the government’s denial of it, is perhaps the biggest threat to the prospect of President Cristina Fernández winning a second term. That may be why Guillermo Moreno, the thuggish commerce secretary, is moving to stamp out the unofficial, but widely trusted, price indices. To do so he has dusted off a decree, penalising misleading advertising, approved by a military dictatorship in 1983. In February he sent letters to 12 economists and consultants ordering them to reveal their methodology, on the grounds that erroneous figures could mislead consumers. Some of Mr Moreno’s targets refused; the rest were analysed by INDEC, which predictably found their methods flawed”

And going back to statistics and the power of big numbers I found an article in the Sciam.com titled Economists Find Faster, Cheaper Way to Measure Inflation.

“Even in the information age, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics still gathers much of its data the old-fashioned way. Workers make phone calls to find out what dentists charge for pulling teeth, and they visit stores to write down the prices of CDs and Russet potatoes. In the end, the data are accurate but take a month or so to compile and analyze.

To speed things up, Alberto Cavallo and Rigoberto Rigobon, economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created the Billion Prices Project (bpp.mit.edu). Software indexes Web sites to track prices of more than five million goods from 70-plus countries and spits out inflation rates in real time”

The method behind the calculation is impressive and it yields on top of having a massive amount of prices (retail) today available on-line from a lot of countries (70).

At the moment of this writing they are collecting data and estimating the indexes, but worth checking regularly…

To Kindle....

or not to Kindle...? That´s the question!

Looking at my side bed desk I can see several kilos of books and magazines. The physical weight and the cost of shipping in/out of Timor-Leste of the books, make me think about getting a Kindle, or another eReader. Here is the list:

• Particulas Elementales, de Gerard´t Hooft
• Che Guevara, Una Vida Revolucionaria, de Jon Lee Anderson
• Out of the Shelter, by David Lodge,
• The Origin of the Species, 1st Edition, by Charles Darwin (already read the 6th Edition in Spanish, but you must read the 1st)
• The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin (read! but documenting notes and quotes - starting on my tweet feed soon)
• The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins (read also! But needs quoting!)
• What Evolution Is?, by Ernst Mayr (read! needs quoting)
• In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin
• Statistics Hacks, by Bruce Frey
• Sciam of Febrruary 2011, November 2010 and October 2010
• National of December 2010 and July 2010
  

And the worst is my back log of non read books! Neal Stephenson, Stephen J. Gould, John Irving, etc, etc!

Ok, I can put all them in a Kindle, or another reader, and take them with me almost weightless! That´s a good reason! Also is very good that you can take notes, save clippings and quotations and highlight passages! That´s a lot of good reasons!

But having a library that can hold 100 or 1000 times the number of books of my actual physical library, it just scares me too much! As a junkie book buyer, I love to walk and browse bookstores, and I always walk away with some more 2 kilos to transport in/out of Timor... But the physical representation of the books impose a physical limit of the amount of books I accumulate in my back log to read. But with an eReader.... I will walk less the bookstores, and I will have zillions of books in my virtual library...

eReader? No yet, thanks....

169 Best Illusions--A Sampling: Scientific American

Fantasticas las imagenes: 169 Best Illusions--A Sampling: Scientific American. Espero pronto poder recibir mi copia en papel de la Sciam! Interesante como estos trucos pueden dar a entender como funcionan los mecanismos de la vista, o de la vision: ya entramos en en terreno de la semantica, no solo procesamiento de imagenes. Para disfrutar!

Astronomers Could Soon Find Moons Outside the Solar System--Even Habitable Ones: Scientific American

Interesante nota sobre nuevos planetas: Astronomers Could Soon Find Moons Outside the Solar System--Even Habitable Ones: Scientific American. Me gustaria saber si hay algun buen libro de ciencia ficcion basado en los ultimos descubrimientos! Es bueno el comentario de que la ciencia en Avatar esta atrasada al menos 7 años, con respecto a localizaciones de planetas similares a la Tierra: "What's interesting is Avatar is out of date by about seven years," Seager says. Astronomers have looked for the presence of giant planets in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri, the nearby star system that is home to Pandora in the film, and have not found one. That's not to say that Alpha Centauri doesn't have a habitable world of some kind—it would just have to be a planet like our own, rather than a moon. "If they had called me or someone else in exoplanet astronomy," Seager says, "we would have advised them to just put an Earth there."

Me pregunto si la gente que mantiene la base de conocimientos de Star Wars la actualiza como corresponde!

Strangeness in our neighborhood

No need to go further away from our home system to find very strange things. Pluto looks more interesting than just a ball of eternal ice and rocks! I like the idea of seasons and "resurfacing" of Pluto in only a "year" (1 Pluto's year = 248 Earth's years)

in reference to:

"The new images reveal substantial differences from how Pluto looked when Hubble examined it in 1994. Pluto has gotten redder, and the northern hemisphere has brightened as the south has darkened. These are likely seasonal changes, which proceed relatively slowly due to Pluto's huge, time-consuming orbit around the sun—only one third of a Pluto year has elapsed since Tombaugh's discovery in 1930. (A Pluto year lasts nearly 248 Earth years.)"
- New Hubble maps show a changing Pluto: Scientific American Gallery (view on Google Sidewiki)