The New York Times copied my post

A while ago, I posted an item about the word "Darwinism" and how I thought it had some bad connotations. This week, there was a column in the New York Times called "Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live" (free registration required). It has a similar theme but obviously more professionally written and better researched. In particular, one paragraph echoes some of the ideas in my original post.

Science has marched on. But evolution can seem uniquely stuck on its founder. We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism. "Darwinism" implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And "isms" (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. "Darwinism" implies that biological scientists "believe in" Darwin’s "theory." It’s as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.

Needless to say, I agree. I have no further comment on the matter. I only wanted to bask in self-congratulation. Thank you.

Lifestyles of the Fake Rich

Got the statement from my corporate credit card. It made me feel good.



ONE BILLION DOLLARS...

Of course I'd get fired and probably shot if I used it, but it's nice to know it's there in case of emergency. Emergency luxury yacht purchases, that is...

The Nature of Coincidence and Superstition

Before you start thinking that this is a post about a dream I had, be assured that I'm trying to illustrate a point. I know that dream stories are never as interesting as the dreamer thinks they are, simply due to the fact that it never really happened. If you're the one who had the dream, it may have been a fascinating and wonderful experience for you, but to the listener (or reader), you might as well be making up some random shit. ("I had a dream that a hamburger was eating me!")

That being said, a dream I had, and the subsequent events of the next day, made me think about the nature of coincidence and superstition. The dream unfolds as follows:

I'm at work. At some point during the work day, I get a company-wide e-mail that is, to my surprise, a notification about my own resignation. Like someone mistakenly thought that I had quit my job and was notifying everyone in the company of the sad news. Everyone starts planning a good-bye lunch and stuff, while I'm running around trying to tell them all that I hadn't really quit. Then I woke up. (I know what you're thinking. I'm perfectly happy with my job, that's not what this is about. We're not doing Freudian analysis here.)

The next day when I actually went to work, I tried to log in to my computer and it wouldn't accept my password. After a few attempts to make sure I didn't mistype it, I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe they thought I quit and locked out my account." Turns out the network was just down briefly.

These events reminded me of a guest lecture that I attended in university by science writer Simon Singh. He told a similar story, which I paraphrase here:

"One time I had a dream about my grandmother, who was sick at the time. I was a child in the dream and I saw my grandmother getting into a car. It was raining and dark. The car slowly drove away and I watched my grandmother turn around and wave at me through the rear window. I waved back and the car disappeared into the distance. And it felt like we were saying good-bye.

"That's when the phone rang and woke me up. I picked up the phone and... (pause for dramatic effect)... it was my boss telling me I was late for work."

Everyone in the audience had a good laugh. The point that Dr. Singh was trying to make, and that I'm trying to pass on, is that you never hear a story like that. What you do hear are stories about people who, the day after an earthquake, say that they had a dream that predicted the disaster. Or, after a car accident, they'll claim that they had a "feeling" before getting into the car and knew that something bad was going to happen. When you really think about it though, in a city with millions of people, it's not unlikely that there is at least one person having a dream about an earthquake every night. And there must be someone having a bad feeling about getting into a car every minute of the day. There's nothing special about the person who happened to be right when the earthquake or car accident really does occur, other than the fact that they just happened to be right.

If I was a superstitious person, my dream might have caused me to be a little worried that I'll get fired or something. The way to defy superstition is just to give it a moment's thought. Coincidences happen, and there's isn't always a need to search for a deeper underlying cause.

Adventures in the Elevator

One of the effects of living in an apartment is that you spend a lot of time in the elevator. Of course, most of the time, you're just in there by yourself, staring at the wall. Or, if there's someone else in there with you, it's an awkward experience at best. As George Carlin put it, "there's nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the other guy." But, once in a while, the elevator will be the site of a bizarre happenstance.

This morning, I was leaving to go to work. As I stood waiting for the elevator, I noticed that it was taking longer than usual to arrive at my floor. Oh well, I thought, it's not like I'm in a hurry to get to work.

The elevator eventually arrived, and the door slid open. Standing in the middle of the elevator was a puppy. Just a puppy. With nobody else inside. He was a small little white dog, a terrier of some sort, and wearing a red knit sweater. Not able to help myself, I let out a high-pitched "Awwww..."

When I stepped into the elevator, I saw that the little guy (let's call him "Buddy," because what else do you call a dog you don't know?) was feeling scared, because his limbs were all shaking. I didn't know what to do, it's not really wise to try to confront a frightened animal. So I ignored him. There's nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the dog.

Pretty soon the elevator stopped at another floor. A lady came in with another dog. Apparently this woman knew Buddy, because she started to talk to him and bending down like she was going to pick him up. "Where's your mommy? Where's your mommy?" Buddy's nervousness increased from this woman's overexuberance, and increased further as the other dog started growling (obviously jealous of the attention that Buddy was receiving). I tried to remember whether I had ever had a rabies shot.

Fortunately, we reached the ground floor before the fur started flying. Buddy's owner ("mommy") was waiting. Apparently she and Buddy were about to come up the elevator when she ran into someone in the lobby and started to have a chat. Buddy had hopped into the elevator on his own before realizing that she had stayed behind. Poor Buddy. Poor, poor Buddy.

MY APARTMENT!!! or: Google SketchUp evaluation and review

N.B.: I don't normally post personal items on this blog, so this will be thinly disguised as a technology review article.

I'm moving into my own apartment soon, and I'm pretty excited about it. In preparation, I've been shopping for some furniture, as well as thinking about how I'm going to arrange the furniture in the limited space that I have. When I was at IKEA, I saw booths set up where people were using some custom software to design their furniture layouts, and I thought it would be a good idea to try to do some "interior design" of my apartment using some 3D software to better visualize the space.

I had heard good things about Google SketchUp, so I thought I would give that a shot. SketchUp is a pretty generic 3D modeling tool, but it seems like most people use it to create architectural designs. After watching some of the video tutorials on the site, and some experimentation with the interface, I was able to whip up something pretty quickly.

Voila:


This is the living room.




I'm considering maybe putting another shelf next to the TV for additional storage of books, DVDs, or whatever. On the other hand, it's good to have some empty space so that it's not too cluttered. There's also a pretty large storage closet in the apartment, so anything that doesn't need to always be conveniently available, I can just put in the closet.

Here's the bedroom.




The bedroom seemed small to me when I first looked at the floorplan and at the empty apartment, but now I've seen it in 3D with the furniture models, it's not so bad.

So in conclusion: Google SketchUp is pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. 9/10

Radiohead fanboy ambivalence

So Radiohead announced the release of a new album called "In Rainbows", coming out October 10th. I don't think I've ever seen an album announcement so close to its release date. Usually there's months of anticipation before a release, but this time they've decided to spring this on us on short notice. Like "Hey, new album next week!" Apparently, they're able to do this because they're no longer signed to a record contract; this is basically an "indie" release.

Because of their newly gained indie status, the band is also doing things a little differently in terms of distributing and pricing the release. The album is coming out as an online download at first. The price: "It's up to you." Kind of like selling it through an honour system. You can even download it for free, and they won't mind. (I'm going to give them a couple of bucks anyway. You know, for their trouble.) This is great and very forward-thinking of them, and gives fanboys like myself ammunition when discussing the greatness of Radiohead with fans of other, more inferior bands.

BUT

They're also selling the album as a boxset to be released later this year. The boxset will have CD and vinyl versions of the album, which makes for good collector's items to be sure. But the thing that's killing me is, there's a second CD with more songs, that's only available in the boxset. It's like they're selling a double album where you can download the first part for free, but you have to buy the special collector's edition for the second part. And how much is the boxset? £40. Or about $80 CAD. (Or $80 USD, ha!) That's a long way from "It's up to you."

I know I'll probably buy the boxset anyways, and the fanboy in me wants to forgive them, but this is really a rip-off. It's like they're trying to trick us into thinking they're really cool by giving away the free download, just so we'll be happy to spend the money on the boxset. I only hope they'll come to their senses and make the second CD available as a standalone purchase. Otherwise, I'm boycotting Radiohead forever. Oh, who am I kidding? I love you, Thom Yorke.

Thoughts on The God Delusion: "Darwinism"

I was reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and something occurred to me. While I worked my way through the section about the evolution vs. intelligent design debate (which any book about atheism should address), the word "Darwinism" kept popping up. Every time the word was used, I became more and more conscious of it; something about it bothered me.

The thing that struck me is this: why is Darwinism an "-ism"? The -ism suffix is generally used for names of religions (e.g. Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism), or a philosophical stance (e.g. existentialism, Marxism, even atheism itself), or a political movement (e.g. feminism, abolitionism).

Darwinism, being a scientific theory, doesn't fit into these categories. I can't think of any other scientific theories with the -ism suffix. Wouldn't it be like calling the Laws of Motion "Newtonism", or general relativity "Einsteinism", or genetics "Watson and Crickism"? (Or maybe "Watsonism-and-Crickism" to be more fair to Watson.)

I wonder if the use of the word "Darwinism" weakens the evolution argument in the public eye, because it makes it sound like something less than an established theory. Maybe "Darwinism" has a very precise meaning that I'm unclear on, but it is commonly used when discussing evolution and natural selection. The debate between evolution and creationism (which is appropriately an -ism) is a public, cultural one; and the public, in my opinion, is not so concerned with precisely defining terms.

A word like "Darwinism" lends itself to attacks of this sort: "See? It's just some guy's opinion!" I'd like to see the word used less, at least for the purposes of cultural debate. Charles Darwin obviously deserves a lot of credit, but in this case, a more decisive term may be more useful.