Friday Night 10 October

A bit of science and mathematics;

Mathematics education in the US: we know that our mathematics education at the lower levels. It turns out that we aren’t doing a great job of educating our more talented mathematics students.

The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

The study suggests that while many girls have exceptional talent in math — the talent to become top math researchers, scientists and engineers — they are rarely identified in the United States. A major reason, according to the study, is that American culture does not highly value talent in math, and so discourages girls — and boys, for that matter — from excelling in the field. The study will be published Friday in Notices of the American Mathematical Society.

“We’re living in a culture that is telling girls you can’t do math — that’s telling everybody that only Asians and nerds do math,” said the study’s lead author, Janet E. Mertz, an oncology professor at the University of Wisconsin, whose son is a winner of what is viewed as the world’s most-demanding math competitions. “Kids in high school, where social interactions are really important, think, ‘If I’m not an Asian or a nerd, I’d better not be on the math team.’ Kids are self selecting. For social reasons they’re not even trying.”

Many studies have examined and debated gender differences and math, but most rely on the results of the SAT and other standardized tests, Dr. Mertz and many mathematicians say. But those tests were never intended to measure the dazzling creativity, insight and reasoning skills required to solve math problems at the highest levels, Dr. Mertz and others say.

Dr. Mertz asserts that the new study is the first to examine data from the most difficult math competitions for young people, including the USA and International Mathematical Olympiads for high school students, and the Putnam Mathematical Competition for college undergraduates. For winners of these competitions, the Michael Phelpses and Kobe Bryants of math, getting an 800 on the math SAT is routine. The study found that many students from the United States in these competitions are immigrants or children of immigrants from countries where education in mathematics is prized and mathematical talent is thought to be widely distributed and able to be cultivated through hard work and persistence.

Science: Asexual reproduction does happen from time to time. We’ve now seen this in sharks.

RICHMOND, Va. – Scientists have confirmed the second case of a “virgin birth” in a shark.

In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

The first documented case of asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, among sharks involved a pup born to a hammerhead at an Omaha, Neb., zoo.

“This first case was no fluke,” Demian Chapman, a shark scientist and lead author of the second study, said in a statement. “It is quite possible that this is something female sharks of many species can do on occasion.”

The aquarium sharks that reproduced without mates each carried only one pup, while some shark species can produce litters numbering in the dozen or more. The scientists cautioned that the rare asexual births should not be viewed as a possible solution to declining global shark populations.

“It is very unlikely that a small number of female survivors could build their numbers up very quickly by undergoing virgin birth,” Chapman said.

The medical mystery began 16 months ago after the death of the Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit at the Virginia Beach aquarium. No male blacktip sharks were present during her eight years at the aquarium. [...]

Follow the link to read more.

Religion

Hat tip: Friendly Atheist.

Politics

From a Republican strategist:

Obama’s donations (and McCain’s) get scrutiny; not all are documented well:

Last December, someone using the name “Test Person,” from “Some Place, UT,” made a series of contributions, the largest being $764, to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign totaling $2,410.07. [...]

An analysis of campaign finance records by The New York Times this week found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. The contributions represent a tiny fraction of the record $450 million Mr. Obama has raised. But the questionable donations — some donors were listed simply with gibberish for their names — raise concerns about whether the Obama campaign is adequately vetting its unprecedented flood of donors.

It is unclear why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name. Some perhaps did it for privacy reasons. Another, more ominous possibility, of course, is fraud, perhaps in order to donate beyond the maximum limits.

There is no evidence that questionable contributions amount to anything more than a small portion of Mr. Obama’s fund-raising haul. The Times’s analysis, conducted over a few days and looking for obvious anomalies, like names or addresses with all consonants, identified about $40,000 in suspect contributions that had not been refunded by the campaign as of its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, in September. [...]

Obama buys 30 minutes worth of primetime coverage on major networks. Why?

You don’t buy 30-minute chunks of national TV time if your goal is to eke out a narrow victory. You do it if your goal is to blow your opponent out of the water. And you do it if you realize that the bigger your margin of victory, the more you can get done in your first few months as President.

In short, you do it if you’re as interested in governing effectively as you are interested in winning.

A McCain attack ad:

But Obama saw this coming a long time ago:

Now, what are the facts on ACORN?

From ACORN’s memo:

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

ACORN can’t not turn in bogus applications. They are legal documents, no matter who brings them in, and they are required by law to turn them in no matter what.

Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

So who has an incentive to falsify cards? Ratfucking Republicans who wish to use this to suppress votes.

AND THIS ONE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.

ACORN has registered over 1.3 million voters. Over 60% are people of color. This is a horrifying development for Republicans and the McCain campaign.

And since no one has ever been proven to successfully cast an illegal vote as a result of phony voter registration, the rabid hysteria by the right wing over this issue can only mean one thing – cover for their own crimes to steal this election.

McCain’s Ayer’s attacks: nonsense, says the attorney who prosecuted Ayres.

In a letter to the editor published in the NY Times today, William C. Ibershof, who was

the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972)

says that he is

amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.

What is going on with people at McCain Rallies?

Recent rallies has seen open hatred:

The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama’s campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

And nowhere is this emotion on plainer display than at Republican rallies, where voters this week have shouted out insults at the mention of Obama, pleaded with McCain to get more aggressive with the Democrat and generally demonstrated the sort of visceral anger and unease that reflects a party on the precipice of panic.

The calendar is closing and the polls, at least right now, are not.

With McCain passing up the opportunity to level any tough personal shots in his first two debates and the very real prospect of an Obama presidency setting in, the sort of hard-core partisan activists who turn out for campaign events are venting in unusually personal terms.

“Terrorist!” one man screamed Monday at a New Mexico rally after McCain voiced the campaign’s new rhetorical staple aimed at raising doubts about the Illinois senator: “Who is the real Barack Obama?”

“He’s a damn liar!” yelled a woman Wednesday in Pennsylvania. “Get him. He’s bad for our country.”

At both stops, there were cries of, “Nobama,” picking up on a phrase that has appeared on yard signs, T-shirts and bumper stickers.

And Thursday, at a campaign town hall in Wisconsin, one Republican brought the crowd to its feet when he used his turn at the microphone to offer a soliloquy so impassioned it made the network news and earned extended play on Rush Limbaugh’s program.

“I’m mad; I’m really mad!” the voter bellowed. “And what’s going to surprise ya, is it’s not the economy — it’s the socialists taking over our country.”

After the crowd settled down he was back at it. “When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined!”

Things have gotten so bad that even some top Republicans have called for some moderation:

The proliferation of angry, unbalanced mobs at Republican rallies over the past few days has not gone unnoticed, even by Republicans. Illinois Republican Rep. Ray LaHood is the latest to call out the ticket for permitting this kind of behavior.

LaHood supports the McCain ticket, but doesn’t like what he sees at some of the McCain-Palin rallies: When Barack Obama’s name has been mentioned by Sarah Palin, there are shouts of “terrorist,” and LaHood says Palin should put a stop to it.

“Look it,” LaHood said. “This doesn’t befit the office that she’s running for. And frankly, people don’t like it.”

LaHood says it could backfire on the Republican ticket.

He says the names that Obama is being called, “Certainly don’t reflect the character of the man.”

LaHood, generally perceived to be a fairly moderate Republican, is retiring this year, and he also hails from Obama’s state. He certainly deserves praise for having the courage to call out the McCain-Palin ticket for enabling the politics of hate to dominate their campaign events.

John McCain has stepped up to calm things down.

AP) The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is finally acting to tamp it down.

McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about rival Barack Obama’s character, he described the Democrat as a “decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some Republican events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of “traitor,” “terrorist,” “treason,” “liar,” and even “off with his head” have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.

McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. A voter said, “The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight.” Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama.

“If you want a fight, we will fight,” McCain said. “But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments.” When people booed, he cut them off.

“I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity,” he said. “I just mean to say you have to be respectful.”

What is going on with these people? My guess is that these people see their hold on power slipping away and fear that their world will descend into anarchy.

For an 18 minute (or so) TED talk on how liberals differ from conservatives: