16 December 09, afternoon

You mean that women are paying to get their butts rubbed?
(image is from the article above)

Did you know that there is a type of humor called “science humor”?

The former biologist was Tim Lee. After completing his undergraduate biology degree at the University of California, San Diego, he worked at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for a while before he realized he needed a doctorate to do the interesting work. But by the time he finished his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, he had realized he hated academia.

“I just didn’t want to read any more papers,” Dr. Lee said. “I didn’t want to write any more papers.” [...]

Dr. Lee wrote more jokes. He went to more open mikes. He eventually got a paying gig — $35 from a comedy club in Santa Cruz, Calif. Along the way, he started telling science jokes, and he discovered that PowerPoint made a good comedy prop.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Brian Malow, who calls himself “earth’s premier science comedian,” and Norm Goldblatt, a physicist who performs standup as a side gig, have been telling science jokes for years.

“It’s not as limiting as it sounds,” Mr. Malow said. “Science is in everything.”

Even so, Mr. Malow finds he sometimes needs to add footnotes. One joke he tells is, “I used to be an astronomer, but then I got stuck on the day shift.”

“When I have a savvier audience,” Mr. Malow said, “I have to point out that joke could be offensive to solar or radio astronomers,” who do work during the day. And since many telescopes now can be operated remotely, even astronomers working with optical telescopes now do much of their work during the day shift. [...]

A biologist walks into a comedy club. How does the story end? That stumped Dr. Lee, and he said he would think about it.

A couple of days later, he sent an e-mail message with this response: “A biologist walks into a comedy club. The owner asks, ‘Why’d you select this club?’ Biologist says, ‘Well, it was the natural selection.’ ”

Academia: sometimes students don’t want to know how their grades were calculated. Disclaimer: I grade my finals completely and honestly; the only thing that might change is the grade scale because there are more questions in which it is difficult to get partial credit e. g., a student uses Green’s Theorem to calculate a line integral around a non-closed path. (*)

(*)Yes, I know,in the “not really” Green’s Theorem problem , one could put in another path to close up the first path, use Green’s Theorem and then subtract the “easier to compute” line integral from the result…THAT would get full credit from me. But I am not talking about that.

Ok, enough of a break….time to finish that last batch of final exams!

For Liberals Only: Do you want to kill the Senate HCR Bill?

If so, here are 20 questions for you to answer.

16 December 09

Workout notes I wasn’t into it; I had body aches (not from illness but from yesterday’s weight lifting…yeah, I know… that pathetic workout) so: 500 warm up, 500 drill/swim, 6 x 100 IM, 5 x 100 (alternate paddle/free), 100 side.
That was the last 7 am swim of the semester.

Then, 2 miles on the AMT, 3 miles on the stairmaster. I have to be careful of my step. Then I did some light stretching.

Back to grading exams; I’d like to be done by this afternoon so I can watch tonight’s basketball game in peace, and I’d like to set up my winter blood donation (Friday would be perfect).

Health Care: Yeah, the Senate bill sucks, but it is better than what we have right now and it will save lives. So I made my calls. You can too. Note: the Washington DC offices might be hard or impossible to reach; I’d recommend calling your senator’s state office. For Illinois residents: I called the Springfield offices: Senator Durbin: 217- 492-4062 Senator Burris: 217-492-5089.

Al Franken calls out John Thune for lying on the Senate floor: “Let’s have an honest debate, for goodness sakes!” – Daily Kos TV (beta)

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15 December 09 (pm)

Oral Roberts died. Actually, I found him funny. Obviously he had some success; it isn’t just anyone who can start a university from scratch and make it work (even if it teaches nonsense). But Richard Dawkins wonders why his money making was tax exempt.

Joe Lieberman: he is against what liberals are for. Of course, Senator Lieberman hasn’t made sense for quite a while, even if he is popular with the polyester pants/expanded waistband set.

15 December 09 (Midday)

Workout notes Felt the effects of staying up too late to watch NFL action (good game though!).
I started the swim and had trouble with my goggles (kept leaking; I had to switch; I do better with “gasket” goggles; this type of goggle always leaks on me)

Still I ended up with 3100 yards: 500 free to warm up, 5 x (25 front kick, 75 free) on “almost 2″, 5 x (25 sfs, 75 free) on 2, 5 x (25 3g, 75 free) on 2, 10 x 50 free on 1, 5 x (25 fly, 25 back, 50 side) on “almost 2″ (fins), 100 cool down.

Then I lifted weights and did some yoga (2 sets of 10 with dumbells: curls (20, 25), military (30, 35 (40 was too much)) bench (45, 50), 2 sets of 4 pull ups, 2 sets of 10 with 125 on the lat pull down, 2 sets of 8 with 135 squat on the Smith Machine

Then yoga (including leg lifts) then 4 miles on the elliptical; I used a more “run like” setting.

Academia Yes, prospective professors can be clueless; here are some interview horror stories (e. g., how to say “I really don’t want the job”. )

Health care reform: Some are saying “enough; let’s kill this bill”. Others still say: this is better than nothing…providing Senator Lieberman doesn’t demand even more.

Many liberals are getting discouraged; still this is no reason for us to not vote in 2010.

Evolution and nature:

Yes, octopuses have been seen using coconut shells as a tool. What makes this remarkable is that the Octopus will actually drag this shell from place to place while NOT using it as cover while doing so; it then “assembles” (in a primitive way) its shelter when it gets to the location it is headed for.

15 December 09 (pre grading)

Workout notes Something over lunch.

Humor/social. I enjoy reading the Legal Satrycon. Being able to read briefs such as this is why. I just about peed in my pants from laughter.

Local/Science PZ Myers points out that someone is collecting data about interest in a creationist museum in Peoria, IL. A link to the survey is here. I answered honestly. Frankly, I’d find it hilarious.

Mathematics, probability and social issues Here is an article about the new breast cancer screening recommendations; it includes a problem that I sometimes give on probability examinations:

In his inaugural address, Barack Obama promised to restore science to its “rightful place.” This has partly occurred, as evidenced by this month’s release of 13 new human embryonic stem-cell lines. The recent brouhaha over the guidelines put forth by the government task force on breast-cancer screening, however, illustrates how tricky it can be to deliver on this promise. One big reason is that people may not like or even understand what scientists say, especially when what they say is complex, counterintuitive or ambiguous.

As we now know, the panel of scientists advised that routine screening for asymptomatic women in their 40s was not warranted and that mammograms for women 50 or over should be given biennially rather than annually. The response was furious. Fortunately, both the panel’s concerns and the public’s reaction to its recommendations may be better understood by delving into the murky area between mathematics and psychology.

Much of our discomfort with the panel’s findings stems from a basic intuition: since earlier and more frequent screening increases the likelihood of detecting a possibly fatal cancer, it is always desirable. But is this really so? Consider the technique mathematicians call a reductio ad absurdum, taking a statement to an extreme in order to refute it. Applying it to the contention that more screening is always better leads us to note that if screening catches the breast cancers of some asymptomatic women in their 40s, then it would also catch those of some asymptomatic women in their 30s. But why stop there? Why not monthly mammograms beginning at age 15?

The article goes on to talk about false positives. I’ve discussed this here, but the data works out so that a woman who is 40-49 years of age who has a positive mammogram has only a 2-4 percent chance of actually having breast cancer; the probability of her having breast cancer to begin with is 1.5 percent (this is the chance of developing breast cancer over the next 10 years).

If this seems strange, let’s crunch some numbers in an example:

Let’s start with a test that is 90 percent accurate (and mammograms aren’t that accurate); say it never gives a false negative but returns 10 percent false positive. You also have a population of 1000 people, 1 percent which have the condition that is being tested for.

So, 1000 * .01 = 10 people test positive for the condition and they really have it.
But 990 people don’t have it, but at a 10 percent false positive rate, 990 * .1 = 99 people.

Hence this test yields 99 + 10 = 109 positives, only 10 of which are true.
So the probability of having this condition, given that you had a positive test is 10/109 = .092 = 9.2 percent.

Now if mammograms were as accurate as this, they’d be no recommendation to change. But they are not, at least not for asymptomatic women in the 40-49 age group, and remember that any screening process that involves a small increase in risk due to the radiation dose and it is good health practice to limit those doses.

Health care reform Sometimes you have to try your best and settle for the best you can get at this moment. If you shoot for the stars and “only” make the moon, well, you’ve still done well. Yes, I want a public option. Yes, I’d like single payer. But we have a chance to get coverage for those who need it and can’t get it and for those who need it only to have it taken away when they need it the most.

Ezra Klein talks about that here and provides the data here:

Oddly, that label hasn’t made its way into the conversation. But it is, if anything, a conservative estimate. The Institute of Medicine developed a detailed methodology for projecting the lives lost due to lack of insurance. The original paper estimated that 18,000 lives were lost in 2000, and the Urban Institute updated that analysis with data for 2006, yielding an estimate of 22,000 lives. As for 150,000, well, that’s almost certainly too low. That’s just the 2006 number across 10 years, which is the time frame we generally use for health care, with a third of the lives saved lopped off, as we’re not going to cover all of the uninsured. But since the population of the uninsured grows every year, and so does the death toll, it would surely be higher. So call it the 150,000-plus-life health-care plan.

We’re very comfortable talking about the financial cost of health-care reform. We’re less comfortable talking about the human benefits. But the fact that health insurance saves lives isn’t controversial. A 2003 study examining cancer records from Kentucky found that uninsured women with breast cancer were 44 percent likelier to die than their insured counterparts. And that was after controlling for demographics, stage of diagnosis and initial treatment. A 2007 study found that the uninsured were 24 percent to 56 percent likelier to die of stroke, depending on the type. That study, too, controlled for all the relevant variables. Other studies have examined the issue more generally, using all manner of data sets and controlling all manner of variables. The Urban Institute’s report summarizes a number of the papers.

So, I am sorry: I must part ways who say “go for the whole loaf or bust”. We have a chance to save people now.

FUMBLE!!!

(from here)
7 turnovers; the 49′er defense made it miserable for the Cardinals.

Yes, the 49′ers are coached by Mike Singletary who knows something about playing tough defense.

I need the laugh (grading….14 December 09)

Stupid people cause much of the misery in this world (though not all of it).

So I’ll have a laugh at their expense:

1. PZ Myers on Fox News and Huffington Post:

Fox News brought on a naturopath to peddle a random bit of nonsense, that coffee makes you fat. Any drug that tinkers with your metabolism can have some unexpected effects, but to claim that a cup of black coffee is “worse than five hot fudge sundaes” is irresponsible insanity. [...]

Meanwhile, the HuffPo continues its adoration of homeopathy. No, not homeopathy: the quacks have come up with a new, impressive, pseudoscientific term for it now. It’s Nanopharmacology. It’s all wrapped up in a primer on quackery.

2. Paul Krugman: reports that some people compare some mainstream economic theories to mass murder (and no, I am not talking about things like the old Soviet Union agricultural program which lead to starvation for millions)

Hoisted from comments on my eulogy for Paul Samuelson:

Samuelson was just another Eichmann. He is responsible for propagating a destructive economic dogma.

The scary thing is that there probably are a number of people in this country who believe that advocating Keynesian economics is a crime comparable to being complicit in mass murder.

14 December 2009 (AM)

Workout notes When I got to the pool I found that I didn’t have my goggles (not a surprise; I sometimes lose them) but I didn’t have my back-up pair? Fortunately, the back up pair were at the lost and found.

So, 300 off strokes, 1000 in 17:4x, 500 of paddle/free drill for 1800 total (1 mile); I ran out of time.

I’ve been distracted lately; I was looking for a book for 2 days…it was on the shelf in my office, out in plain view.

Personal: I’ve got a stack of grading (two more classes to finish); one of the hardest things to convey to the students is that all of this mathematics has meaning beyond the abstract manipulation of symbols. Some get it; many do not.

Politics
Health Care Reform: many of us are wondering if we shouldn’t use a “nuclear option” of some type to get it past a filibuster. Evidently, Senator Tom Harkin is considering a move of this type. (whether he is serious or is just throwing a bone to us, I do not know).

The public polling on this issue is complicated. It is true that the majority of the public opposes the current Congressional bill though much of the opposition comes from the left in that the current proposal doesn’t go far enough. Hence the Senate might not have enough political cover to make such a filibuster breaking move, though it might do that on, say, financial regulation reform.

Ironically, we are roughly in the same place we were just a bit ago; Senator Lieberman and Senator Nelson are in that position where their influence is way overvalued (this comes straight from mathematical political theory; the “swing” vote is always more coveted than the base vote of either side).

Frankly, I don’t know what to think: they cynic in me thinks that the Democrats are actually grateful for this opposition; they want to be able to tell “their base” that they are with them all while giving big business (pharmaceuticals and insurance) what they want. I could be wrong.

Science: ok, what do we think here? For example, I am not well versed in evolutionary science, and yet I side with them because mainstream science has yielded real results (medicines, vaccines, etc.) whereas the ID/creationist crowd has only delivered comedy.

So, I go with the scientific consensus on climate change though I have no credentials here. Also, big oil has much more to lose than the scientists; hence they are much more likely to be agenda driven.