Archive for the 'Science' Category

Over the last several weeks I wrote a number of knols on ecology/zoogeography, ecology/economics, ecology/politics, parasitology, and philosophy, meant mainly for students and interested lay people. Some are in German, some in English. The English ones are listed below with links. Note that you can comment on the knols. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.

Ecology/Zoogeography

The Latitude Niche Width Hypothesis

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/latitude-niche-width-hypothesis/xk923bc3gp4/48#

How Many Species on Earth?

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/how-many-species-on-earth/xk923bc3gp4/43#

Competitive Exclusion (Gause’s Principle)

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/competitive-exclusion-gauses-principle/xk923bc3gp4/41#view

Evolutionarily Stable Strategies (ESS’s)

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/evolutionarily-stable-strategies-and/xk923bc3gp4/50#view

The Paradox of the Plankton

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/the-paradox-of-the-plankton/xk923bc3gp4/40#

Niche Restriction and Segregation

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/niche-restriction-and-segregation/xk923bc3gp4/12#

Vacant Niches

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/vacant-niches-in-ecology/xk923bc3gp4/8#

Effective Evolutionary Time
http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/effective-evolutionary-time/xk923bc3gp4/11#

Rapoport’s Rule

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/rapoports-rule/xk923bc3gp4/6#

Thorson’s Rule

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/thorsons-rule/xk923bc3gp4/5#

Parasitology

The Aspidogastrea, Morphology and Life Cycles

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/the-aspidogastrea-a-parasitological/xk923bc3gp4/13#

The Aspidogastrea, Sacculinisation

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/the-aspidogastrea-a-parasitological/xk923bc3gp4/15

The Aspidogastrea, Ecology

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/the-aspidogastrea-a-parasitological/xk923bc3gp4/16

The Amphilinidea
http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/the-amphilinidea-a-small-group-of/xk923bc3gp4/21#

Politics

Games Theory (Nash Equilibria) in Politics

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/games-theory-nash-equilibria-in/xk923bc3gp4/29#

Ecology/Economics

A Limit to Globalization

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/a-limit-to-globalization-fuzzy-chaos/xk923bc3gp4/28

Free Markets, Free Trade, Ecology

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/free-markets-and-free-trade-ecology-and/xk923bc3gp4/25#

Philosophy

Schopenhauer’s Philosophy
http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/a-crash-course-on-schopenhauers/xk923bc3gp4/45#view

This is an invitation to contribute to a discussion (by writing comments) about the theoretical foundations of ecology and economics on my knols:

“Free Trade and Free Markets, Ecology and Economics”

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/free-markets-and-free-trade-ecology-and/xk923bc3gp4/25#

and

“A Limit to Globalization? Fuzzy Chaos Modelling in Ecology and Economics”

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/a-limit-to-globalization-fuzzy-chaos/xk923bc3gp4/28#

A new paper has just come out:

Rohde, K. and Rohde, P.P. (2008). How to measure ecological host specificity. Vie et Milieu-Life and Environment 58 (2), 121-124.

It deals with the following problem: most parasites infect more than one host species, nectar feeding birds, as well as bees and other insects, usually visit more than one plant species, etc. Nevertheless, they often have preferences for particular “host” species. How do we measure this? Obviously, just counting the host species is unsatisfactory, because this would ignore such preferences. Our index considers not just the number of hosts, but the intensity and frequency of their use as well.

I read again in a book published almost 70 years ago (”I Believe. Nineteen Personal Philosophies”, Unwin Press, London 1940). It contains, among others, a brief (five page) contribution by Albert Einstein. It is worth quoting from it:

“I do not believe we can have any freedom at all in the philosophical sense, for we act not only under external compulsion but also by inner necessity. Schopenhauer’s saying - “A man can surely do what he wills to do, but he cannot determine what he wills” - impressed itself upon me in youth and has always consoled me when I have witnessed or suffered life’s hardships. This conviction is a perpetual breeder of tolerance, for it does not allow us to take ourselves or others too seriously; it makes rather for a sense of humour.

To ponder interminably over the reason for one’s own existence or the meaning of life in general seems to me, from an objective point of view, to be sheer folly. And yet everyone holds certain ideals by which he guides his aspiration and his judgment. The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.”

………..

“This subject brings me to that vilest offspring of the herd mind - the odious militia. The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake - the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient. ……. War is low and despicable, and I rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings.

Such  a stain on humanity should be erased without delay. I think well enough of human nature to believe that it would have been wiped out long ago had not the common sense of nations been systematically corrupted through school and press for business and political reasons.”

Der Spiegel 11.2.08. Abschied vom Beton-Brecht (Farewell to Concrete-Brecht)

Neues aus Brechts Notizbüchern. (Something new from Brecht’s note books) (My translations)

Wisse auch, dass etwas nicht glauben, doch etwas glauben heisst.
You should know that not to believe something, also means to believe something.

Immer noch, wie im Pawlowschen Versuch, veranlassen Glocken in mir Prozesse sicherlich chemischer Art, Gedanken metaphysischer Richtung.
Even now, as in Pavlov’s experiments, bells induce processes in me, certainly of a chemical nature, thoughts of a metaphysical nature.

In der Welt, die ich mir wünsche, komme ich nicht vor.
In the world which I like that should exist, I do not occur.

Was ich nicht gern gesteh: gerade ich verachte solche, die im Unglück sind.
I do not admit this easily: Just I despise those who are unfortunate.

Der Mensch ist kein Schwimmer, der Mensch ist kein Flieger: Er ist aus der Gattung der Rückenlieger.
Man is not a swimmer, he is not a flyer, he is of the genus of backlyers (people lying on their backs).

Ich hätte mein Versprechen gern gehalten. Aber ich konnte nicht/Warum?/Ich hatte keine Lust.
I would have liked to keep my promise. But I could not/Why?/I did not feel like it.

Wie lange dauern die Werke? So lange bis sie fertig sind.
How long do works last? Until they are completed.

George Soros, the multibillionaire and author of The Bubble of American Supremacy (in which he pointed , five years ago, to the problems leading to the present financial crisis), has just published another book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets.

I have not yet read it, but certainly will. This brief account is based on an article by Paul Sheehan in the Sydney Morning Herald (October 6, 2008) dealing with the book. It arrives at some of the same conclusions which I presented in my Knol article on Free Trade and Free Markets, Ecology and Economics, namely that one cannot expect free markets to be self-regulatory, leading to equilibrium.

Here are some excerpts from the newspaper article:

He says we should not trust financial markets to be self-correcting, or innately stable, or innately wise.”Prices in financial markets do not necessarily tend towards equilibrium. They do not just passively reflect the fundamental conditions of demand and supply.” He is rejecting the supposed truism that the market is always right.

Soros points out that we are not just caught in an asset bubble that is rapidly deflating, we are currently experiencing the bursting of a credit bubble that has involved the entire financial system” and will affect commodities.

Among other remedies, Soros recommends “the rapid development of fuel alternatives to oil, and a crackdown on financial derivatives speculation.

Of course, as we know, others believe that the markets are always right. See for example Michael Sterner: The Mind of the Market, who compares Adam Smith with Darwin, concluding that both free-market economics and evolution by natural selection are “unimprovable”. I refer again to my knol article and repeat that market fundamentalism and a fundamentalist belief in the evolutionary mechanisms proposed by Darwin are wrong.

Listen to an interview with George Soros here:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10102008/watch.html?ref=reddit

I have published a knol on how recent developments in ecology might influence our views on economics. Have a look at the knol here and comment either in this post or on the knol.

Two excerpts here:

Summary.
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was deeply influenced by a leading geologist, a demographer and an economist, who had the ideas that geological changes in the past can be explained by the same factors that are operative now, that changes have been gradual, that demand grows faster than supply, leading to competition for resources, and that market forces lead to equilibria. Darwin’s theory is at the basis of much of modern ecology, i.e., equilibrium ecology. Its three pillars are competition for resources (struggle for existence), survival of the fittest, and equilibrium in nature. - In parallel, the pillars of free market economy are competition for resources, the principle of comparative advantage, and equilibria. - Here we examine how recent findings on ecology have changed our views on equilibrium in ecological systems, and whether these findings can be applied to economics.

What can ecology teach us about economics?
As we have seen, the fundamental assumptions of classical economics and equilibrium ecology are surprisingly similar. The pillars of the former are competition for resources, the principle of comparative advantage, and equilibrium; the pillars of the latter are competition for resources (struggle for existence), survival of the fittest, and equilibrium. Concerning ecology, we have seen that resources are seldom exhausted, that competition occurs but is not of the overriding importance often assumed, and that equilibrium conditions are not as common as non-equilibrium ones. This should give us some reasons to at least have a closer look at the assumptions of free market economics. There can be little doubt that there often is competition for resources, but it seems that shortages frequently are of a temporary nature. On the supply side: recent evaluations suggest that wave energy alone would be sufficient to provide all of Australia’s energy; solar energy in Saharan Africa, among others, is only being talked about. On the demand side: demand is artificially and almost(?) hysterically driven up by advertising that plays on greed and “doing better than your neighbour”; and is the political hysteria leading to an ever increasing expenditure on defense perhaps the result of aggressive instincts of man cleverly exploited by nations’ military-PR industrial complexes? - Equilibrium in economy appears to be a fairly transient condition, as shown at this very moment by the global financial crisis.

Google has opened a new free encyclopedia “Knol” (abbreviation of Knowledge). It has certain advantages over Wikipedia, with which it will compete: 1) articles are published under their authors’ names; 2) authors have the option to exclude any changes by readers, allow changes which must be approved by the author, or allow any changes; 3) articles can be reviewed; 4) articles on the same topic by different authors are accepted; 5) it is possible to write comments on articles.
I published an article (in German) on Meeresparasiten (marine parasites) in Knol. Have a look:

http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/meeresparasiten-wirtschaftliche-und/xk923bc3gp4/2#

In his brilliant book “The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Penguin Books, 2007″ Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that unlikely, unforeseeable events are of extreme importance, much more so than probable ones, in history, politics, science, etc. However, attention is usually paid to the latter. This reinforces my view, expressed in several earlier posts, on the importance of nonequilibrium conditions in ecology, and on the danger of making political decisions based on equilibrium assumptions (click Nash equilibria in politics). In this post I briefly draw attention to his views on developments in modern philosophy, which agree with what I said about the hairsplitting in discussions of the “Nonidentity Problem”, and about “Postmodern Philosophy”.

Here are some extracts from his book (Prologue: pp. xxvii-xxviii):

“Talk is cheap.”

…

“Indeed those who read too much Wittgenstein ……. may be under the impression that language problems are important. They may certainly be important to attain prominence in philosophy departments”, but for not much else.

“Thus I rail against sterile skepticism”, the kind we can do nothing about, and against the exceedingly theoretical language problems that have made much of modern philosophy largely irrelevant to what is derisively called the “general public”. ” One reason, according to Taleb, is that academics in abstract disciplines depend on each other’s opinion, without having any external checks.

(Taleb is Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and author of the bestselling (in 18 languages) “Fooled by Randomness”)

I have just started reading the book and may return to it later. I know little about Wittgenstein, hence comments by professional philosophers and others would be most welcome.

I have commented on this in a previous post. The full article is now available on the web.

Click here :

http://www.tilgher.it/biologiae.html

Go to “latest issue”, to “News and Views”, to “free full text”.