Apostle of Reason

Economic Analysis of Behaviour – Levitt, Steven D. & Dubner, Stephen J.; “Freakonomics” 2005, Penguin

apostleofreason — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:40:17 +0000

Freakonomics …

p11 “… based on a few fundamental ideas:

Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. …

The conventional wisdom is often wrong. …

Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes. …

“Experts” use their information advantage to serve their own agenda. …

Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so.”

Ecology – Watson, Lyall “Dark Nature; A Natural History of Evil” 1995, Sceptre

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:36:46 +0000

p22 “Ecology is concerned with two basic problems: distribution and abundance.”

p48 “There are several genetic instructions which seem to be common to, and appropriate to, all life and Rule Number One amongst these is: BE NASTY TO OUTSIDERS. Genes are simple-minded and mean spirited. …. They have no vision and cannot be expected to have the welfare of the whole species at heart.”

[Rule Zero: It has to be a pretty good niche to warrant not being part of a group. A group has insiders (the group) and outsiders.]

[Rule Number zero point one: When the group gets big create a hierarchy and diversify roles in the group for efficiency.]

p51 “In addition to being generally nasty to outsiders, genes have a supplementary tendency which could be described as Rule Number Two: BE NICE TO INSIDERS. Dawkins, Hamilton and Wilson all recognise ‘the gene’ as a biochemical entity.”

p58 “In addition to being generally nasty strangers, and nice to relatives and friends, genes are congenital crooks. They hedge their bets by … Rule Number Three: CHEAT WHENEVER POSSIBLE.” [That is to say; cheat on group rules if there is apparent genetic risk/return survival value.]

Democracy – O’Brien, Patrick “The People’s Case: Democratic and Anti-democratic Ideas in Australia’s Constitutional Debate” 1995

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:45:04 +0000

p.1 “… Democracy is, in secular terms, humanity’s highest moral achievement and we, as individuals and a nation, have a common, bounden duty to bequeath to future generations a ‘more perfect’ democracy than either the one we inherited or the once we have fashioned out of existing constitutional arrangements. The task is an on-going venture in civic responsibility.”

Social Psychology – Smith, Adam “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” 1759

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:42:17 +0000

“Of Sympathy.”

p.3 “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.”

Definition: ‘Phenotype’

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:36:52 +0000

A phenotype is the expression of the genotype in an environment (at a given time).

Base Units of Survival – Dawkins, Richard “The Selfish Gene” 1976, 1979, Oxford

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:33:14 +0000

Back cover. “Our genes made us. We animals exist for their preservation and are nothing more than their throwaway survival machines.”

p.3 “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to.”

Philosophy of Data – Kosko, Bart “Fuzzy Thinking” 1993, Flamingo

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:15:29 +0000

p.12 “Up close things are fuzzy. Borders are inexact and things coexist with nonthings. Fuzzy logic is reasoning with fuzzy sets.”

[A collection of anecdotes is not data and data is not necessarily evidence.]

Complexity and Emergence – Kauffman, Stuart “At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Complexity” 1995, Penguin

apostleofreason — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:11:51 +0000

p.1 “How do we use the information gleaned about the parts to build up a theory of the whole? The deep difficulty lies in the fact that the complex whole may exhibit properties that are not readily explained by understanding the parts. The complex whole, in a completely non-mystical sense, can often exhibit collective properties “emergent” features that are lawful in their own right.”

Apostle of Reason

apostleofreason — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:38:53 +0000

Important ideas in biology, neurology, psychology and political science for understanding one simple question:

What, on Earth, are we doing?!