Visions - Kaku

Rhodopsin and the master gene theory of Gehrig suggests that eye evolution is divergent. But this paper is not cited again in the next 9 years and so this would seem to be a dead-end so convergence is still probable as suggested by Stewart.
Having a master gene would invalidate the idea of canalisation as it is too deterministic there would be no convergence in related populations, there would be no need for plasticity or evolvability. The system would be very rigid and not very robust to loss of master gene function.
Fru gene controls make sexual response in fruit flies. This would be an example of a single gene and not a system of genes controlling a complex behaviour/trait. This would kill the need for a system and make selfish genes much more likely to exist. But this paper has not been cited again so it was probably a high level transcription factor required for activating many pathways.

Another physicist who sees futility where we do not need to. He worries that the Universe will end in about 13 billion years time and that this will be a waste of intelligent life. I think that if our descendants make it to 1 billion years that will be an outstanding success. At the minute we don't look like making another 100.


p12 "now the heyday of reductionism has probably passed. Seemingly impenetrable obstacles have been encountered which cannot be solved by the simple reductionist approach."

p82 "Sejnowski remarks, 'A lot of the details and organisational decisions in biology are historical accidents. You can't assume that nature took the simplest and most direct route to do something. Some features are remnants of some earlier stage of evolution, or it may be that some genes that happen to be around are commandeered for some other purposes.'"

p169 BPDE causes lung cancer mutations of p53 Science Oct 18 1996. p430.

p333 "For 99% of human existence, we lived in small primitive, nomadic tribes that could economically support perhaps no more than fifty of so individuals. ( Studies have shown that when a tribe expands beyond roughly this number, it cannot support and feed all the additional members and it will split up)."

What studies? Walden Two? Nietzche's sister in Paraguay?

Characterising effective e-learning resources: Littlejohn, Falconer and McGill 2008

"Learners construct their own knowledge through these interactions with tutors, other students and the learning materials."
"aggregation offers the possibility of 'personalised' learning systems that identify learner's skills levels and presents them with materials aimed at their current abilities."
"the most commonly used electronic materials ... include articles, book chapters, illustrations and animations."
"'Learning Objects' that could be plugged together to produce a course."
"Learning objects have been rejected by Wiley (2000) as encouraging a simplistic view of learning resources, and a narrow view of education as transmission of blocks of content. He has proposed an alternative metaphor: that of a chemist combining atoms to form molecules."
"not every resource can combine with every other."
Indicators for useful Learning Objects would be "positive evaluation documentation, regular citations within the literature, and widespread adoption within accredited courses."
"metadata describing their potential use."
"much debate about who should produce metadata for Learning Objects."
Resources should be durable and maintained e.g. content in an eJournal over material on an unsupported website.
Quality Assured.
Free from legal restrictions
Formats that are accessible and ubiquitous
Electronic formats or print.
Engage the learner
"reluctance among academics to submit authored resources to a digital repository ... insufficient reward (financial or kudos)."
"that resources at appropriate cost will be adopted if other factors (for example accessibility of language) render them appealing to tutors and students."
"The disadvantage of not being easily repurposed is apparently outweighed by the benefit of contextualisation or of saving time in aggregation."
"Resources should be sufficiently small to be reusable, but large enough to ensure that tutors do not have to spend time aggregating large numbers of resources."
"move away from a narrative presentation of information towards a more active use."
"active learning resources and their sequencing within a learning design or lesson plan becomes more prominent, the profile of dynamic resources is likely to increase resources will need to show how they can be reused in a range of educational models or learning designs."
"inverse relationship between resources being sufficiently large to be of educational value, while being small enough to reuse effectively."
"embraces constructivist principles"
"What may be a positive accessibility characteristic in one situation may be a barrier in another, even for the same subject area and teacher."
"Currently many tutors start by focussing on content and may appreciate guidance in the choice of resource format, medium etc, as well as in consideration of educational design and learner activities through determining the suitability of resources for their teaching."
"their use in context that is important."

The Written World - Andrew Feenberg

From Mindweave:  communication, computer and distance education 1989 Pergamon Press.
"when we leave a message in computer memory we feel an intense need for response."
"Paradoxically, then speeding up and improving asynchronous exchanges causes unexpected distress. This explains why on-line communities place such an emphasis on active participation and are often critical of passive readers who are pejoratively called lurkers."
"Flaming (the expression of uncensored emotions on-line) is viewed as a negative consequence of this feeling of liberation."
"the idea of community implies bonds of sentiment that are not always necessary to effect online communication"
"we must discover how the conference empowers its members to speak up and provokes others to reply."
"Sharing of purpose among people who do not form a community but have accepted a common work or play as the context for an intense temporary relationship."
"the social network designer - has emerged to solve the problems of organising and leading on-line groups."
"try to get people on-line with the hope that once they connect something will happen. This approach to CMC leads to disappointing results."
"Educational conferencing systems, for example, are fairly limited in their ability to handle mathematical symbols." Hiltz 1986.
Created the idea of weaving "identifying the themes, making connections, 'indexing' the material mentally."
"drawing together in a momentary synthesis that can serve as a starting point for the next round of debate."

"The absence of tacit cues and coded objects strands participants in a contextual void that may leave them literally speechless."
"The face-to-face meeting can also asynchronise the commencement of the on-line exercise through a ritualised initiation to the conference."
"The erotic charge of new communications technology in France today curiously parallels early experiences with the telephone in that country See Catherine Bertho 1981 p243-245."

Planning to Go Online

"For a distance course, everything needs to be planned in advance very much more exactly... If you wish to run a course that evolves in unpredictable ways, then you must make this clear to distant students from the start."
"there is a great potential for abject confusion and worry from the students concerned over what they actually have to do and by when."
"technology must not lead pedagogy"
"If there is conscious planning then it is more likely that some developments will occur because the technology has something to offer in terms of efficiency or a broadening in the diversity of learning or contact routes and not so much simply because the technology is available."
"why develop and offer the course at all?  .... capture a new market .... delivery of the course more flexible and in that way capture new markets."
"resist the temptation to provide on-line options to students on-campus purely as something additional. Instead try to introduce the use of technology with the intention of changing something, no matter how small."
"the risk of swamping them with too much information should not be forgotten."
"Will the students be able to access the course adequately?"
"examine the learning outcomes of the course, linking these with the assessment criteria."
"require a minimum hardware specification for any off-campus computer of internet connection."
"think long and hard about the likely hardware and to a degree software resources that will be available to your students."
"There will always be a handful of students that will not like working on-line or will be nervous of such work or feel intimidated by the use of a computer"
"Often, but not always, initial considerations tend to focus on the presentation of information or knowledge"

Potential Roles for Computers and Computer Networks in Higher Education

"The move to online websites has led to little change in course delivery or pedagogic model."
".. may be fine for truly independent learners who have little problem either understanding or applying the subject matter."
"replace the one to many lecture with the one to many web page."
"where interaction is with rather than through the computer, is too labour intensive at the creation and updating stages and does not protect individuals from the dangers or drawbacks of completely independent learning."
Textbooks will still be required

Solvation

Ben-Naim

mistake

• toluene -> water = approximation to gas phase -> water
• based on the idea of dielectric
• neglects specific interactions - e.g. pi stacking and entropy

Kollman

mistake

• separating electrostatic and solvation effects
• what is solvation?
• organisation of solvent molecules about a solute
• initially a crude "Ewald" alignment - more detailed with time
• alignment controlled by electrostatics, driven by entropy - halts when entropy is maximum

Why Sex is Fun - Jared Diamond.

"Becoming a male is a prolonged, uneasy and risky venture; it is a kind of struggle against inherent trends toward femaleness." A. Jost quote p46 WSIF
Chauvinists might go further and hail becoming a man as heroic and becoming a woman as the easy fallback position. Conversely, one might regard womanhood as the natural state of humanity, with men just a pathological aberration that regrettably must be tolerated as the price for making more women. I prefer merely to acknowledge at a Y chromosome switches gonad development from the ovarian path to the testicular path, and to draw no metaphysical conclusions. ibid p46

from evolution of mating systems amongst the primates he concludes;

"We thus conclude that promiscuity or harems, not monogamy, is the mating system that leads to concealed ovulation. This is the conclusion predicted by the many fathers theory. It doesn't agree with the daddy-at-home theory." p89
What about mixed strategies aren't these even better? Many fathers and daddy-at-home. Convince many that they may be the father and ye give one the strong belief that he can maintain monogamy by remaining at home in close proximity The necessary falsehood of monogamy is the most useful strategy as both parties have their cake and eat it. They both pretend monogamy is good while cheating like mad. The problem is the difference between perceived strategy as sensed amongst a populace or at least assumed and the real strategy which need not be the same.
Last year I received a remarkable letter from a professor at a university in a distant city, inviting me to an academic conference. I did not know the writer, and I couldn't even figure out from the name whether the writer was a man or a woman . The conference would involve long plane flights and a week from home. However, the letter of  invitation was beautifully written. If the conference was going to be as beautifully organized, it might be exceptionally interesting. With some ambivalence because of the time commitment, I accepted.
My ambivalence vanished when I arrived at the conference, which turned out to be every bit as interesting as I had anticipated. In addition, much effort had been made to arrange outside activities for me, including shopping, bird watching, banquets, and tours of archaelogical sites. The professor behind this masterpiece of organization and the original virtuoso letter proved to be a woman. In addition to giving a brilliant lecture at the conference and being a very pleasant person, she was among the most stunningly beautiful women I ever met.
 On one of the shopping trips that my hostess arranged, I bought several presents for my wife. The student who had been sent along as my guide evidently reported these purchases to my hostess, because she commented on them when I sat next to her at the conference banquet. To my astonishment, she told me, "My husband  never buys me any presents!" She had formerly bought presents for him but eventually stopped hen he never reciprocated,
 Someone across the table then asked me about my fieldwork on birds of paradise in New Guinea. I explained that male birds of paradise provide no help in rearing the nestlings but instead devote their time to trying to seduce as many females as possible. Surprising me again, my hostess burst out, "Just like men!" She explained that her 0wn husband was much better than most men, because he encouraged her career aspirations. However, he spent most evenings with other men from his office, watched television while at home on the weekend, and avoided helping with the household and their two children. She had repeatedly ask him to help: she finally gave up and hired a housekeeper.

There is, of course, nothing unusual a about this story. It stands out in my mind only because this woman was so beautiful, nice, and talented that one might naively have expected the man who chose to marry her to have remained interested in spending time with her. ibid p95-96

This is so sad she should ditch the fool it is annoying when brilliant women are wasted on neanderthal man.

Now compare the reproductive outputs of men pursuing the two different hunting strategies that Hawkes terms the 'provider' strategy d the 'show-off' strategy. The provider hunts for foods yielding moderately high returns with hi predictability, such as palm starch and rats. The show-off hunts for big animals; by scoring only 0ccasional bonanzas amid many more days of empty bags, his mean return is lower. The provider brings home on the average the most food for his' wife and kids, although he never acquires enough of a surplus to feed anyone else. The show-off on the' average brings less food to his wife and kids but does occasionally have lots of meat to share with others.
 Obviously, if a woman gauges her genetic interests by the number of children whom she can rear to maturity, that's a function of how much food she can provide them, so she is best off marrying a provider. But she is further well served b having show-offs as neighbours, with whom she can trade occasional adulterous sex for extra meat supplies for herself and her kids. The whole tribe also likes a show-off because of the occasional bonanzas that he brings home for sharing. p105

Physiology and molecular biology can do no more than identify proximate mechanisms; only evolutionary biology can provide ultimate causal explanations. As one simple example, the proximate reason why so called poison-dart frogs e poisonous is that they secrete a lethal chemical named batrachotoxin. But the molecular biological mechanism for the frog's poisonousness could be considered an unimportant detail because many other poisonous chemicals could have worked equally well. The ultimate causal explanation is that poison-dart frogs evolved poisonous chemicals because they are small, otherwise defenceless animal that would be easy prey for predators if they were not protected by poison p 116-117.

Consider SJ Gould and nipples the clitoris etc. and also Plato on levels of causes in  mol. biol. = material level and evo. biol. gives another level of cause but probably not the level of final cause.