Causation a Very Short Introduction - some big questions about reductionism.

p 72

"Reductionism requires a stratified view of nature: that there are various levels to it, the relatively lower being more fundamental and explanatory than the higher. But what would these levels be? how are they defined and what are their boundaries? Is meteorology more fundamental or less so than economics? And are these facts about the world or more to do with our explanatory practices?"

This directly connects to Hierarchy Theory from the 1970s which as also related to Bertallanffy's work. This is al a question of systems and how the parts are put together. This also relates to Simon's Science of the Artificial which I still need to read which in turn is connected the Laurillard's current view of learning.

I can also see links to non-extensive entropy. Reductionism depends on everything following equi-partition but space and history make the world heterogeneous and entropy cannot possibly be extensive, it cannot be additive because of the hierarchy of levels making more permutations and combinations of new emergent objects accessible. This is the power of symmetry breaking.

This also fits with network models and the large central component and how to break networks into different levels when they are not homogeneous in their character.

Everything depends on networks and systems and hierarchy. These produce complexity but are stable to change and evolution. It is all incredibly deep with layers within layers and out current understanding is incredibly superficial because we do not make enough connections. We have become so compartmentalised in knowledge that we cannot possibly move to the next level unless we break down these boundaries. They affect how we think, how we learn and how we work.

I cannot believe that there is not a more extensive literature on finding sub-groups in data and showing if they are real or just useful explanations. This is the same argument that Mach was having with Boltzmann 120 years ago and the reason Boltzmann killed himself. Now we consider atoms real and not useful constructions of our intellect but within data and populations can we find REAL subgroups?

I think from experiment that they exist and that there are giant central components of most populations with other groups which can be divided off, but is this just the normal distribution and outliers or do we get a Paretto like distribution as the population is broken into sub-groups? From breaking sequence data into sub-groups I get interesting results but are they real lineages or are they just practically useful?

Stefano Collini - What are Universities For?

p xi Did not say about humanities being more important as I first read. Actually says "not, needless to say, because I believe they are more central to a university than the natural and social sciences, but partly because their character and value are usually less well understood than that of the scientific disciplines, and partly because they are the disciplines with which I am most familiar."

Chapter One - his idea is that the university is an important name for an institution because of the respect and prestige that the title brings. Very powerful arguments about the weaknesses of league tables and the ability to game them. Especially cynical about what league tables measure and if the student experience is a valid measure of anything at university.

Chapter Two - Anderson Committee 1960 created student grants - just as the boomers were about to enter. Before that entry was based on unequal privilege.

Chapter Four - Humanities are discussed but he is wrong to say that science and academic work should be inaccessible. His view that academic work is an apprenticeship in the humanities is a good one. We are all at some time apprentices even in the lab.

The Origins Of Sex

p101
... the Reverend Robert Wallace meant complete liberty for both men and women to cohabit successively with as many partners as they liked, and an end to spurious notions of female delicacy - for ' a woman's being enjoyed by a dozen in proper circumstances can never render her less fit or agreeable to a thirteenth!.


p109 Ultimately and paradoxically, sexual appetite was both the basis of civilisation ' the first and original principle of human society' and an ever present threat to social bonds

The Fix - Damian Thompson

p92 Nonetheless, there is a common denominator: availability.

Here he is looking at opium addiction in China and for US G.I.s during Vietnam and to gin in London. Dumb argument and the one usually used by the anti-legalisation crowd is that availability creates addiction. Yes if something doesn't exist I cannot be addicted to it. But there are plenty of addictive things that are freely available to which not everyone is addicted - cigarettes are not illegal yet and there are non-smokers. Doctors have wide access to drugs and not all of them are addicts (although more might be than is admitted). What they also all have in common is high stress/anxiety and low self worth with high levels of deprivation and the desire to escape life.

p107 This dismissed the popular notion of sugar as 'empty' calories. On the contrary, they were bad calories. "A little is not a problem, but a lot kills - slowly," said the authors, who went on to propose that sugary foods should be taxed and their sales to children under 17 controlled.

Yes there is a chance of increased levels of Diabetes and that is a very great cost to healthcare. Cup-cakes are a danger to society. This is not to be scorned and is easily dealt with and this is not an infringement of civil liberties it is education.

p192 The most explicit video games create scenes of digital violence so extreme that they are closer to a serial killing rampage than even the bloodiest warfare. Some games even allow players to simulate an act of necrophilia on the body of a fallen opponent.

Paranoid madness - he does not cite any literature on the link between violence and video game violence and he does not even name the game. This is hearsay, urban myth made into print. They are pixels coloured red and you get to hear worse on the news (Saville for example)

p192 On the other side of the fence are the anti-gaming campaigners such as Baroness Greenfield, a professor of synaptic pharmacology at Oxford University who argues that digital technology is exacerbating autism spectrum disorders and leading to an increase in violence and distraction amongst children.

Greenfield does look like an authority with all her books and interviews and appearances. What she fails to produce is any real scientific evidence to any of her claims. She has yet to publish one peer reviewed scientific article that presents any evidence of her claims and she is often attacked by people such as Ben Goldacre for making spurious and unsubstantiated claims.

p197 The internet has an almost magical ability to arouse male sexual cravings.

If he actually was not a sexist unable to relate to female sexuality he would also know that women also have sexual cravings and that these are also arouses by the internet although in different ways. He might like the book The Joy of Cybersex written by Deb Levine to show him a positive female view of sex on the internet.

p198 you are wrestling with obsessions that until a few years ago you thought were confined to ferret-faced men in raincoats hanging around school playgrounds.

This is a ridiculous stereotype. A lot of those who are paedophiles look like respectable members of the community because that is how they are most likely to get an opening for grooming young children. He forgets all the Catholic Priests for example that would hit too close to home as a devout Christian and Catholic as well as religious correspondent.

p202 I don't think anyone would have anticipated the features of porn that unnerve us most today: the massive appeal of hard-core images, often involving teenagers or children; and its transformation from a bad habit into an addiction.

Again he presents no evidence other than empty rhetoric. If there is this sea of paedophile pornography we are all wallowing in then why aren't there more arrests and convictions?

p204 His two porn experts are Shana Olfman and Gail Dines, Dines is apparently the best-known authority on the effects of pornography on women. That is nice but again both citations of evidence are for books and not for peer reviewed scholarship. Personally I have never heard of Dines at all and I follow a large number of sexologists and academic sex-perts on social media and she is never part of any conversations. In fact reading Dines' list of articles she does not have a single peer reviewed article in her career. All her writing is for newspapers and other public media. Olfman's scholarly c.v. is equally thin.

p209 In November 2004, the US Senate held a committee hearing on "The Science of Pornography Addiction". Dr Judith Reisman, a prominent crusader against pornography, told the committee: "We now know that pornographic visual images imprint and alter the brain, triggering an instant, involuntary, but lasting, biochemical memory trail, arguably subverting the First Amendment by overriding the cognitive speech process. This is true of so-called 'soft-core' and 'hard-core' pornography. And once new neurochemical pathways are established they are difficult or impossible the delete."

The problem is that Resiman is lying and this is an obviously bat-shit nuts statement. Affects the First Amendment by overriding cognitive speech? So I am no longer capable of free speech once I have been hypnotised by the evils of porn? It doesn't even make any sense when you write it down. She is a law Prof. She has no knowledge of neuroscience and the experiments she talks about do not exist and what has been done is neuro-science imaging of behaviour and adaptation is highly suspect. Basically this is all nonsense quoted as expert opinion.

p210 He goes on to show that Resiman's testimony was shredded by real experts such as Dr Daniel Linz - so what he has done is presented something he knows to be bull-shit first and in a convincing way and then presents the refutation is less dynamic terms. This is typical of Thompson who uses rhetoric over reason and evidence. He takes a position and then tries to warp reality to fit what he wants. Up until this point it was merely annoying but this section of the book is appalling deceit. Regardless he cites Norman Doidge as being convinced that porn is as addictive as drugs. I might be convinced that Liverpool will win the Premiership next year or the New York Jets will win the Superbowl but it does not make it true or even likely.

The Common Lawyer - Mark Gimenez

"Andy the tobacco companies kill a thousand people a day and have done for forty years. They knew their products were killing people, but they kept the real dangers secret all that time, to keep their profits. They killed millions of people for profit. What's one kid to the drug companies? These are people who will do anything to preserve their business model,"
"What business model?"
"Death and disease. Drug companies thrive on death and disease, Andy not health and happiness."

p431

A nice attack on Big Pharma but not as effective of ominous as The Constant Gardener.

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. 

Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod II

The curve showing the variation of activity as dependent upon concentration of an effector (including the substrate) is almost always S-shaped. In other words the effect of the ligand at first increases faster than its concentration. This behaviour is the more remarkable in that it appears to be characteristic of allosteric enzymes.In ordinary "classic" enzymes, on the contrary, the effect increases more slowly than the concentration p68.

Foundation of the S-systems idea of Voit.

 For example: in state R the protein will be able to recognize and therefore to bind compound alpha at one site (but not compound beta), whereas in state T it will recognize and bind compound beta but not alpha. It follows that either compound will have the effect of stabilizing the protein in this or that of its two states, R or T, at the expense of the other; and that alpha and beta will be mutually antagonistic, since their respective interactions with the protein are mutually exclusive p70.

This might be a way of getting an XOR relationship.

There is no chemically necessary relationship between the fact that beta-galactosidase hydrolyzes beta-galatosides, and the fact that its biosynthesis is induced by the same compounds. Physiologically useful or "rational" this relationship is chemically arbitrary - "gratuitous" one might say. This fundamental concept of gratuity i.e. the independence, chemically speaking, between the function itself and the nature of the chemical systems controlling it  - applies to allosteric enzymes... enabling an interaction, positive or negative, to come about between compounds without chemical affinity, and thereby eventually subordinating any reaction to the intervention of compounds that are chemically foreign and indifferent to this reaction. p77.

This implies the generation of a hierarchy of levels of cybernetic control. It also suggests lots of possibilities for co-evolution of processes and regulation.

only failure awaits attempts to reduce the properties of a very complex organisation to the "sum" of the properties of its parts. A most foolish and wrongheaded quarrel it is, merely testifying to the "holists" profound misappreciation of scientific method and of the crucial role analysis plays in it. If a Martian engineer were trying to understand one of our earthling computers, how far could he conceivably get were he, on principle, to refuse to dissect the basic electronic components which in the machine execute the operations of propositional algebra? If any one branch of molecular biology illustrates better than others the sterility of holist theses as against the cogency of analytical method, it is indeed the study of these microscopic cybernetic systems.. p 79.

Monod is partly right and partly wrong the point is that the arrangement of the microscopic components is not embedded in the components themselves.

And even though these analyses are not yet near to furnishing us with a complete description of the cybernetic system of the simplest cell, they tell us that, without exception, all the activities that contribute to the growth and multiplication of that cell are interconnected and intercontrolled directly or otherwise. On such a basis, but not that of a vague "general theory of systems," does it become possible for us to grasp in what very real sense the organism does effectively transcend physical laws - even while obeying them - this achieving at once the pursuit and fulfilment of its own purpose.   

This is just an attack on Bertalanffy who is referenced for General Systems Theory. It is not actually presenting any kind of alternative framework and it is also contradictory.

Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod I

In the book he makes arguments for distinguishing signs of life from crystalline growth and other ways of creating order. A simpler approach is that of Lotka who said it was just a matter of definition and avoided the question all together. This is based on the idea of Paley and the watch-maker, showing that there must be design,

The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words, the systematic denial that "true" knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes - that is to say, of "purpose" ...

Objectivity nevertheless obliges us to recognize the telenomic character of living organisms, to admit that in their structure and performance they act projectively - realize and pursue a purpose. p21-22.

Is this true? Do we need purpose? It is indirect because selection requires the purpose of being able to deal with the environment.

that invariance necessarily precedes teleonomy. Or, to be more explicit the Darwinian idea that the initial appearance, evolution, and steady refinement of ever more teleonomic structures are due to perturbations occurring in a structure which already possesses the property of invariance - hence is capable of preserving the effects of chance and thereby submitting them to the play of natural selection. p23-24.

This is the point that the genome is separate and "invariant" as in it allows the random changes to be passed between generations. But this also echoes the ideas of Claude Bernard and that complex organisms carry their environment around with them and so are more robust to environmental changes. He accuses Elsasser and Polanyi of scientific vitalism which is unfair.Teilhard de Chardin is intellectually spineless (this is the use of the personal fallacy - attack the person and not the idea). Teilhard has evolution act on all components not just living things. This agrees with Lotka's definition of evolution but there is a genotype in living things.

Living things are robust, plastic and evolvable. So they have a balance between  a defined shape/function and flexibility. They respond to the environment, yet they are separable pools of information. They are homeostatic but not closed.

We know however (contrary to what Laplace believed, and after him the science and "materialist" philosophy of the 19th century) that these predictions could be no more than statistical.
In a general manner the theory would anticipate the existence, the properties, the interrelations of  certain classes of objects or events, but would obviously not be able to foresee the existence or the distinctive character of any particular object or event. p43.

This is the point about biology being a phenomenological subject and that it might not have an fundamental predictive laws.

Plainly enough, the functional coherence of so complex a chemical machine, which is autonomous as well calls for a cybernetic system governing and controlling the chemical activity at numerous points. p45.

This specificity is two-fold:

1. Each enzyme catalyses but one type of reaction.
2. Among the sometimes very numerous compounds in the organism susceptible of undergoing that type of reaction, the enzyme, as a general rule, is active in regard to only one.
   

Nonsense - they are not so specific and there is a lot of kinetic control.

Plasticity in Darwin's Origin of the Species 6th Edition

Historical Sketch

Plasticity xv - He extends the same view to animals. The Dean {Hon. and Rev. W Herbert} believes that single species of each genus were created in an originally highly plastic condition, and that these have produced, chiefly by intercrossing, but likewise by variation, all our existing species.

Finality error xix - He {M Naudin} believes, like Dean Herbert, that species, when nascent , were more plastic than at present. He lays weight on what he calls the principle of finality.

The Origin

9 Any variation which is not inherited is unimportant for us. But the number and diversity of inheritable deviations of structure, both those of slight and those of considerable physiological importance, are endless.

22 The great power of this principle of selection is not hypothetical. It is certain that several of our eminent breeders have, even within a single lifetime, modified to a large extent their breeds of cattle and sheep.

62 Under domestication, it may truly be said that the whole organism becomes in some degee plastic.

106 The direct action of changed conditions leads to definite or indefinite results. In the later case the organism seems to become plastic and we have much fluctuating variability.

385 He {E Ray Lankester} proposes to call the structures which resemble each other in distinct animals, owing to their descent from a common progenitor with subsequence modifications homogeneous; and the resemblances which cannot this be accounted for, he proposes to call homoplastic.

Glossary 438 Plastic - Readilly capable of change.

The Luddite connection to Frank Herbert's Dune

In the Dune universe thinking machines - artificial intelligence is banned after the Butlerian jihad. Herbert was thinking of the 19th century philosopher and technophobe Luddite Samuel Butler who wrote the book Erewhon.

Schopenhauer Quote

If your abilities are mediocre, modesty is an honesty, but if you possess great talents it is hypocrisy - quoted in the Private Lives of Albert Einsten.

The Once and Future King

There would be a day - there must be a day - when he would come back to Gramarye with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none - a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there. The hope of making it would lie in culture. If people could be persuaded to read and write, not just to eat and make love, there was still a chance they might come to reason.

The Meaning of the 21st Century II

Chapter 14 A perfect storm
Small scale entrepreneurs in developing countries - storm of innovation. Amory Lovins Factor 4 double wealth and half resource use. We can do this now. We actually need to think of factor 10 this is for the innovation. Says this requires sweeping away government regulations - very right-wing capitalist.

Chapter 15 The vital role of corporations
I agree that corporations and business can do far more for a country than aid and charity, but it depends on the ethics and scruples of the companies. We need more Cadbury's and less Enrons. We need companies that see real costs and keep real balance sheets.

Chapters 16 and 17 Cultures crucible and The Counter-terorist world
Nonsense - he overplays the conflicts between religions and cultures. In the end we all want certain freedoms and liberal democracies but these do not specify Gods and cultures. The disputes are caused by anachronisms that are dying and having their last roll of the dice. In the 1580s protestants went on suicide missions against catholic priests.

The Meaning of the 21st Century

Chapter 1 - The Transition Generation
We are going through a time of very rapid change and there will be suprises and changes in paradigm (leverage factors) that provide large-scale changes in what we can do. The challenge is definitely staying alive.

Chapter 2 What got us into this mess

• Too much complexity, a lack of appreciation of limited natural resources. Over-confidence in technology being able to surpass nature (this is ironic as this is Bjorn Lomborg's argument and Martin is guilty himself in later chapters). The tragedy of the commons with fisheries and factory fishing, the tipping point of pollution in the Black Sea. People learn from catastrophe first.
• Worldwatch Institute $124 billion spent to catch $70 billion problem of subsidies which encourage over fishing.

Chapter 3 Rich kids and their trust funds

• We are using up the environmental capital without any thought to the long term sustainability (I hate using this word). Gives a very false account of the cost of what we consume. GDP can rise so long as we keep using natural resources without factoring any real costs for them.
• Norman Myers - list of perverse subsidies that total $2 trillion each year. More than enough to end the current financial crisis and to return the world to order. Roodman D Getting the signals right $73,000 a year per worker in the Ruhr to subsidise coal mining.
• Dangers of spin - particularly by the government where vested interests mean they hide the truth e.g tobacco showing nicotine is harmless and non-addictive.

Chapter 4 Too many people
Leverage factor is education which dramatically reduces the population growth rate and in most cases reduces it below the replacement rate. Actually in the long term we need to hit the replacement rate if we do not want to become extinct but not go above it. Liberated women are the answer - women who can ejoy sex like men!!

Chapter 5 The giant in the kitchen

• Water security - there is an issue of IEEE spectrum about this as we have to balance water and energy needs but if we can create an excess of energy the problem goes away as we can desalinate the worlds oceans. The loss of topsoil can also be managed with careful farming methods and west is not best no matter what Martin's inference. More trees, more addition of the right minerals (Australian soil doctor). Extensive use of hydropnics especially in cities can reduce food miles but these have to be well designed and computer maintained and also stretch water resources although in a closed loop way.
• He is a strong proponent of GM foods - GM has a risk that evolution is necessarily slow so that the consequnces are less drastic and so we cannot understand all of the ecological consequences. GM has to be treated carefully, some is fine to make disease resistant bananas for example but the round-up crops are not essential and there is some evidence that organic pest management is possible and better.

Chapter 6 Destitute nations
Crippled business because of the lack of capital - no deeds or possibility of land transfer or business transfer and so there is a lack of assets that can creat mobile capital.

Chapter 7 Climate catastrophe
This is happening the ocean conveyors (evidence is disputed) and global warming and we need to take action. Fuel cells and hydrogen-economy is the answer - fine but this technology has yet to make a big impact. Solar could be used to charge the cells - Solar Living Sourcebook Astropower 120-watt photovoltaic panel vovering Nellis Air Force Base and Nevada Test site would generate all the power for the US, 1,858,850 panels per square mile  produce 425 million kwH/year.
Fourth generation nuclear power - pebble-bed reactors - gas cooled - small so locally produced - no loss from transmission

Chapter 8 Invisible mayhem

• The effect of the agro-chemicals on sperm levels and genital mutations. They will be around for the long-term as we made them to not-degrade and so we have to live with this but we should make no more of them.
• The Erice statement

Chapter 9 Genetically modified humans
Too much belief in understanding the genome

Chapter 10 Nanodeluge
Gives rise to massive computing and non-human like intelligence. The problem is does this type of intelligence create knowledge or anythign we can use/work with?

Chapter 11 Automated evolution
Goal directed evolution is not evolution in the Darwinian sense - that has a teleology and you might as well call it intelligent design and god. The problem is trying to keep evolution and the environment separate. As the two mix in an undivided whole you get the law of unintended consequences and the faster the "evolution" the more serious these become.

Chapter 12 The Transhuman condition
This is just silly. There might be a singularity but for once Baroness Greenfield is right - we cannot reproduce the compelxity of our minds. We cannot reproduce the idea of freewill. A computational intelligence does not have free-will, logic denies it, it denies emotion. We would end up with the Borg. If we do choose that then we can imagine going the whole way. Digitising ourselves completely - then no food shortages, no environmental concerns, space travel becomes possible and colonisation of the universe. Only entropy would stand in our way.