The reason kids drop out of art school, or art programs, is not because its "bullshit" as they always say, but because its a lot of work.

Try doing 3 paintings a week as well as drawings, pottery, etc. Oddly enough they work more than science majors. I had a good science education in college but I wasn't writing more than 4 or 5 papers a semester. Art majors are producing 3 or 4 things a week.

People always says Feynman was a great educator, but what's the evidence for this? People liked hearing him talk, but how do we know he's a good educator? What metrics are available?

Janine Benyus has a BS in Natural Resource Management and english lit from Rutgers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janine_Benyus

People are dying in droves in Chicago, but I guess that's ok because they don't use bombs and aren't "terrorists" just "criminals."

The WMD charge is supposed to make this look like something other than just a criminal trial.

We don't compete for the same resources. Also, machines could simply be programmed to not want to kill humans. There is not reason to think they would resent this any more than humans resent being programmed to not want to kill humans.

I dunno if Google would care. People have been using gmail as online storage since the beginning and Google didn't seem to care. Your 10gb video is not going to appreciably change Google's total bandwidth usage.

Apparently you like running Linux more than watching Netflix.

Or do you just want to have your cake and eat it too?

So if that's all it's doing then what's wrong with it?

If its such a minor and inconsequential thing, who cares?

Are you a biologist?

Because I am, and I'll tell you that most biologists are totally into sociobiology. Being against it is very 1980's. There has been a lot of research on it and while the evolution of sociality is an active area of research, very few people share Gould's views.

Yeah and Wilson agrees with this. NO ONE does stats by themselves though. We use a computer to do it. I understand what mathematical theory underlies an ANOVA or a Bonferroni correction or a Spearmann rank, but I could not do the math.

What do I do then when I do these things which I do all the time?

I use a computer. I use R.

This is what E.O. is saying.

This will do everything 99% of biologist eed to do. If you ever finding yourself really needing something high-level, you find a collaborator.

Saying all scientists must know tons of math is like saying all home-owners need to be master electricians or plumbers. Home owners should probably know the basics of how pipes and wires work and should probably be able to unclog a toilet and change a lightbulb, but if they need something real done they are probably best to call an expert. It's not like they couldn't figure it out of they had to and had time, but an expert will be less hassle and will probably do a better job.

This is what he is saying.

He's absolutely right. There are some biologist (some bioinformaticists) who need to be real math pros and the ones that are have a distinct advantage. However, most biologists aren't and they do fine.

For instance, to do qPCR (a way to quantify gene expression) requires a lot of mathematical calculations, essentially calculus and linear algebra. You don't need to know them though because there is great software which does it for you. You do need to understand what its doing though to use it. I've seen people use it poorly because they don't understand it.

So you need "intuition" about how calculus and algebra work, bu you don't need to do it. I know what an integral is. I know what a linear transformation is and how it can be used. I could not though for the life of me integrate or derive anything myself on paper.

30 years ago you could say the same thing for an accountant. They needed to be an absolute whiz with not calculus but also arithmatic.

Now they have Excel, and they don't need to be a master at doing math, they need to be a master at understanding it.

I think most people don't like what EO said because they think he's against math or math education, and he's not. Do you know how you get math intuition? You take a lot of math classes.

Malaysia sucks. Seriously, detention without trial? Death penalty for drugs? State religion? High risk of infectious disease? Monarchy? Sex-trafficking?

NO. THANKS.

I mean, I don't OWN a copy of Windows or really probably any piece of software I [didn't really] pay for.

I license it. Even if you made a law saying unlocking is ok, all the phone companies would have to do is retain ownership of the phone and simply license its use to you.

Remember kids: Ownership is not a real thing. It's a thing made up by naked apes so they can fight.

I don't think the point of the coal/radiation meme isn't that they are SO radioactive, its that even nuclear plants aren't that radioactive. Even when they meltdown (really every accident except Chernobyl) they radiation is minimal (in the sense that its not like it kills TONS of people).

Oh when you're eyes get hacked and you're unable to see people who don't want to be seen.