-
"There is mystery and magic here. The mystery is how the
necessarily different individual preferences and prejudices of
more than 100m voters can add up to a collective decision to
endorse the politics of moderation. How, for example, could the 75
per cent of gays who backed Mr Gore know that their choice would
be balanced by the overwhelming preference for Mr Bush among those
who like to keep a handgun on the bedside table? (…) There is
the magic of democracy."
Is there any scientific basis why such a statistically
extremely unlikely outcome could be predictable?
Herman
Haken used the example of two ice-cream vendors on a beach.
The problem is where should they place their stands. It turns out
that the only stable configuration is that they both stand right
next to each other in the exact center of the beach.
According to the work of Keith
Poole and others the US political landscape is indeed
primarily aligned along a one dimensional axis that can be labeled
"conservative-liberal".
Therefore the optimal strategy would dictate that both
candidate position themselves right at the center of that
spectrum. On consequence for the potential voters could be that
the candidates are indistinguishable and that could explain the
extremely low voter turnout of barely 40%. On the other hand
voters with a more polarized position (located at the "fat"(?)
tails of the opinion distribution will form their own parties.
Supporters of those parties, however are in the dilemma: to
either vote for their own party although they are aware that it
has no chance of winning, or to choose the lesser evil by voting
to the party in the center that at least leans toward their own
position.
One time voting -just as playing "Prisoner's Dilemma" only once
can lead to paradoxical situation where the outcome is not in the
interest of any of the players. That is a reason why modern
democracies allow for runoff elections if non of the candidates
gets a clear majority in the first round.
The Florida results show that the differences in the outcome
are well within the normal noise-background and the alternatives
are to either repeat the elections or accept the results that
might as well have been obtained by rolling a dice.
The Transition From Quantity To Quality: A Neglected Causal Mechanism In Accounting For Social Evolution, PNAS 
The Transition From Quantity To Quality: A Neglected
Causal Mechanism In Accounting For Social EvolutionThis article is
a well written historical account of phase transitions in social
systems. While the hard sciences were busy developing Newtonian
sience, it was only a few decades after Newton's death (1727),
that the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(1770-1831) discussed social phenomena in the context of phase
transitions. He called it the transition from quantity to quality
and he indeed used examples from the natural sciences to
illustrate that point.
Other examples were from military force-balance estimates:
"According to Engels, Napoleon ''...describes the conflicts
between the French cavalry, bad riders but disciplined, with the
Mamelukes who, as regards single combat were better horsemen but
undisciplined, as follows-Two Mamelukes were a match for three
Frenchmen, 100 Mamelukes were equal to 100 Frenchmen, 300
Frenchmen could beat 300 Mamelukes, and 1,000 Frenchmen invariably
defeated 1,500 Mamelukes''."
Later on Hegel's law was used extensively by Karl Marx
colleague Friedrich Engels but apparently it didn't have much
influence in political implementation by Lenin and the communists
in Russia who treated society more like a mechanistic construct
that can be centrally controlled.
Hegel and his successors probably were not aware of critical
phenomena close to phase transitions that lead to infinite
amplification of the tiniest fluctuations. Currently we witness
perhaps one of the most critical phase transition in the history
of social systems: A couple of hundred voters (the exact value
fluctuates by hundreds of %) determine the political future of
272.7Mio. that is an amplification factor of about a million, so
one can truly speak of "sensitive dependence on initial
conditions".
The outdated balloting system based on manual punch cards
together with a confusing design led in on Florida county to
statistical aberrations that were a multiple of the vote
difference between the candidates. The threshold non-linearities
of the US electoral system also lead to a large variation in the
value of a single vote: Three times as many votes were needed in
Massachusetts per elector compared to Alaska. That means if a
Harvard professor has one vote a clerk in Anchorage has
effectively three votes. (see
Figure).
- The
Transition From Quantity To Quality: A Neglected
Causal Mechanism In Accounting For Social
Evolution, Robert L.
Carneiro, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Usa, Vol. 97, Issue
23, 12926-12931, November 7, 2000
- Carnegie
Mellon Statistical Study Shows With Extreme Confidence
That Ballot Cost Gore
Votes, Carnegie
Mellon University,
Science Daily, 11/10/00
The Economics Of Immunity, Science
Immunologists have a firm grasp of the diversity of
immune responses mounted by animals against bacteria, viruses, and
parasites. Although Darwinian natural selection has been invoked
to explain other types of biological diversity, it is still not
clear how natural selection might shape patterns of
immunoresponsiveness--what type of immune response to mount, and
at what strength. (…)
Evidence that immunity does not come cheap is based largely
on the assumption that the substantial physiological perturbations
associated with mounting an immune response will have an impact on
the fitness of the organism.(1)
Parasites do not always harm their hosts because the immune
system keeps an infection at bay. Ironically, the cost of using
immune defenses could itself reduce host fitness. This indirect
cost of parasitism is often not visible because of compensatory
resource intake. Here, workers of the bumblebee, Bombus
terrestris, were challenged with lipopolysaccharides and
micro-latex beads to induce their immune system under starvation
(i.e., not allowing compensatory intake). Compared with controls,
survival of induced workers was significantly reduced (by 50 to
70%).(2)
The behavioral and ecological factors involved in immune
system evolution remain poorly explored. We present a phylogenetic
analysis of white blood cell counts in primates to test three
hypotheses related to disease risk: increases in risk are expected
with group size or population density, exposure to soil-borne
pathogens, and mating promiscuity. White blood cell counts were
significantly greater in species where females have more mating
partners, indicating that the risk of sexually transmitted disease
is likely to be a major factor leading to systematic differences
in the primate immune system. (3)
Harvester Ants (Pogonomyrmex Spp.): Their Community And Ecosystem Influences, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst.
We summarize the influences of harvester ants of the
genus Pogonomyrmex on communities and ecosystems. Because of nest
densities, the longevity of nests, and the amount of seed
harvested and soil handled, harvester ants have significant direct
and indirect effects on community structure and ecosystem
functioning. Harvester ants change plant species composition and
diversity near their nests. These changes result from differential
seed predation by the ants, their actions as seed dispersers and
competitors with other granivores, and the favorable soil
conditions they create through their digging. Their nest building
creates islands of increased nutrient density. In some areas, the
effects of their activities may be so pervasive that plant
community structure is strongly influenced. Ant removal studies,
which would reveal their total impact, have generally not been
done. Granivore removals have been conducted in North America
where ants are of lesser importance than small mammals, in
contrast to other areas (except Israel) where ants are dominant
granivores. We review the influence of harvester ants on their
competitors, predators, and nest associates, and catalog the
factors that influence their foraging patterns and consequently
their local distribution.
Ecological Resilience - In Theory And Application, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst.
In 1973, C. S. Holling introduced the word resilience
into the ecological literature as a way of helping to understand
the non-linear dynamics observed in ecosystems. Ecological
resilience was defined as the amount of disturbance that an
ecosystem could withstand without changing self-organized
processes and structures (defined as alternative stable states).
Other authors consider resilience as a return time to a stable
state following a perturbation. A new term, adaptive capacity, is
introduced to describe the processes that modify ecological
resilience. Two definitions recognize the presence of multiple
stable states (or stability domains), and hence resilience is the
property that mediates transition among these states. Transitions
among stable states have been described for many ecosystems,
including semi-arid rangelands, lakes, coral reefs, and forests.
In these systems, ecological resilience is maintained by keystone
structuring processes across a number of scales, sources of
renewal and reformation, and functional biodiversity. In practice,
maintaining a capacity for renewal in a dynamic environment
provides an ecological buffer that protects the system from the
failure of management actions that are taken based upon incomplete
understanding, and it allows managers to affordably learn and
change.
Diversification Of Rainforest Faunas: An Integrated Molecular Approach, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst.
Understanding the evolutionary processes that generate
and sustain diversity in tropical faunas has challenged biologists
for over a century and should underpin conservation strategies.
Molecular studies of diversity within species and relationships
among species, when integrated with more traditional approaches of
biogeography and paleoecology, have much to contribute to this
challenge. Here we outline the current major hypotheses, develop
predictions relevant to integrated molecular approaches, and
evaluate the current evidence, focusing on central African,
Australian, and South American systems. The available data are
sparse relative to the scale of the questions. However, the
following conclusions can be drawn: (a) in most cases, the
divergence of extant sister taxa predates the Pleistocene; (b)
areas with high habitat heterogeneity and recent climatic or
geological instability appear to harbor more species of recent
origin; (c) there is support for both allopatric and gradient
models of diversification and more attention should be given to
the role of diversifying selection regardless of geographic
context; and (d) conservation strategies should seek to protect
heterogeneous landscapes within and adjacent to large rainforest
areas, rather than rainforests alone.
Most European Men 'Descended From 10 Ancestors', Financial Times, Science
"Between 20,000 and 35,000 years ago, during the
Paleolithic period, the ancestors of most European males arrived
from the Middle East and Central Asia. Eighty per cent of European
men can trace their ancestry back to that moment. Another 20 per
cent are descendants of Neolithic migrants who arrived about
10,000 years ago.(…)
The main exceptions are the Finns, Estonians and Lapps -
representing just 1 per cent of the continent's population - who
descended from Ural region migrants arriving just a few thousand
years ago." (1)
"A genetic perspective of human history in Europe was
derived from 22 binary markers of the nonrecombining Y chromosome
(NRY). Ten lineages account for >95% of the 1007 European Y
chromosomes studied. Geographic distribution and age estimates of
alleles are compatible with two Paleolithic and one Neolithic
migratory episode that have contributed to the modern European
gene pool. A significant correlation between the NRY haplotype
data and principal components based on 95 protein markers was
observed, indicating the effectiveness of NRY binary polymorphisms
in the characterization of human population composition and
history. " (2)
- Most
European Men 'Descended From 10
Ancestors' , Victoria
Griffith, Financial Times, 11/9/00
- The
Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in
Extant Europeans:A Y Chromosome
Perspective, Ornella
Semino, Giuseppe Passarino, Peter J. Oefner, Alice A.
Lin, Svetlana Arbuzova, Lars E. Beckman, Giovanna De
Benedictis, Paolo, Francalacci, Anastasia Kouvatsi,
Svetlana Limborska, Mladen Marcikia, Anna Mika,
Barbara Mika, Dragan Primorac, A. Silvana
Santachiara-Benerecetti, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and
Peter A. Underhill, Science, Volume 290, Issue
5494,11/10/00,p. 1155
The Evolution Of Predator-Prey Interactions: Theory And Evidence, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst.
Recent theories regarding the evolution of
predator-prey interactions is reviewed. This includes theory about
the dynamics and stability of both populations and traits, as well
as theory predicting how predatory and anti-predator traits should
respond to environmental changes. Evolution can stabilize or
destabilize interactions; stability is most likely when only the
predator evolves, or when traits in one or both species are under
strong stabilizing selection. Stability seems least likely when
there is coevolution and a bi-directional axis of prey
vulnerability. When population cycles exist, adaptation may either
increase or decrease the amplitude of those cycles. An increase in
the defensive ability of prey is less likely to produce
evolutionary counter-measures in its partner than is a comparable
increase in attack ability of the predator. Increased productivity
may increase or decrease offensive and defensive adaptations. The
apparent predominance of evolutionary responses of prey to
predators over those of predators to prey is in general accord
with equilibrium theory, but theory on stability may be difficult
to confirm or refute. Recent work on geographically structured
populations promises to advance our understanding of the evolution
of predator-prey interactions.
Who Is The Best Connected Scientist?, arXiv
Using data from computer databases of scientific
papers in physics, biomedical research, and computer science, we
have constructed networks of collaboration between scientists in
each of these disciplines. In these networks two scientists are
considered connected if they have coauthored one or more papers
together. We have studied many statistical properties of our
networks, including numbers of papers written by authors, numbers
of authors per paper, numbers of collaborators that scientists
have, typical distance through the network from one scientist to
another, and a variety of measures of connectedness within a
network, such as closeness and betweenness. We further argue that
simple networks such as these cannot capture the variation in the
strength of collaborative ties and propose a measure of this
strength based on the number of papers coauthored by pairs of
scientists, and the number of other scientists with whom they
worked on those papers. Using a selection of our results, we
suggest a variety of possible ways to answer the question "Who is
the best connected scientist?"
Flash-Lag Interface Issues Still Disputed: Differential Latency or Postdiction, Science
One fundamental question about our interface to the
outside world is still under dispute: Why is it that we perceive a
moving object that passes an object that emits a flash of light
exactly in the moment of the encounter at a different location.
Two theories Differential Latency, and Postdiction try to explain
the phenomenon but new experiments question previous conclusions.
For instance the time when we perceive the object depends on its
brightness:
We have shown, however, that the perceived misalignment
between an object in continuous motion (CM) and a flashed object
changes from a flash-lag to a flash-lead if the luminance of the
flashed object is increased enough. Further, whereas the
postdiction hypothesis predicts that the perceived misalignment in
the FIC and CM conditions should always be equal, our experiments
indicate that perceived misalignments differ significantly
depending on which condition is used.
Eagleman, and Sejnowski respond : "In our framework, the
low-luminance moving object used by Patel et al. engenders a low
signal-to-noise ratio in the measurements. In that situation, the
visual system depends more heavily on its internal model than on
external measurements. (…). Within this framework, it is
clear how a flash-lead is possible: The internal model is more
resistant to devaluation, such that more pre-flash information is
carried over into the interpolated (postdictive) position
estimation. In this case, the CM condition can yield a
flash-lead."
Links & Snippets
1 Do Androids Dream? M.I.T. Is Working On It, NYtimes
Excerpt: Previous attempts put very abstract
features of human intelligence into a machine: chess playing,
mathematical theorem-proving and natural language processing.
The idea now is, In order for a machine to really be
intelligent, it has to be embodied. We say intelligence cannot
be abstracted from the body. We feel that the body — the
way it moves, grows, digests food, gets older, all have an
influence on how a person thinks. That's why we've built Cog
and Kismet to have humanoid features.
2 Emerging Viral Diseases, PNAS
Abstract: We live in an era of rapidly changing
global landscapes and local environments. Viruses with RNA as
their genetic material can quickly adapt to and exploit these
varying conditions because of the high error rates of the virus
enzymes (polymerases) that replicate their genomes. It comes as
no surprise, then, that several prominent recent examples of
emerging or re-emerging diseases are caused by RNA viruses.
However, a complex interplay of factors can influence disease
emergence
- Emerging
Viral Diseases, Stuart
T. Nichol , Jiro Arikawa, And Yoshihiro Kawaoka, PNAS,
Vol. 97, Issue 23, 12411-12412, November 7,
2000
3 Aging Mechanisms, PNAS
Abstract: Aging (senescence) has long been a difficult
issue to be experimentally analyzed because of stochastic
processes, which contrast with the programmed events during
early development. However, we have recently started to learn
the molecular mechanisms that control aging. Studies of the
mutant mouse, klotho, showing premature aging, raise a
possibility that mammals have an "anti-aging hormone." A
decrease of cell proliferation ability caused by the telomeres
is also tightly linked to senescence. Frontier experimental
studies of aging at the molecular level are leading to
fascinating hypotheses that aging is the price we had to pay
for the evolution of the sexual reproduction system that
produces a variety of genetic information and complex body
structures.
- Aging
Mechanisms, Yoshiko
Takahashi , Makoto Kuro-O, Fuyuki Ishikawa, PNAS, Vol.
97, Issue 23, 12407-12408, November 7,
2000
4 Acceleration Of Global Warming Due To Carbon-Cycle Feedbacks In A Coupled Climate Model, Nature
A NAME="11.4">
Excerpt: General circulation models have generally
excluded the feedback between climate and the biosphere, using
static vegetation distributions and CO2 concentrations from
simple carbon-cycle models that do not include climate change.
Here we present results from a fully coupled, three-dimensional
carbon-climate model, indicating that carbon-cycle feedbacks
could significantly accelerate climate change over the
twenty-first century. We find that under a 'business as usual'
scenario, the terrestrial biosphere acts as an overall carbon
sink until about 2050, but turns into a source thereafter.
