Nothing To See Here, folks

This Blog is yet another casualty of too much to do. It will sit here forever, because I can't figure out how to take it offline, waiting for future Martian archeologists. Sorry folks. Nothing to see here. Sauntering, however, is alive and kicking.

To China

Well folks, I'm off. After a month of preparation, visiting collecitons, and writting up the first field guide to Yunnan butterflies in 15 years, I'm off to China. For the next four weeks I will be somewhere between Kunming and Burma (Myanmar for those following along with newer atlases (atli?)). I'll be collecting butterflies for the the California Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Zoology in Kunmimg. If I should find myself near an internet cafe, I'll try to update the blog. Otherwise, look for a big post with pictures and stories and all that some time in early September. In the mean while, I hope you will all think happy thoughts for me so that

1) I don't get Malaria (again).
2) I don't get lost.
3) I don't get arrested in China.
4) I don't stray into Myanmar. I've been told this is a real no-no.
5) It doesn't rain too much.
6) I don't come back with a Chinese wife. I will not, Cornwell, I will not.


See you on the other side!

--DG

The Economics of Online Dating

From the people who brought you freakonomics and fission, the University of Chicago brings us an analysis of online dating.

This is not a perfect study for several reasons, not the least of which is that some of it is based on the preferences and successes of undergraduates at the UofC who are, well, a little odd as a whole. For example, in order to evaluate the relative attractiveness of the users (from their photos) as compared to how users rated themselves, they showed the photos to the undergrads. Just keep that in mind.

But there are still some jems from the study.

1) The actual demographics of the users are
a) a good match to the way in which users describe themseves and
b) surprisingly a good reflection of the population (the dating sites examined were geography-specific)
Not surprisingly, the incomes and educations were not a random sampling from the population at large.

2) 14% of men are looking for casual/short-term vs. only 4% of women.

3) 9% of women describe themselves as homosexual as compared to 5% of men. This was a real shock to me. Estimates are that 5-10% of the population is gay (in any population at anytime), but in the US census there are nearly 2X as many declared gay males as females and the declared prevelance of both is well bellow 5%. Online dating appears to sample the population in an interesting way.

4) As in life, users tend to email other users of similar attractiveness, and the most attractive memebers were the most discriminating, though this effect was less than in real life reflecting the lower-risk environment of the internet. Attractiveness is also the single most powerful explaner of the variability in success rates.

6) Red-heads do not do as well as everyone else.

7) The estimated body-mass-index (BMI) of the most attractive users (as rated by the UofC kids and self reporting) falls comfortably within the range of "overweight." I can't figure out if this is a reflection of the user population or the fact that America, as a whole, is fat.

8) And in a finding that will make sociobiologist the world over very happy: While, both men and women were initially attracted by the looks of a potential mate, women paid much more attention to income and education level than men did.

Good thing or bad thing: Creationists in Taxonomy

In compiling an informal field guide to the Papilionoidea (that's big pretty butterflies) in China, I consulted D'Abrerra's classic monograph on the butterflies of Asia (which by the way really should be broken into Temperate and Tropical Asia). I found the following:

"I cannot except Eliot's system of classification [for one subgroup] based as it is on unfounded assumptions about the age of the planet and the origin of species."

I was stunned. He couldn't really mean what he seems to, could he? After digging around a bit, I found he did. D'Abrerra is (was?) an honest to goodness creationist. But he was also a pretty good taxonomist, and while is classification is a little out of date (refusing as he does most DNA based evidence and theories like coevolution), he has the class to cite alternative theories, which is more than I can say for many main-stream taxonomists.

Its this a good thing, or a bad thing? One one hand, we have someone doing reasonably good science (and making a great book) despite a deep religious conviction that evolution is false. On the otherhand the best book on the subject is a huge advertisement for anti-evolutionary theories of science and there is no alternative reading (no one's written it and we're a little short on taxonomists these days - thank you Bush's NSF budget).

One more thing for Christian Science to worry about (besides the flu)

In a press release from Duke Medical School, doctors confirmed that prayer (being prayed for***) has no significant therapeutic value, though interestingly Therapeutic Touch does. The effect of prayer on patient recovery after surgery has been kicking around with surprising gusto in the medical literature the past few years, in part because of the increased belief on the part of the public and many funding agencies that non material causes (like prayer) should be treated on par with naturalistic, scientific (in the traditional sense) explanations, and in part because of a series of appalling studies that have appeared in the last few years in journals like the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and JAMA (two of many summary articles here and here) that "scientifically prove" the power of praying for others. Despite the fact that the papers supporting the medical role for distant prayer are crap (from a purely methodological and statistical procedure), prayer is getting press.

I'm worried big time, and not because of the practical danger to society if such results are followed.

Its not because I don't think that religious explanations should be evaluated according to a scientific method, though I worry about the negative impact on religion. Its more that from the public perspective there is now scientific evidence to support prayer/intelligent design/what-ever and its starting to affect the way we do science and educate our children. You had better believe this is going to have an economic or, worse, health consequence in the not too distant future.

Even though only one out of every thousand studies supports the use of (distant) prayer as medical treatment, and even though the studies supporting the use of prayer make use of shoddy methodology, there are voices using these studies as evidence against the "he hegemony of naturalistic, scientific ideology" (to quote on IDer I met at the Stanford/Veritas forum in May) and politicians are listening.


***There's actually pretty good evidence that praying on the part of the patient does improve both recovery time and over all well-being.

Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.....

This is a quick post for those in the Bay Area. Next time you are in Fry's Electronics (the flagship south of Stanford), take a look around. You will notice a few things:

1) The employees read like a tree-ring history of Silicon Valley. The oldest are bearded white guys. Next you have a bunch of Indians. Youngest are East Asians all joined by a standard smattering of high school or early college-age guys who didn't quite make the cut for tech company internships. Don't take this as demeaning to anyone but the college kids. If I were to show up in another country speaking not a word of their language, I couldn't hope to do as well as many of these people (I have no skills).

2) These people are not attractive. Its not as though the raw stock isn't there (though for many there is no hope), its just that there's been no effort put into physical appearances. There are men with two day old stuble, women in bad shoes, and white shirts that are not tucked in (or sometimes can't be). Its like a store full of comic-book guy from the Simpsons. This should be considered demeaning.

3) The merchandise is often broken. I went back THREE times before I found a CD-RW drive that had all its parts (I should have checked in the parking lot) and that, once assembled, actually worked.


OK, that's enough rant for today.

Some lessons from Tijuana

This weekend I organized and attended a bachelor party in San Diego (which of course meant a trip to Tijuana - no I didn't get arrested). I learned a few valuable lessons about organizing a large group outing like this, and I'd like to share them with you.

1) When organizing a large group of people, there is no such thing as spontenaiety. Six twenty-somethings are just children. They need schdules and plans. An unstructured twenty-something is an unhappy twenty-something.

2) Allow 30 extra minutes for everything. Sometimes you need to tie their shoes.

3) Feed twenty-somethings regularly or they become petulant like children.

4 You will never find an ATM where you need one. Do not use the ATM in Mexico.

5) Schedule some time with no activity. Down time is fine as long as people know its on the docket for the day.

4a) There is no public transit worth snot in S.D. No taxis either. Consider renting a car.

4b) Call ahead for taxis and don't trus anyone else to do this for you. This how half our groups spent a lovely hour in a parking lot outside a closed strip-club watching a bunch of red-neck ho-dee-hoes make out with unattractive and loud men in the back of a pick-up truck accompanyed by the music of Garth Brooks.

5) If she looks 18, be cautious. If she looks 16, she's 12 and you need to run away.

6) In strip clubs there are no special friends. I don't care if she says she's your special friend. They are paid to hang-out with you. Now, she probably doesn't dislike you. But don't think that smile makes you special. This was a hard lesson for some in the group.

7) If you wanted to see hot donkey action, Mexico is your chance. Go with an open mind, because you might see this even didn't want to.

8) At 2:00am there is no way to get money. They know this. They have rigged this against you. They will give you Pesos that they will then change for you. There is a surcharge for the service.

9) Mexican strip clubs have a genius way of getting money out of you. While the stripper/hooker is hanging around, the waitress will ask you if you want to buy then a round of drinks. Of course you say yes....and it costs you $10. Buy drinks in advance, or at least the second round, at the bar. They will probably not drink them, but now you pay the normal rate (like $5).

10) $20 in Tijuana is plenty for a lap dance. If it costs more, you will get what you pay for. Just be warned.