All of MC_Escherichia's Comments + Replies

and they don't understand that there has never been a common ancestor of all and only the monkeys

This fact though -- that monkeys are paraphyletic -- argues in favour of (not against) the view that the common ancestor of monkeys and apes was itself monkey-like...

If you think about when the "ape traits" must have evolved, it would be after the new-world monkeys had already diverged away. The common ancestor of monkeys and apes wouldn't have had them, but must have had those traits common to both old and new-world monkeys. It itself has to be basically a monkey.

(I drew out a phylogenetic tree for this but couldn't get it to format, alas...)

That's also interesting... I think the two ways of looking at it are equivalent, i.e. any pattern that satisfies one should also satisfy the other. (Only because the XOR pattern works both vertically and horizontally.)

The enemy of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Harrap's First Law

7beoShaffer
Maxim 29
snafoo130

"The enemy of my enemy has their own relationship with me."

7Kindly
Well, I should've said play (I'm one of those weirdos who read plays), but: No Exit.

won't have the problem of being acyclic

Should that be "cyclic"? I take it from Richard's post that "acyclic" is what we want.

0Vaniver
Yes, it should. Thanks for catching the typo!

It should be pointed out here that biological genuses, families, orders, and so on do not exist.

Yes, this is true of course.

What I was saying is that humans are the only living member of the Homo family

So was the claim "Humans are the only single species mammal" simply a claim that humans are the only mammal with their own genus? That's certainly not true, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Monotypic_mammal_genera

The reproductive isolation can be genetic, or it can be simply geographical or habitual.

This is probably not relevant to our point, but Futuyma (2005) Evolution p356 defines reproductive isolation as "reduction or prevention of gene flow b... (read more)

1Richard_Kennaway
It should be pointed out here that biological genuses, families, orders, and so on do not exist. If you discover a new continent full of organisms not previously known, there is no observation you can make to decide whether two of their species are, or are not, members of the same genus. It would be a wrong question. Every classification above the species level exists solely for the convenience of biologists talking about the organisms they are studying. Even at the species level, where we can talk about interbreeding populations, multiple definitions are possible and edge cases exist (sometimes so large as to make the very idea of a tree of descent moot). The higher-level classifications may (but do not always) correspond to subtrees of the evolutionary history, but their ranking into genuses, orders, subfamilies, and so on in the 40-odd different levels available in current taxonomical practice is a product of human convenience, nothing more. So the statement that some genus includes only one species is not a statement of biology. It is a statement about biologists.

None of the things you mention are likely to affect the sex determination system.

the only single species mammal.

The only what?

0HungryTurtle
Well I guess this is another flaw of classification. Species is defined as "Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups" (Futuyma, 1998). The reproductive isolation can be genetic, or it can be simply geographical or habitual. There is no criteria that says two distinct species cannot interbreed, even though some species can and others cannot. For example dogs, wolves, and coyotes can all interbreed, but within the Felidae genus there are cat species that cannot interbreed. What I was saying is that humans are the only living member of the Homo family. Homo sapiens exist as a single species because to some degree their is no limitation on our interbreeding. Sure there are many cultural norms and customs that have discouraged inter-racial, inter-class, inter-ethinicity breeding, but it has not stopped these things. I would argue (along with some evolutionary biologists) that the fact that homo sapiens exist in one giant gene pool is pretty unique among animals given the wide amount of territory that we populate.

Could you direct me to the comparative analysis of Mammalian reproductive systems that discusses hermaphrodites in other species?

What I meant was that we can think about other mammals ourselves, and note that no other mammal species has hermaphrodites at significant frequencies. I had no specific research in mind.

there would be a decent size population of hermaphrodites able to develop a stable social station; if there were a stable hermaphrodite community their genes would spread

This depends both on a genetic cause, and also on hermaphrodites havin... (read more)

1HungryTurtle
Humans are incredibly special. Humans are the only single species mammal. In that sense given the diversity of human ethnicities, humans are the most specialized-unspecialized species in the world (specialized in the sense that the species allows for the vast degrees of ethnic traits to be completely compatible with any human; unspecialized in the sense that we remain neutral enough to adapt to almost any environment and have not biologically chained ourselves to a particular habitat). Humans are the only species that we know of that creates a shared reality of perception (meaning that if I point at something, you know not to look at my finger but look for what I am pointing too; we are able to see our goals, victories, and aspirations as shared with a larger social entity). Humans are the only creature with a cultural paradox (A cultural paradox is where what is prescribed by their tribe often times is detrimental to their survival, but to go against the tribe is equally if not more detrimental.). Biological classification is useful for organizational purposes, but the categories created are often times severely lacking. In this case, I think humans are so different from most other mammals that it is not useful to use them as an insight into human nature/ the development of the human species.

I don't think there's a prejudice against replying to old posts around here...

Yes, that seems reasonable. There are four biologically possible scenarios I can think of to explain the numbers:

  1. It's developmental noise.
  2. Mutations that cause hermaphroditism arise at a certain rate and are eliminated by natural (or artificial) selection at a certain rate; this is mutation-selection balance.
  3. Multiple genes at different loci are required to produce a hermaphrodite (this is epistasis); natural selection doesn't act against these genes since it is rare for them to be found in the same invididual, and they may produce some benefit when apar
... (read more)

intentional out breeding [elimination] of more sexes

A comparative analysis of Mammalia shows this to be extremely doubtful, unless you think that only humans have these extra sexes. In all mammals the vast bulk of individuals can be cleanly assigned to male or female without ambiguity, and no such intentional elimination was required. [Note "outbreeding" means something else.]

You have to look at quite distantly related species before hermaphrodites show up at interesting frequencies. Certainly some fish can be hermaphrodite.

0HungryTurtle
I don't think only humans have these extra sexes. Could you direct me to the comparative analysis of Mammalian reproductive systems that discusses hermaphrodites in other species? I am sure most gonochronistic animals have cases of hermaphrodites or other genetic mutations. You are right, outbreeding is not what I meant. That is why I split the word up, hoping to convey my point. Intentional elimination is a good way to say it. If Hermaphrodites were not so stigmatized they would not be abandoned/killed/maimed as children; if they were not on average abandoned/killed/maimed as children then there would be a decent size population of hermaphrodites able to develop a stable social station; if there were a stable hermaphrodite community their genes would spread; if there genes spread their would be more hermaphrodites. I think the intentional elimination of hermaphrodites has made a huge impact on the demographic of humanity, do you disagree? Also I don't think you can use the fact other gonochronistic mammals have not developed more sexes as a reason why humans would not.

As an aside; the use of "Org" (i.e. Rationality Org) seems really unusual and immediately makes me think of Scientology (Sea Org); am I unusual in having this reaction?

orbenn100

It makes me think of "Rationality Orgy", but that's just me. I'm not sure how I feel about that as I haven't been to a meetup yet.

3Aleksei_Riikonen
No, not unusual. I had the same reaction, and assumed it's probably partly a deliberate joke to have such a placeholder name (or alternatively it's actually so that the Scientology connotation didn't occur to folks at SIAI). I btw commented on this a couple of days ago in a comment to the SIAI blog, and note now that comments there seem to take a rather long time to be moderated for spam, as apparently no comments have appeared for many months. (Ok, sorry for the joke. More likely you've forgotten about the blog comments or something, than it really being about the spam moderation that commenters are told might take some time when they leave a comment.)
2Solvent
I love Rationality Org as a name. I for one do not have the Scientology association, but I suppose other people might.
0Bugmaster
No, you are not alone.
0[anonymous]
.

Yikes, thanks for mentioning this; I will stop saying "rationality org". JenniferRM actually brought this up to me once, but I forgot, but there's nothing quite like having seven people agree with a point to make it stick in memory.

4David_Gerard
Having spent years as a Scientology critic, I have also become aware of how often people use "org" as an abbreviation for "organisation" in general, so I actually thought it was fine :-) How much do they want for rationality.org?
9Nornagest
It crossed my mind as well. Hopefully it's just a placeholder name; an association with Scientology is a really bad thing if we're trying to avoid accusations of cultishness, particularly if katas or similar exercises are going to be a fixture of the organization.
4Giles
For me the name "Rationality Org" would suggest that something would be hosted at "rationality.org" but instead I see a squatter there.
6ata
I thought the same and wondered if it might have been intentional and meant ironically (since IIRC that is not meant to be the actual eventual name of the organization anyway). Either way, not the best association.
4Raemon
I did not have this reaction, but I hadn't heard of Sea Org. I don't think Rationality Org is the greatest of names anyways though.
4Kaj_Sotala
I have the same reaction.
Alicorn520

You're not alone.

I think a nice name for the rationality org would be "Waterline".

5bbarth
No. Same here.
8Nick_Tarleton
Same here.

I might come, though there's a conflicting Starcraft 2 tournament...

[Edit] But since I failed to qualify in a satelite tournament, I shall attend the LW meeting.

1sark
I'm sorry for your loss. But I'm happy you'll attend.

I've noticed lately a lot of websites seem to use some bizarre font that looks awful. But since they keep doing it, I'm beginning to wonder if it's just me that sees it looking awful. Does it look like this for anyone else?

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7224/fontyo.png

0jwhendy
Another term for font smoothing (mentioned by Kevin) is antialiasing. Try a different browser as well -- perhaps compare to IE or Chrome. Also, you could check out THIS? I run linux, but that's what my quick web search got me. Edit: I can't tell if that is Vista or 7... I assumed 7 but maybe I was wrong. Just search around for font-smooting or anti-alias settings or whatever Win version you run and you should find some help.
0Kevin
It's just you... I believe it wouldn't look awful if you had font smoothing turned on. I'm running Windows with standard, non-subpixel font smoothing and it looks fine. Do you have font smoothing turned completely off? You might want to try standard smoothing. I think there is some sort of broader problem you are having with fonts though. I previously remember have that problem on some sites and have no idea what caused it and why I don't see it anymore.

Which is the case?

Your initial read off your calculator tells you with 99% certainty.

Now Omega comes in and asks you to consider the opposite case. It matters how Omega decided what to say to you. If Omega was always going to contradict your calculator, then what Omega says offers no new information. But if Omega essentially had its own calculator, and was always going to tell you the result even if it didn't contradict yours, then the probabilities become 50%.

0Manfred
True, but I'd like to jump in and say that you can still make a probability estimate with limited information - that's the whole point of having probabilities, after all. If you had unlimited information it wouldn't be much of a probability.

I'm still not following. Either the answer is even in every possible world, or it is odd in every possible world. It can't be legitimate to consider worlds where it is even and worlds where it is odd, as if they both actually existed.

3Vladimir_Nesov
If you don't know which is the case, considering such possibly impossible possible worlds is a standard tool. When you're making a decision, all possible decisions except the actual one are actually impossible, but you still have to consider those possibilities, and infer their morally relevant high-level properties, in the course of coming to a decision. See, for example, Controlling Constant Programs.
2shokwave
Which is the case? What do you do if you're uncertain about which is the case?

Ignoring Bostrom's book on how to deal with observer selection effects (did Omega go looking for a Wrong Calculator world and report it? Did Omega go looking for an Odd World to report to you? Did Omega pick at random from all possible worlds? Did Omega roll a four-sided die to determine which world to report?)

Actually, isn't this the very heart of the matter? In my other comment here I assumed Omega would always ask what the correct answer is if the calculator shows The Other Result; if that's not the case everything changes.

0Vladimir_Nesov
The answer does depend on this fact, but since this fact wasn't specified, assume uncertainty (say, Omega always appears when you observe "even" and had pasta for breakfast).
0lukstafi
Not by my understanding (but I decided to address it in a top-level comment). ETA: yes, in my updated understanding.

I'm not following you.

Imagine this scenario happens 10000 times, with different formulae.

In 9900 of those cases, the calculator says , and Omega asks what the answer is if the calculator says .

In 100 of those cases, the calculator says , and Omega asks what the answer is if the calculator says .

So you are more likely to be in the first scenario.

0[anonymous]
Yes. You've most likely observed the correct answer, says observational knowledge. The argument in the parent comment doesn't disagree with Nisan's point.
1shokwave
Given our prior, 5000 of the times the actual answer is even, and 5000 times the answer is odd. In 4950 of the 5000 Q-is-even cases, the calculator says . And in the other 50 cases of Q-is-even, the calculator says . Then, in 4950 of the Q-is-odd cases, the calculator says and in 50 cases it says . Note that we still have 9900 cases of and 100 cases of . Omega presents you with a counterfactual world that might be one of the 50 cases of Q-is-even, or one of the 4950 cases of Q-is-odd, . So you're equally likely (5000:5000) to be in either scenario (Q-is-odd, Q-is-even) for actually writing down the right answer (as opposed to writing down the answer the calculator gave you).
4AlexMennen
This is a dispute over the premises of the problem (whether Omega's counterfactual is always different than yours, or is correct 99% of the time and independent of yours), not a dispute about how to solve the problem. The actual premise needs to be made clear before the question can be properly answered.

You can't conclude this

Yes you can. The real calculator in the real world had a 99% chance of being right. The counterfactual case is (in all probability) the 1% chance where it was wrong.

0Nisan
Nah. See, given that the real calculator says "even", there's a 0.99% chance that it's correct and that, in a repetition of the experiment, it would say incorrectly say "odd". There's also a 0.99% chance that the real calculator is incorrect and that, in a repetition of the experiment, it would correctly say "odd". The counterfactual case is just as likely to be the calculator being correct as the calculator being incorrect. ETA: The above is wrong. I was confused about the problem because I wasn't thinking updatelessly. It's like Newcomb's problem.

That you are given three of the four letters for "lake" in correct, consecutive order.

1SilasBarta
I don't remember the original order of the letters in the puzzle, but it must have been constructed to make the intended answer not stand out.

No, nobody would ever say that.

1Vladimir_Nesov
Seems so, 79000 results for "is quite overpowering" compared to 1800 for "is quite overcoming".
0[anonymous]
I would.
1[anonymous]
I realize. It was a joke to even see if it sounded like it fit.

"Overcoming" doesn't really work as an adjective.

5[anonymous]
My goodness, that bias is quite overcoming, wouldn't you say?
2gwern
And not by someone who intends to use it for good, it seems. (Only now do I realize that 'overpoweringfalsehood.com' isn't that bad a domain name.)

Either the prayer is answered, or not, so the odds must be 50%, right? :)

If the null hypothesis was true, the probability that we would get 3 heads or less is 0.08

Is the idea that the coin will land heads 90% of the time really something that can be called the "null hypothesis"?

Statistically, there's nothing wrong with the null hypothesis being p=0.9. It's probably not a test you would see very often in practice because usually there is nothing interesting about p=0.9. But if you wanted to test whether or not p=0.9 for some reason - any reason, setting the null hypothesis as p=0.9 is a perfectly valid (frequentist) way of doing it.

0neq1
Hm, good point. Since the usual thing is .5, the claim should be the alternative. I was thinking in terms of trying to reject their claim (which it wouldn't take much data to do), but I do think my setup was non-standard. I'll fix it later today

being convinced you deserve something that it's totally unreasonable (socially) for you to be granted

There's some sort of ambiguity in the word "deserve". I would say that every harmless person deserves to be loved, or deserves an enjoyable job, but that doesn't mean anyone owes anyone anything. The world is the way it is.

To rephrase komponisto's reply to this in a simpler manner, and minus the controversial bit:

I wish everyone would extend to the unattractive people of the world, of either sex, our right to feel bitter. This does not make us rapists. Thank you for your attention.

4Perplexed
Upvoted. But the right to feel bitter does not automatically imply the right to express bitterness. And even if you posit the right to express bitterness, expressing bitterness may still not be a rational response to the situation. ETA: This probably-volatile comic-strip link suggests one reason why bitterness over one's own unattractiveness is often the result of a deficiency in epistemic rationality.
9NancyLebovitz
That's a good point. It seems to be too easy to go from "Some bitter people are dangerous" to "Bitter people are dangerous"-- people make that sort of mistake anyway, and it's easier when there's some fear added.

I wonder if Eliezer has or should read this review of Ender's Game (a book I never read myself, but the reviewer seems to provide a useful warning to authors).

0[anonymous]
It's this review that gets to me more: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm Taken from that light, the morality in Ender's Game is quite... questionable. But I'm not going to beat up my ten year old self for not seeing it at the time.
0Bindbreaker
I'm not sure what the relevance is here.
3Blueberry
I loved Ender's Game, and think that that review is far more "pornographic" than the book. I pretty much disagree with every sentence of the review. That reviewer took one theme of a complex story, a theme he apparently didn't like, and vulgarized it and ridiculed it to the point of absurdity.

Ouch! I -- I actually really enjoyed Ender's Game. But I have to admit there's a lot of truth in that review.

Now I feel vaguely guilty...

6cousin_it
Yeah, I was wondering when this link would come up. Not sure about Eliezer, but I read this review sometime ago and it matched my impressions of the book perfectly.

Are the words "women" and "men" reversed in your opening sentence?

0Alicorn
Yes, thank you, fixing that now.