Saturday, August 9, 2003

A few years ago New Jersey had an amazingly mild Winter with less than an inch of snow. The local newspaper reacted by cheering for global warming. [tingilinde] They probably didn't cheer the drought that summer, or would be less than happy if that had to deal with a wildfire catastrophe caused by environmental neglect (another consequence of fringe science) and increasingly hot and stormy summers. In nine out of the past 12 years, average temperatures worldwide have been higher than at any time since records began in the 19th century and it is very likely that the 1990s were the warmest decade for 1,000 years. [More heat ahead for Europe] 3:31:14 PM

Matt Ridley's Nature via Nurture is the least confused general discussion I have read of the closed loop between genes and environment. It is full of good examples, and it has extensive bibliographic notes for those who would want to dig deeper or check his primary sources. Readable and well worth the time. However, as other books dealing with similar issues recently (say Dennett's Freedom Evolves), it shies away from the conceptual framework that would best sharpen the argument: information processing systems, and in particular genes as coupled controller modules. Everyone accepts that the same set of information processing modules can yield a huge variety of highly distinctive outcomes depending on initial conditions; so the huge variety of development and behavior involving a given set of genes is totally unsurprising. Another weakness of the book is its too ready acceptance of the universal grammar theory of language. The problem with that theory is not in “universal,” but in ”grammar.” We just don't know at what levels the genetic and cultural environments of language users play a role in language acquisition. For all we know, the genetic component could be expressed as a set of advances in brain architecture that support language but are not language-specific. The proponents of universal grammar are very good at wiggling out of what they really said or implied, but “grammar” implies language-specific machinery, not the spandrel it could as well be. 2:59:00 PM

Back from Vermont, and I see that the Mercury News' Personal Tech section is running two good pieces today on... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] Projections of 40M VoIP customers in five years do not take into account upstreaming bottlenecks, especially on cable plant. It's also hard to believe that those who control the country's DSL infrastructure, who are the same companies who own the local-loop monopoly, will stay away from Washington while their cash cow is progressively starved. They have a huge advantage in lobbying dollars, local influence, and legislative manoevering experience. 2:24:22 PM