Eric Cantor’s Loss Was Like an Earthquake
Everybody is talking how it was big and far-reaching surprise, but here Nate Silver has something more subtle in mind: The statistics of Republican primary results look a lot like those of earthquakes, and he presents the graphs to show it. Major primary upsets, like serious earthquakes, are rare but they do happen. Furthermore, they are fundamentally random and unpredictable.
Nate Silver wrote this before the fall of Eric Cantor: The Political Media Still Fall for the Hot-Hand Fallacy.
He referred to it afterwards:
Of course, they will be officially denied by the Kremlin.
http://io9.com/what-europe-will-look-like-in-2035-if-russian-tabloids-1587988556
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You’re Worrying About GMOs For The Wrong Reasons which is based on
Risk Expert: GMOs Could Destroy the Global Ecosystem, which is based on The Precautionary Principle. Also see Small is Beautiful.
Plasma physicist congressman takes on the denialists
I met Rush Holt back in 1970, when we were both undergraduates at Carleton College, majoring in Physics.
Most Americans reject young-earth creationism. But the share of Republicans who believe that humans evolved fell from 54% in 2009 to 43% last year. Democrats, do not look so smug: your lot are likelier to believe in UFOs, ghosts and astrology. Also, that the moon landings were faked, that the CIA introduced crack to inner cities and that America’s government conspired in the September 11th attacks. It’s enough to make an ape weep.
Also see Majority of young adults think astrology is a science
A lunar rover, a crewed space station, and new rockets top China’s space agenda
As 2014 dawns, China has the most active and ambitious space program in the world.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 