For an interesting interview between Science Talk Host Steve Mirsky and the guy that runs Galaxy Zoo, Yale astrophysicist Kevin Schawinski, check out the Scientific American podcast below:
Showing posts with label Scientific American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scientific American. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Citizen Science
There's a way for you to gaze at the stars and help advance our understanding of the universe. It's called Galaxy Zoo. The great thing is that computers aren't as good at recognizing patterns as people are. This program is very successful and people have identified anomalies and gotten recognition for it. A school teacher in Amsterdam, Hanny van Arkel, identified a blog-shaped object that they believe is the ghost of an "enormously powerful luminous accreting supermassive black hole" in a galaxy near us. The members of the citizen scientists named the anomaly Hanny's Voorwerp , or Hanny's Object. Fantastic!
Monday, October 8, 2007
Chatterbot
I’m listening to Professor Dumb-Ass on the normally excellent podcast of Scientific American, “Science Talk.” This smart scientist spent four months corresponding on-line with a computer program. He thought it was a hot Russian babe but it was a computer program called a chatterbot. A chatterbot is a conversation agent. That sounds Russian. The scientist admitted to being fooled because he's a “predator looking for a mate.” In other words (and his words), if he didn’t think there was the possibility of sex at the other end of the “conversation,” he would have picked up the vague answers months before and known it was a chatterbot.
What future was this guy going to have with this Russian babe? 1) if she was real, which she was not, she would only be looking for a way to get out of Russia; and 2) once she was out of Russia, she’d dump this nerd for a hunky Cowboy.
You don’t hear women scientists saying, I need to enhance my breasts because I’m so thin, there isn’t enough fat in my body to make desirable breast to attract a mate. We don’t use the prime directive to excuse bad behavior. In fact, there’s no evolutionary excuse for smart women making dumb choices.
That brings me to evolution. Homo sapiens that we are, we have not adapted to our environment to survive. That’s what Darwinian theory is about. Species find a niche, adapt, and thrive, or they don’t adapt quick enough and die out. Unlike other species, homo sapiens have made our environment adapt to us, and we won’t necessarily survive. So, what we know about how the world works is limited.
The fact that most men—in white America anyway—are attracted to skinny women instead of the best breeders, i.e., women with large hips and big breasts, makes the entire “I’m looking for a mate to procreate because that is the prime directive of all species,” bull. If that were true, the system would be foolproof. And what I see is proof of fools.
http://www.sciam.com/
What future was this guy going to have with this Russian babe? 1) if she was real, which she was not, she would only be looking for a way to get out of Russia; and 2) once she was out of Russia, she’d dump this nerd for a hunky Cowboy.
You don’t hear women scientists saying, I need to enhance my breasts because I’m so thin, there isn’t enough fat in my body to make desirable breast to attract a mate. We don’t use the prime directive to excuse bad behavior. In fact, there’s no evolutionary excuse for smart women making dumb choices.
That brings me to evolution. Homo sapiens that we are, we have not adapted to our environment to survive. That’s what Darwinian theory is about. Species find a niche, adapt, and thrive, or they don’t adapt quick enough and die out. Unlike other species, homo sapiens have made our environment adapt to us, and we won’t necessarily survive. So, what we know about how the world works is limited.
The fact that most men—in white America anyway—are attracted to skinny women instead of the best breeders, i.e., women with large hips and big breasts, makes the entire “I’m looking for a mate to procreate because that is the prime directive of all species,” bull. If that were true, the system would be foolproof. And what I see is proof of fools.
http://www.sciam.com/
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