Centerfield

The Four-Color Map Theorem - that's what I was thinking of when we were discussing that metropolitan-area-regional-association map.

The Fermi thing reminds me of the refutation of the idea that since we are here there must be others in the universe. After all, what are the chances that this would be the only planet with intelligent (a loosely used term) life?

The answer is that being the only intelligent life form in the universe is the very thing that gives you the opportunity to think that there must be others in the first place.

Dangerous ideas come from physical scientists, mathematicians and engineers who try to engage in social theory. Case in point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bradford_Shockley

Beliefs about populations and genetics

In his later life, Shockley began giving speeches on population problems, an issue that had interested him since his wartime trips to India. In 1963 he gave a speech at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota suggesting that the people least competent to survive in the world were the ones reproducing the fastest, while the best of the human population was using birth control and having fewer children.

In an interview with U.S. News & World Report in 1963, he "fell into the trap of discussing race," as one biographer writes.[3] He noted that intelligence research showed a genetic factor in intelligence and that tests for IQ indicate that African Americans have an average IQ 15 points lower than the population average. He was subsequently attacked in the media, for eugenics had become unpopular after its manifestations under the Nazis in WWII. (See also IQ:Genetics vs environment and Race and intelligence)

Shockley believed that the higher rate of reproduction among African Americans was having a "dysgenic" effect, and expressed an interest in eugenics. He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the population, and came to describe it as the most important work of his career, even though it severely tarnished his reputation. Shockley's published writings on this topic, such as in Letters to the Editor of the Palo Alto Times, were largely based on the research of Cyril Burt. Shockley also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization.

Perhaps it was his beliefs about eugenics that led him to donate sperm to the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank founded by Robert Klark Graham in hopes of spreading humans' best genes. The bank, called by the media the "Nobel Prize sperm bank," claimed to have three Nobel Prize-winning donors, though Shockley was the only one to come forward publicly. No children were conceived with any of the Nobel Prize sperm; however, the publicity that came with Shockley's announcement created a demand for the material. This caused Graham to broaden his criteria to allow for a wider range of donors (younger, taller, and better-looking than what he referred to as the "bald little professor" stereotype of his previous donors), and a total of 215 babies were born as a result.

Auto Loan