David’s Comments (group member since Dec 13, 2009)

David’s comments from the Science and Inquiry group.

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values is an excellent book. The biggest problem in artificial intelligence (AI) is to devise a reward function that gives you the behavior you want, while avoiding side effects or unforseen consequences. It was pleasure to read a well-researched book that plumbs to the depths of a complicated subject. Here is my review.

Hamadullah wrote: "Hello everyone. I am Hamadullah Bijarani. I had passed Higher secondary classes but haven't got admission at any university as of yet. I love Physics and Mathematics more than other science subject..."

Welcome to our group, Hamadullah! You have a wide range of interests--please feel free to post in our discussion threads!

Barb wrote: "A Taste for Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them"

This book looks excellent. However, it was published just a couple of weeks ago. We need to postpone this nomination for a few months, when it will be more widely available.

Matt wrote: "... I am thinking of someone like Karl Popper whose ideas regarding falsifiability still seem genuinely helpful when trying to understand how humans create knowledge. ..."

I agree, Matt. Popper's ideas about falsification are most important to the progress of science. The idea that a hypothesis can or cannot be falsified helps to determine whether or not it is a valid scientific concept.

Jessica wrote: "I just started reading it and I'm only a few chapters in. I can't say I comprehend all of it. This is what I've got from it so far: Scientists are married to a paradigm that is a compilation of agr..."

Jessica, I have only a vague memory of Kuhn's book from reading it many years ago. But I think that the breakthrough paradigm shift is in the chapters you are about to read! In other words, slow scientific progress is gradual over many years, and once in a long while it is interrupted by a sudden paradigm shift that brings about whole new ways of thinking.

What brings about these sudden paradigm shifts? Usually it is due to new instrumentation or new observational tools that provide observational evidence that is inconsistent with the prevailing theories. At first, people will shrug off or explain away that evidence, until the new evidence becomes too pervasive, and stimulates new ideaas.

Herman wrote: "What I'm wondering is, did he describe his evidence in a peer-reviewed paper?"

Yes, Avi Loeb did publish a peer-reviewed paper (and some non-peer-reviewed papers) on the subject. See below. However, there have also been several peer-reviewed papers by other scientists, both for and against this hypothesis. Obviously, this is a controversial subject!

Bialy, Shmuel; Loeb, Abraham (October 26, 2018). "Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain 'Oumuamua's Peculiar Acceleration?". The Astrophysical Journal. 868 (1): L1.

Loeb, Abraham (September 26, 2018). "How to Search for Dead Cosmic Civilizations". Scientific American. Retrieved September 26, 2018.

Loeb, Abraham (November 20, 2018). "6 Strange Facts about the Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua". Scientific American. Retrieved November 20, 2018.

Herman wrote: "What I'm wondering is, did he describe his evidence in a peer-reviewed paper?"

Excellent question, Herman! The answer is yes, he wrote several peer-reviewed papers on the subject (see below). Of course, as you can imagine, there are also peer-reviewed papers that rebut Loeb's claims. Loeb's hypothesis is clearly controversial!

Loeb, Abraham (20 November 2018). "6 Strange Facts about the Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2018.

Bialy, Shmuel; Loeb, Abraham (October 26, 2018). "Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain 'Oumuamua's Peculiar Acceleration?". The Astrophysical Journal. 868 (1): L1. arXiv:1810.11490. Bibcode:2018ApJ...868L...1B. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aaeda8. S2CID 118956077.

Loeb, Abraham (September 26, 2018). "How to Search for Dead Cosmic Civilizations". Scientific American. Retrieved September 26, 2018.

Siraj, Amir; Loeb, Abraham (2019). "Identifying Interstellar Objects Trapped in the Solar System through Their Orbital Parameters". The Astrophysical Journal. 872 (1): L10.

Mark wrote: "The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson was terrific: part history of Mars exploration, part personal history of the development of a scientist, and a celebration of the awesome things we can d..."

Thanks for the recommendation Mark -- I've checked it out from the library!

I finished reading a fascinating book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth by Professor Avi Loeb. The author is a well-respected astronomer, who was the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard for 11 years.

Loeb claims that in 2017, our solar system was visited by an interstellar probe launched by an alien civilization. His evidence is rather persuasive! Here is my review.

I just finished reading an interesting book about carbon footprints; How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything by Mike Berners-Lee. (The author is the brother of Tim Berners-Lee, credited as the inventor of the Internet.) The book really helps to put carbon footprints of various activities and products into perspective. Here is my review.

Betsy wrote: "I read this book years ago. At least, I've marked it as read in Goodreads, but I don't remember anything about it other than I mostly didn't understand what it was about."

Haha! Me too! I read this book many moons ago, as it was a textbook in a college class "Philosophy of Science". I don't remember much of it, either!

Jim wrote: "I've read that screwing up the statistical analysis of experiments by otherwise honest & intelligent scientists is rampant. "

Jim, this is very true. It is the selective "P-Hacking" that causes a big bias in science articles. This is the argument that allows scientists to write the words "statistically significant".

It reminds me of a famous quote from Richard Feynman:

You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!

Finding correlations or results "after-the-fact", that is formulating a hypothesis after conducting an experiment can invalidate the conclusions of the experiment!

Steve wrote: "I enjoyed the book and it inspired me to perhaps go to Khan Academy and brush up statistics, which I both suffered through and enjoyed my sophomore year in college. My only negative thoughts are th..."

Steve, your negative comments really got to me. I agree with you--the people who might benefit from the book won't read it, and those who want to improve their bullshit will read and study it!

There is an excellent book titled The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley by Eric Weiner, which describes why a handful of places and times in history took the main stage in the advancement of science and technology. For a time period of about 60 years (second half of the 18th to the early 19th century), Edinburgh "ruled the Western intellect".

It's not the native intelligence of the people, but the political conditions, where dissent is tolerated, that progress is made. The encouragement of dissent seems to enhance creativity.

Susanne wrote: "I nominate https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5..."

Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive is a very good book. We read it in September, 2021. Here is our book discussion.

Iggy wrote: "I nominate The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos"

We read this book back in September 2012. Here is a link to our discussion:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I will be honest--I didn't care for this book much. Here is my review.

I put the book on reserve at the library. It is quite popular, so it will be a long time before I read it.

The value of Euler's number e, also known as the natural exponent, is approximately 2.718. I had not realized that this constant shows up in so many areas of mathematics and probability.

I learned a while ago, about the so-called "secretary problem". You want to interview a number of candidates, but you must hire a candidate on the spot--you cannot go back to an earlier candidate. The solution is if you have N candidates, you should interview the first N/e candidates, and then after that, you should immediately hire the next one who is equal or better than all the previous ones.

This problem is not just about hiring secretaries. You can use it for any selection process; finding a spouse, a home, or anything else.

I just found an article that describes why the natural exponent finds itself in so many interesting problems:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-eu...

Why e, the Transcendental Math Constant, Is Just the Best by Pradeep Mutalik, in the online Quanta Magazine. If you are mathematically inclined, it is worth reading.

Jessica, I agree. As the book mentions, 3D charts rarely are needed. 2D charts are usually more understandable.

I just finished reading the book. Wow! The author shows how he does research, to unearth the origins of so many unlikely stories and urban myths. I highly recommend it. Here is my review.