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johnlorenzo
GenEd 1112-24
Apr 23, 2024
In Earth
The most surprising bit of information to me in this interview was the discussion about “Techno fanaticism”. This is about the idea of beating climate change through some big technological breakthrough, avoiding having to take any other steps to address it. They compare this to the invention of nitrogen fertilizer allowing us to grow far more crops. This is because while these kinds of great inventions do happen they cannot be counted on to bail us out since they are rare. I found it surprising that they said if there is to be some big breakthrough like that for climate change, it would likely be nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is a new form of energy production (not yet successful) which comes from two nuclei forming together into one heavier nucleus. This would produce lots of energy in a much cleaner form than coal or oil (Department of Energy). However, this technology is complex and we cannot be certain that it will come in time to solve our climate change problems. It requires great precision and safety to properly function. In addressing climate change, I would not have thought it would be so important to just have new, clean energy production rather than addressing problems in old energy systems or improving the efficiency that we use energy.
I also found it surprising that Henderson said that she has never met someone from a large corporation who does not believe in climate change. With so many large corporations contributing greatly to climate change, it is surprising to hear that they all truly believe that it is a problem and that they will have to adjust to it. I would guess that as a corporation they are responsible for producing profits for shareholders and cannot be more concerned with climate change than the laws force them to be.
Information source:
https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsnuclear-fusion-reactions#:~:text=Nuclear%20Fusion%20reactions%20power%20the,The%20leftover%20mass%20becomes%20energy.
Image source: https://byjus.com/physics/nuclear-fusion/
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johnlorenzo
GenEd 1112-24
Apr 17, 2024
In Thoughts from Learners
Something I found very interesting and will definitely remember a year from now is the discussion about “ad hoc” additions to a model. If we are just concerned about the accuracy and utility of our models, then it would not really matter if the rules are more basic/apply to certain situations rather than being more fundamental and general. However, there are certain laws of nature observed that we as humans feel that we need to understand deeper even if we can reliably predict how they will act. This made me think about the difference between able to reliably predict outcomes versus fully understanding why these outcomes occur (if that can ever be achieved). It also made me think about some mathematical models that I have worked on, fitting parameters to data without ever really thinking about the underlying reasons these numbers work best.
I think the discussion about machine learning altering our perception of science will affect both mine and society's future. As machine learning and computing becomes more powerful, we may be able to use machine learning to accurately predict the outcomes of things that we don’t fully comprehend. As opposed to how we do science now, in machine learning it is much harder to interpret how conclusions are being drawn. This is because of how artificial intelligence operates, where it takes in the data and sends it through a series of optimized neural networks which performs operations at each step. For humans it is very hard to find out what is being done at each step, even though the artificial intelligence may be very accurate. Using artificial intelligence may allow us to make better predictions and scientific discoveries, but without understanding the underlying theories we won’t have the same concept of science. I wonder whether this will really constitute forward progress in science or if we will end up using technologies that we don’t fully comprehend.
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johnlorenzo
GenEd 1112-24
Apr 03, 2024
In Thoughts from Learners
I would have asked Dan Gilbert if he thinks that humanity (as in regular people, not just scientists and statisticians) better conceptualizes uncertainty now than we would have thousands of years ago. I would ask this question because looking back to the early divination systems we learned about at the beginning of the course, I wonder if people would only take these predictions as “it will probably happen”, like we do with the weather forecasts. On the other hand, one might think these people took these predictions as “it will certainly happen” and they would be troubled if they did not work out. I think it would be interesting to know how people felt about the uncertainty of these ancient prediction methods at the time, since I agree with Gilbert that people likely checked their prediction’s accuracy even in those times.
https://www.labxchange.org/library/pathway/lx-pathway:53ffe9d1-bc3b-4730-abb3-d95f5ab5f954/items/lx-pb:53ffe9d1-bc3b-4730-abb3-d95f5ab5f954:lx_simulation:5e3f229f?source=%2Flibrary%2Fclusters%2Flx-cluster%3AModernPrediction
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johnlorenzo
GenEd 1112-24
Apr 03, 2024
In Thoughts from Learners
I was most surprised in the Dan Gilbert interview about the fact that remembering the past is a very similar thing to imagining the future. I always thought of remembering in the sense that our brains are putting together pictures from our memory of what happened during an event. Gilbert explains that we have some story in our mind of what occurred, and our mind creates a memory from that. He explains that remembering and imagining the future is similar, and that the only difference is that we have more information about what happened in the past than we do when we try to predict or imagine the future.
https://www.labxchange.org/library/pathway/lx-pathway:53ffe9d1-bc3b-4730-abb3-d95f5ab5f954/items/lx-pb:53ffe9d1-bc3b-4730-abb3-d95f5ab5f954:lx_simulation:5e3f229f?source=%2Flibrary%2Fclusters%2Flx-cluster%3AModernPrediction
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johnlorenzo
GenEd 1112-24
Mar 23, 2024
In Modern Prediction in the Media
The article titled "Trump is leading the polls, but there's plenty of time for Biden to catch up", by G. Elliott Morris on 538 (ABC news) discusses how well the current polling between Biden and Trump can be used to predict the election. Currently, Biden is losing to Trump in the presidential election polls. The article begins by describing how this does not necessarily mean Biden will lose the next presidential election. Morris points to many historical examples where polls at this time of the election cycle were off by a shockingly large amount of points when compared to the real election results at the end of the year. This could be caused just by people changing their minds, but this article explores what statistical issues could explain how reliably we can use these polls as predictions for the election.
The article considers that we have to factor in that America is more politically polarized than it used to be, making these early predictions more reliable in the sense that a Republican supporter is less likely to change their mind and vote for Biden (and vice versa). This political polarization also affects the outcome as politically polarized elections tend to be closer, so small changes in support over this time can still determine the outcome of the election.
Additionally, with political polling response rates being at an all time low there are more statistical adjustments required by pollsters to make their predictions. These adjustments can lead to what Morris calls “non-sampling” errors, which are mistakes in trying to adjust for the smaller sample sizes. This adds another layer of uncertainty to the current polls predicting the next election.
In conclusion, this article summarizes some reasons why current polls can be misleading in predicting how the presidential election will end up. While polls show that Trump is currently leading against Biden, the election is far from decided.
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