DOOMED TO THE MEAN

In rebus mediis est sapientia

Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist at the California Institute of Technology. His recent book is The Drunkard’s Walk. This is a book about statistical inference. We at Doombrothers have previously warned about statisticians (see Doombrothers November 22, 2008). However, we feel called upon to re-alert you about the dangers of this baleful pseudo-science.

Dr. Mlodinow, who clearly needs to buy a vowel, discusses the horrible statistical phenomenon of “regression to the mean.” What he speaks of with apparent unconcern and insouciance is the phenomenon that performance or gifts or acquisitions out of proportion to the ordinary are typically followed by gifts, or acquisitions or performances that are more in line with the ordinary. So, for example, landing on the front page of Sports Illustrated is associated with an extraordinary performance one week and will more typically be followed by a less than extraordinary performance the following weeks – thus the “jinx” of the magazine. Or, the extraordinary achievements of one man, say a Henry Ford, are followed by children with less than extraordinary gifts.

What Dr. Mlodinow DID NOT say to you is that this implies that we, at the very apex of achievement are gradually slipping downward in an inexorable slide toward mediocrity, the arithmetic mean. Statistically speaking, the more amazing are our lives or our feats the more rapidly we will fail and the further we will fall. As an illustrative aside, regression to the mean implies that one Doombrother is fated to be gap-toothed, barely literate and semi-articulate, wandering the hills and hollows of Appalachia and marrying my first cousin while the other is fated to a similar outcome in the swampy regions of the Middle Atlantic States.

We at Doombrothers have carefully studied this conundrum and we believe we have crafted an elegant, foolproof and realistic alternative to the fatal slippage and inherent disappointment of this doomful statistical nonsense. We have decided to EMBRACE THE MEAN. If we comport ourselves in an average fashion then we will not fall far away from the mean and thus will not be a disappointment to ourselves or to others!

Mysterious Green Comet Nearing Earth: Refuses to communicate with NASA, Intent unknown!

Esse veridis non est facile

In the bland underspeak of NASA, Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s NEAR EARTH OBJECT program and NASA astronomer Stephen Edberg announced the latest THREAT TO LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

The comet Lulin, recently discovered by a CHI-COM teenager (the same teens perhaps who participated in the Olympics), is plunging will-he nil-he towards the earth. The comet came from the edges of our solar system, eighteen billion miles from us, and no one professes to know what it wants. Attempts to establish communication with the comet have been abysmal failures.

The comet still retains the gases usually stripped by approach to the sun. This virginal comet is greenish in appearance due to the type of carbon contained in its vapors and CYANOGEN, A DEADLY POISONOUS GAS.

NASA admits that the comet could come even closer than the 38 million miles from earth projected. The comet is coming on Monday, February 23 and will close with Earth at 10:43 p.m. EST. Edberg stated “…it’s not going to be a real great blast ….” That alone should tell us the doomfulness inherent in this event. This from the same people who underplayed the cataclysm of Apollo 13 with “Houston, we have a problem”.

For those of you who may survive the event, rest assured that we in the Doombunker will continue to broadcast from the safety of the bunker as the Earth is coated with cyanogen. The horror… Good night and good luck.

War of the Worlds – Redux

Mars ructat, Terra tremit

Doombrothers has learned from secret NASA files that Mars has had a methane belch!!!! Not only is this unseemly, it is alarming. We at Doombrothers have previously warned of the perils of methane (See Doombrothers post: Nov 22, 2008 “Blame Canada”).

Since it is well known that on earth methane comes from such things as cows and Boy Scout campouts, it is clear to us that this means the methane must be coming from LIFE ON MARS! Now the NASA scientists, retreating from facing the inevitable, are trying to trot out a theory that the gas could have come from molten rock or even from comets or asteroids striking Mars. It seems equally likely to us that the Iranians, having mastered launching satellites in preparation for peace, have been offloading their spare dead bodies into the Martian interior.

But we at Doombrothers are unafraid of facing the truth head on and using Occam’s Razor even though we occasionally get nicked by it. What this intelligence really means is that the methane must be coming from organic materials - things such as pork rinds, tofu and your Aunt Mary. Let’s face it; what happened is enough to show us beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are MARTIANS just under the surface of the planet. And, if there are Martians, then QED, they can only have malign intent. We believe it no coincidence that we have a wealth of literature carefully documenting the machinations of the Martians.

Doombrothers has our crack research team working three shifts to develop a dual purpose aerosol spray (a pump of course, and totally environmentally friendly) with one end containing happy smells (to combat the methane) and on the other containing rhinovirus to deal with the invading Martian swine. You should check back at our Doomstore in the near future to order your supply. Remember our motto: being prepared for anything is everything.

A SIMPLE PLAN

Consilium simplex


One fine day in 1931, the learned and beloved Herr Doctor David Hilbert was reviewing his notes for the lecture he would give the next day at the assembly of mathematicians who had converged on Konigsberg to assist him in his endeavor to bring logical and axiomatic consistency to the theory of mathematics. He was also to receive a “major prize” from the City of Konigsberg recognizing his contributions to the field of Mathematics (and the tourist dollars being generated by the conference).

Due to expansions in the field of mathematics, such as non-Euclidian geometry and the specter of multiple infinities, Dr. Hilbert had been dissatisfied with the state of mathematics and determine to solve the 23 problems he had posed several years ago that needed to be solved in order to bring mathematics into logical and axiomatic consistency and prove-ability. Dr. Hilbert was doubtless in a good mood on that day and was preparing for a well-deserved triumph.

But, lurking in the wings, the unremitting and unforgiving gnome of chaos lurked in the unprepossessing form of Dr. Kurt Gödel. Even as Dr. Hilbert was reviewing his notes, the fiend Gödel perpetrated his Incompleteness Theorems upon the hapless audience of mathematicians, and other bon vivants, in attendance. What Gödel’s demonstrated showed that mathematical theorems, even those thought very probably true, could not be proven within the axiomatic framework of the theory of mathematics. The old “proof is not truth” dilemma. He converted the following statement into a mathematic framework to convey this:

“This statement is false.”

Logically, if this statement is inaccurate, it is true and thus not false. So it is inconsistent. Also if the statement is accurate, then it then it must be true, thus leading to yet another inconsistency.

Imagine Dr. Hilbert’s surprise the next day when, after his triumphant lecture he was told about Gödel’s theorems that suggested that his entire quest was in folly. It is not recorded whether or not he pulled out his hair, nor how he actually reacted. It is enough to know that he never published another article concerning this issue.

The moral to this story, boys and girls is there is always a Gödel waiting in the wings.