Comments for Madsen Pirie

Comment on Bringing back extinct species that disappeared many millennia ago by John B

John B — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:29:02 +0000

Neanderthals next?

Other extinct hominids?

What then: a theme park?

Comment on Bringing back extinct species that disappeared many millennia ago by Olly

Olly — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:42:51 +0000

DNA is very stable but it gradually decays over a time period of decades. DNA that has been sitting around for 20,000 years is likely to be full of errors. The cloned mammoth will be very unwell. So ill that it may not even survive long enough to get the chronic cancer that will otherwise be its end. Creating a creature with that much suffering is unethical.

Comment on David Cameron’s move to commit parliament to a referendum on EU membership is cleverer than the media will recognize by Bernard Truman

Bernard Truman — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:41:54 +0000

The LibDems will not be happy with a forced ‘ exclusion ‘ to their coalition position on the EU. If they took the giddy leap out of their existing agreement with the Tories where would that leave Cameron and his Party ? Out of government ?

Comment on No Marx to Karl for his predictions about capitalism by Speaking about Karl Marx on capitalism at the Intelligence Squared debate | Madsen Pirie

Mon, 13 May 2013 06:42:47 +0000

[…] wrote about my participation in last month’s Intelligence Squared debate on Karl Marx. The motion was whether he was right […]

Comment on The problem is not that business is paying too little tax but that government is spending too much by nemesis

nemesis — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:02:52 +0000

To say nothing of her hypocrisy with her involvement with Stemcor

Comment on Ever nearer to obtaining ethanol from cellulose by Bernard Truman

Bernard Truman — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:36:06 +0000

I don’t know if you are aware that Drax coal fired power station in Yorkshire which provides 7% of the UK’s electrical power has been converted to Bio Fuel. The pellets are imported through Immingham and transported by rail directly to Drax at a rate of one load every hour, 24/7. The economics are favorable and the fuel is renewable indefinitely The CO2 produced is in a returnable cycle. On operations of this scale, Bio Fuel is a contender.

Comment on Intelligent people tend to drink more alcohol than less intelligent people because alcohol is evolutionarily novel by Mark Griffin

Mark Griffin — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:16:16 +0000

Public policy implications? Well, on these figures minimum alcohol pricing would be a tax on intelligence…

Comment on Intelligent people tend to drink more alcohol than less intelligent people because alcohol is evolutionarily novel by John B

John B — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:04:18 +0000

Mr Kanazawa has clearly never been in a boozer in a Working Class area.

However. Higher IQ generally means better job, better wage, more disposable income, more leisure time since lower paid IQs work longer hours/work shifts.

But anyway it is our old friend correlation proves causality.

Comment on Salt seems to be regarded by some as a deadly poison by John B

John B — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:23:43 +0000

Recommended daily dose. Receommended by whom and based on what evidence? Presumably the same as the 5 a day fruit and veg, and daily unit alcohol intake… from the Out Of Thin Air Research Establishment run by Prof. On A Nice Government Earner.

The kidney is designed to regulate electrolyte balance… that’s its job, to get rid of too much salt.

Too much salt = get thirsty = drink water = pee a lot = excrete salt.

We are told the toffs in Government and Opposition had the best education that money could buy, but as my Grandma used to say, money can’t buy brains.

Comment on Does study of the past enable us to predict the future as Isaac Asimov postulated? by Immunophilosopher

Immunophilosopher — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:39:05 +0000

Interestingly, Turchin himself claims that the article in “Wired” was “sensationalised” and denies that Cliometrics can actually predict the future except in the broad sense of identifying probabilistic trends:

http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/04/12/scientific-prediction%E2%89%A0prophecy/