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• A comment on Conversation: Will economics end national wars?

  Jun 11 2012: While it may be true that supply chains become interrupted by war, you're forgetting the massive amounts of money that are made once a war is finished, a la Halliburton. Also, it has been suggested that war is an effective way to bring a country OUT of a recession, which is what happened after the Great Depression and WWII. Lastly, some countries believe that by invading and replacing a government with one more favourable to themselves the boost to trade following the war may seem to outweigh some of the costs. Taken together, I think that economics overall contributes to wars rather than preventing them. I mean, just think of how many wars will be sparked in the coming years once oil prices shoot through the roof...

• A reply on Conversation: Do you think gay marriage will be universally accepted in the next 10 years?

  Jun 11 2012: You're right of course, but I think it will be a complete non-issue in the Western world in the coming years (except the bible belt maybe), considering Obama has publicly endorsed it.

• A reply on Talk: Juan Enriquez: Will our kids be a different species?

  Jun 8 2012: Yeah that is interesting eh? Wouldn't it be cool if there were 2 or more intelligent hominids to hang out with? I think the answer itself lies in why our species is where we are today, we were simply smarter. As our bodies were not designed to be the strongest or the fastest, we had to use our increasing knowledge to get us through the tough times of our ancestors (ie ice ages, famines etc) . Our hominid brethren were in the same boat as us, yet we were that little bit more clever. That meant we were the most well adapted of the hominids to our ecological niche and subsequently out competed the others. I'll bet for every successful species alive today, there were a few close relatives that didn't quite make the cut.
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  A reply on Talk: Juan Enriquez: Will our kids be a different species?

  Jun 8 2012: Hello fellow Jeremy,
  
  You make a very valid point, as the perceived increase in autism may be an artifact of changing diagnostic practices, and likely is at least to an extent. However, as the authors in one of your papers report, "whether there has been a true increase is not known," thus not ruling out the possibility that there is a trend here. Also, as none of the data you've presented seems to be from any later than 2007 roughly, I would not trust these studies to explain the increase since that time which is the main bulk of time that Mr. Enriquez was looking at and where the largest increase seemed to be.
  
  I agree that a proportion of this increase is probably due to changing practices, however we shall see if this upward pace continues in the years to come and proves to be a verifiable trend. Personally I don't think any part of evolution whatsoever could occur within a decade span let alone complex brain changes. Other than his possibly misguided or better yet overreaching foray into autism/brain downloading, this was an informed talk that is well grounded in current science. Except for maybe changing your own genes, that would be nigh impossible body-wide.
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  A reply on Talk: Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

  Feb 17 2011: While I do agree that statistics can be misleading or exaggerate differences that may not be there, data such as this is held up to the highest scrutiny and must be proven to be statistically significant before it is allowed to be published. In her study, while there is a 10% difference between the groups as you said, this translates into almost a 20% increase in positive results for the babies exposed to Mandarin during the 2 month period. Assuming a large enough group size, I'd say that's pretty significant.