Thoughts on evolution

It is so surprising to find people who still does not believe in the theory of evolution but instead talk about intelligent design. I think the biggest problem is to perceive the time span of a evolutionary process. Most of our discussions around innovation, creativity, religion, civilization etc etc spans up to may be 10,000 BCE. But, human beings lived even beyond that. Borrowing the following from a website to get a sense of time (http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/sense/sense.html):

If we were to compress the time since the Big Bang into one year, and make the time of the Big Bang January 1,

• The Earth was formed in mid-September.
• The mammals appeared on December 26.
• All human prehistory (from the first known stone tools) and history have occurred in the last 1/2 hour of New Year's Eve.

Thus, all of human history is but a fleeting instant on the cosmic timescale.

Another commonly argued point is if humans evolved from chimpanzees, we should be able to find somewhere in this world, an animal which is in the middle of evolution from chimpanzee to humans. My argument to that is the following:

Crudely speaking calculators can be considered as a primitive form of computers, right? Scientists over time improved upon and invented ways to build better and powerful computers. At some point in their laboratories, they must have stumbled upon something which is not a calculator but as powerful as today's computer. The point is, when you make something better why would you ever go back which is half of what it is now. So, we still make calculators and modern computers. We dont make primitive computers, right? It is exactly the same for natural selection of evolution. Once, a better species is evolved why would nature support making a primitive form of it, it will be wiped out from the face of earth. Also, the evolution is always on. Like, today's computer will be obsolete tomorrow as we make better computers.

Another example, you are baking cake at home and found an optimal oven temperature which makes the cake best. But, you found this optimal temperature by a series of experimental baking of cakes over time and sometimes the cakes did not come out that good. Once, you have perfected the art of baking cake, why would you ever go back to make a half-baked cake?

Is it not exactly same as that in evolution?

Rational Behavior

I was thinking of a situation where there are 5 people and $100 needs to be divided. There are two strategies, in one everyone divides it equally, getting $20 per person.In the other, one of the 5 is randomly picked to get $80 and the rest gets $20 divided equally among them, getting $5 each.
If there was a voting among those 5 people to decide which strategy to be adopted, which one do you think would be adopted? What are the factors contributing to that decision making process?
By pure statistical game of chance and assuming everyone wants to maximize their money, in the first case, the expected amount is $20 and in the second case also, it is (1/5)*$80 + (4/5)*$5 = $20 because there is a 20% chance of getting $80 & 80% chance of getting $5. The expected amounts being same, in the second case there is a remote chance of getting $80 and so based on rational behavior probably people will pick the second strategy.

However, to get into more statistical measures to help making a rational decision, it is good to note that in the first case, standard deviation is zero and the in the second it is 30 meaning higher risk or higher uncertainty associated with it.

By borrowing the following line from wikipedia, "The overall concept of risk is that as it increases, the expected return on the asset will increase as a result of the risk premium earned – in other words, investors should expect a higher return on an investment when said investment carries a higher level of risk, or uncertainty of that return."

One can argue in this example that the expected return did not increase then why should one take the risk of taking the second strategy? Rather if someone is rational they should adhere to the first strategy where there is no risk and fixed return. So, as behavioral economists assume that individuals behave rationally to maximize their utility function may not be a very sound assumption.

Can it be generalized to say, the first strategy is boring and it is socialism(in some form) and the second one is capitalism with it's inherent excitement of making big or losing big, I believe the latter being more prevalent these days of economic turbulence.

Balancing Act

No other word is more subtle in it's meaning than balance. We try to balance our private & public life, joy & sorrow, love & hatred, and so on and so forth, yet it seems to be so difficult sometimes.

Success feeds success, failure feeds failure, the examples of positive feedback loops abound. However, we need a negative feedback loop in our life to keep it balanced. If things go in the wrong direction beyond a threshold it will bring us back to normal, like a thermostat. Yes, that's what we need, a thermostat for our private and public life!!

Thoughts on the stock market...or economy's health

If a stock is a reflection of a company's health, and stock market is a reflection of an economy's health, why can't we close the stock market for a while until economy's health improves. As an individual, don't we look better in the mirror when we are in good shape(physically & emotionally).
There have been instances in the past when the stock market was shut down...why can't we do it now? Why take the pain of looking at(or speculating) a few numbers going up and down every few seconds, minutes, hours, days and months....!!!!