Science Quiz Wrong Answer Buzzer and Mathematical Models of Evolution

First off, I reveal my one error in the CS Monitor's Scientific Literacy Quiz.

I could not recall the formula for computing acceleration in Newtons. If you take the quiz, you'll come across the 200 gram question..That's the one that got me. NO. I'm not giving you the answer. Please be honest. No resorting to Stephen Wolfram's Alpha search to glean answers. If you do this, you reinforce everything negative found in The Shallows. Don't be shallow. Wolfram Alpha was called "the coolest thing I've ever seen on the 'Net" by an astrophysics major at Hah-vid. That's Harvard to everyone not a Kennedy. We geeks know all the coolest stuff on the 'Net.

So now you know that I forget stuff I learned in HS physics. Shame that.

Okay, too much about my long-term memor..where was I going with this?

MIT Has the coolest stuff on this coast. Those CalTech kids no doubt have their biases as well. In strolling about the MIT Press journals I came across the Journal Of Computational Evolution. One would think that someone that did a summer at the venerated Cambridge, MA school would get a free sub. to a few journals..so what if I did work there in 1984. But no, I'd have to cough up $39/yr for a sub. Of course I can get the IEEE stuff gratis, but I am a member of the IEEE! A quick glance at this free article illustrates just how far CE modeling has come.

Using MatLab or Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica(there's S. Wolfram again)--simply for relative ease of development--the current algorithmic models are not only powerful tools for analyzing noted changes, but have predictive power for future courses of genetic mutations and subsequent expressions reaching all the way to phenotype. So, what does all this mean?

For my purposes, it all equates to irrefutable evidence for the fact of naturalistic evolution, and yes, toying with the equations is sort of fun.

I'll revisit this once I get some sleep, and after further cogitation of the consequences of the various algorithms.

Even the most casual observer will likely be shocked by the sophistication of these models. I find them almost endlessly fascinating, but I fear that I am wired differently than the balance of humanity.

I very likely posted this too quickly. I did not fully examine the algorithms in close enough detail to provide any useful commentary. For that I apologize.

Unlike the media, I'd much rather be accurate, than first with an observation.