Comments on: If present trends continue ….

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 16:07:36 +0000

” In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-pole. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo [Illinois] and New Orleans will have joined their streets together and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
—Mark Twain, Life on the MIssissippi

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 09:32:32 +0000

Ah, the chap who says in March that the average temperature is going up, and that – if present trends continue – by December human life will be impossible..

By: engels

engels — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 21:38:11 +0000

There’s a fun article in the FT today

Now that’s a datum I definitely wouldn’t extrapolate from…

By: engels

engels — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 19:42:28 +0000

Could this be the same Peter who has being lecturing us over on the other thread about the “rock solid” science of Evolutionary Psychology and dismissing its critics as ideologues? If so, don’t your scientific tastes here seem a little, how shall we say, ideologically grounded?

By: KCinDC

KCinDC — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 18:04:03 +0000

"There will be pockets of resistance and unforeseen breakthroughs," writes Rutz. "Still, at the rate we're growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more Christians [of our sort] than people by the autumn of 2032, about 8.2 billion."

By: John Steven

John Steven — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 16:36:58 +0000

Well what do you know, Mojo Nixon was right... Elvis is everybody after all.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:36:57 +0000

I would imagine it’s a bit easier to measure temperature than it is to measure Elvises (Elvi?). Though, if we developed a scale that measured temperature in Elvi, we still would be leaning more towards the “Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love” end of the scale than than the “Blue Christmas” end.

By: 'As you know' Bob

'As you know' Bob — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:11:19 +0000

The first few paragraphs were enough, actually; we can extrapolate the rest of the piece from there.

By: goesh

goesh — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:46:24 +0000

If present trends continue, Hillary will not only sound more like Howie Dean, she will even look like him – getting a bit broad of face and thick of ankle if you ask me, but then, show-biz is show-biz and fictions must be enacted no matter what or where the stage.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:45:51 +0000

Hey jjoats—would you mind not advertising your blog like this in threads where it isn’t relevant? Thanks.

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:45:40 +0000

Over the first 18 years of my life I grew at a rapid pace.

This growth has slowed over the past decade (I’m in my late 20s). However, if you plot my age by my height, and draw a best-fit linear curve, you’ll see that by retirement I should be about 15 feet tall.

By: Vivek

Vivek — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:38:50 +0000

Of course the financial press pillories scientists for extrapolating the future from past trends, but when they do the same during a bull market to declare the end of the business cycle, no one dares to raise an objection.

By: jjoats

jjoats — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:17:57 +0000

TOON OF THE DAY: “Dollar A Dance”

By: JP

JP — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:56:01 +0000

…Very Much”

By: David All

David All — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:50:44 +0000

As the King would say:
“Thank You, Thank You”