Rick Bookstaber, author of “A Demon of Our Own Design” and Senior Policy Adviser at the SEC has hit the nail on the head as far as the bank reform goes – Breaking the Banks (via Infectious Greed): “It is not the case that the largest banks are the same as other banks, just bigger“ “The...

Whether it is general resources after the implementation of a universal health care scheme or specific resources such as flu vaccine in the early stages of a pandemic,  there will always be instances of scarcity.  Who gets the resources?  Youngest first? Sickest first?  First in?  Lottery winners?...

Has anyone played Foldit, the protein-folding game that is designed to advance the science?  This Wired article makes it sound like Ender's Game meets biochemistry!  Sounds like the Poehlman kid is the protein-folding equivalent of Stephen Wiltshire.  I love the crowdsourcing, the meta-evolutionary...

As part of President Barack Obama's stimulus package, NIH is awarding $200 million in "Challenge Grants." But, according to Science Magazine, these grants are far more competitive than initially intended: A frantic grant-writing effort that has consumed biomedical research scientists this spring came to...

The Freakonomics guys have been on this rant for years, and until recently, I agreed with their logic.  But the mounting evidence (in my mind) is starting to swing the other way. The biggest piece of evidence is the existence of credible discounted brokers like Redfin.com which has been operating for a...

In "Game Theory: Can a Round of Poker Solve Afghanistan's Problems?" Major Richard J.H. Gash creates a simple two player game to show how game theory can be used to influence military planning. Gash's game involves two villages in Afghanistan with the choice to either support the "Coalition" or support the...

I figured it was time for a reset and so the following is a summary of much of the foundational posting that I've done on this blog so far.  As always, a work in progress, subject to refinement and learning... I see there being at least two types of emergence, autocatalytic and cooperative. Emergence...

There is a myth in evolutionary biology, as well as in the zeitgeist, that evolution by natural selection is all about competition. "Nature, red in tooth and claw": Richard Dawkins used this quote in his book, "The Selfish Gene," to summarize the behavior of all living things which arises out of the...

It is well-understood that the primary relationship between agents in an evolutionary system is that of competition for resources: food, mates, territory, control, etc. It is also recognized that agents not only compete but also cooperate with one another, sometimes simultaneously, for instance hunting in...