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Mad Penguins - The David Walsh Theory of Evolution; Why species produce surprisingly high numbers of unpredictable risk-takers who embark on irrational behaviour
Topic Started: 19 Dec 2013, 10:48 AM (1,155 Views)
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Mad penguins: the David Walsh theory of evolution

Christopher Joye

Multimillionaire gambling polymath David Walsh says he has stumbled across the answer to an important evolutionary puzzle: why species produce surprisingly high numbers of unpredictable risk-takers who embark on irrational behaviour. They are the mad scientists, odd-ball inventors, and unduly confident entrepreneurs who apportion their time very differently to the rest of us.

Walsh, a mathematician and computer programmer who spent more than $150 million creating the acclaimed Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, coins this behavioural phenomenon “multi-modality”. Think of a bell curve with two humps, or a “dumbbell,” he says.

Are these exceptions merely the random human outputs that one would statistically expect to find in the low-probability “tails” of any normal bell curve, or are they an artefact of a much more deliberate evolutionary approach that helps species adapt to change? Put another way, has the intersection of time and biology conditioned us to manufacture specific quantities of innovators and free-thinking iconoclasts that disrupt the status quo and progress our way of life in unprecedented ways?

Who would have thought that MONA, one of the world’s most-expensive and thought-provoking contemporary art museums, would be established by a professional gambler in one of the remotest locations on earth?

An island city with only half a million people that promotes itself as “the gateway to Antarctica”.

“With the benefit of hindsight I look to have made good choices – yet they were actually extremely bad – or low probability – judged by the simple application of mathematics.

“But they increased my exposure to the possibility of high-risk outcomes with substantial pay-offs.”

And there is a case that the one David Walsh who did prevail – where many others who took similar paths with similar skills failed – has yielded broader benefits.

Walsh has, after all, taken hundreds of millions of dollars away from casinos and gambling venues and reinvested most of this wealth into a heterodox yet also internationally important museum that has become Tasmania’s premier tourist destination.

“I went to Antarctica once and there are penguins hundreds of kilometres inland from the main colonies on the coast that have been there for tens of thousands of years,” Walsh says.

“Why did they make that journey? It turns out that penguin colonies are stable, but not completely so. There are climate change, sea-level change, statistically unlikely weather systems and other events that can every now and again wipe them out.”

“If they just lived in one colony eventually all of them would perish. So a small percentage go off and do really random exploratory things.”

Walsh says that, like the bulk of entrepreneurs who go bust, “the vast majority of these crazy penguins perish”.

“But every now and again one of these maniacs meets another maniac and starts a new colony. And while most of these die out, those colonies that survive look to do so with the frequency that exceeds or equals the failure rate of established colonies.”

Read more: http://www.afr.com/p/blogs/christopher_joye/mad_penguins_the_david_walsh_theory_Ver8IwDl2aQxb9cgDIh0PM
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Count du Monet
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Applying evolutionary theory to social theory is a recipe for disaster. Two wrongs don't make a right!
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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peter fraser
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It's certainly true that fortune favours the bold.
Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
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Count du Monet
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peter fraser
19 Dec 2013, 11:10 AM
It's certainly true that fortune favours the bold.
The bold have a bad habit of turning the wrong way at the inter section. They are okay as long as they understand what they are aiming at.
The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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Kulganis
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Count du Monet
19 Dec 2013, 11:07 AM
Applying evolutionary theory to social theory is a recipe for disaster. Two wrongs don't make a right!
How is the theory of evolution a 'wrong' in your eyes?
Quote:
 
Evolution is Just a Theory
Critics of the theory of evolution dismiss its importance by purposefully confounding the everyday usage of the word “theory” with the way scientists use the word.

In science, a “theory” is understood to be a body of thoroughly-tested and verified explanations for a set of observations of the natural world.

Scientists have a theory of the atom, a theory of gravity, and the theory of relativity, each of which describes understood facts about the world. In the same way, the theory of evolution describes facts about the living world.

A theory in science has also survived significant efforts to discredit it by scientists. In contrast, a “theory” in common vernacular is a word meaning a guess or suggested explanation; this meaning is more akin to the scientific concept of “hypothesis.”

When critics of evolution say evolution is “just a theory,” they are implying that there is little evidence supporting it and that it is still in the process of being rigorously tested. This is a mis-characterization.
https://www.boundless.com/biology/evolution-and-the-origin-of-species/understanding-evolution/misconceptions-of-evolution/
"If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear." - Gene Roddenberry

"Balloon animals are a great way to teach children that the things they love dearly, may spontaneously explode" -- Lee Camp
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peter fraser
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Count du Monet
19 Dec 2013, 11:48 AM
peter fraser
19 Dec 2013, 11:10 AM
It's certainly true that fortune favours the bold.
The bold have a bad habit of turning the wrong way at the inter section. They are okay as long as they understand what they are aiming at.
When they told you at Sunday School that "the Meek shall inherit the earth"

They lied...
Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
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Count du Monet
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Kulganis
19 Dec 2013, 12:52 PM
How is the theory of evolution a 'wrong' in your eyes?
I'll try to be subtle. If Piltdown Man was consistent with the then state of the theory, does that make Piltdown Man true?

As it turned out was the skull of an ancient Anglo-Saxon with bone thickness closer to that of a Gorilla than a modern Englishmen mated with the jaw of an Orangutang.

Science deals with probabilities. Based on Occam's razor that the simplest explanation of the evidence is the one most likely to be true. As Kant pointed out, our perception of something and what the real things is, is different.

Even if the theory of evolution is true, our perception of it can still be wrong.

The next trick of our glorious banks will be to charge us a fee for using net bank!!!
You are no longer customer, you are property!!!

Don't be SAUCY with me Bernaisse
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Kulganis
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Piltdown Man was a malicious hoax, not a mistake, someone went out of their way to make it seem genuine.

Science deals with evidence, not probabilities, statistics and mathematics deals with probabilities. At the time of the Piltdown Man hoax, there was not enough evidence to refute the remains, that came later, science is happy to be proven wrong, in fact, that's what the scientific method is all about.

There are very few scientific theories that have stood for more than 80 years, evolution is one of them.

Even the Vatican agrees that evolution is compatible with Christianity, I'm not sure why this is still a sticking point for you.
Edited by Kulganis, 19 Dec 2013, 04:36 PM.
"If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear." - Gene Roddenberry

"Balloon animals are a great way to teach children that the things they love dearly, may spontaneously explode" -- Lee Camp
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