Milton Friedman

The world's greatest economist and proponent of freedom died today at the age of 94. Here is a link to a long interview with Dr. Friedman in which he clearly and beautifully makes the case for individual liberty.

Evolution and Being Home for Dinner

Here is an interesting article on evolutionary psychology, although it never explicitly says so. And it is done in classic British style. An excerpt:

Cherie’s message was clear. Men should spend quality time with their family no matter how many wars they’ve inadvertently started and no matter how many constables are knocking on the door wanting to know about cash for ermine.

I’m sorry but I don’t understand. If you were an Iron Age man and you came home from a hunting expedition empty-handed because you wanted to play with your children, you’d starve. If you were a penguin and you came back from a fishing trip with nothing but snow in your flippers, your baby would die and the following year Mrs Penguin would find a new mate.

This is the problem. I am designed to kill foxes, bend every woman I meet over the nearest piece of furniture and give her a damn good seeing-to.

But in an evolutionary nanosecond, it’s all changed. After several million years of programming we’ve been told that what women really want is a husband who leaves his colleagues in the lurch at 7pm and comes home to make a delicious quiche.

Why You Shouldn't Throw an Elephant Into a Black Hole

They can recognize themselves in a mirror, an ability that until recently was thought to be only found in great apes and dolphins.

From the article:

US researchers made the discovery by studying the behaviour of Asian elephants in front of a tall mirror.

One of the animals repeatedly touched a white cross painted on her forehead - a classic test used to assess mirror self-recognition in children and apes.

The study is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We see highly complex behaviours such as self awareness and self-other distinction in intelligent animals with well-established social systems," said Joshua Plotnik, from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.